Baby-led Weaning: What Parents Need to Know

Senior Clinical Dietitian at Texas Children’s Hospital answers questions about increasingly popular trend.

Introducing solid foods to your baby can be a fun adventure. For many parents, it will bring to mind familiar scenes: purée-covered smiles, messy high chairs and plastic spoons like airplanes twirling toward a baby’s mouth. That’s because spoon-feeding purées used to be standard practice. However, there is a growing trend toward baby-led weaning (BLW), a method of introducing solid food to babies where purées are skipped in favor of finger foods that a baby self-feeds.

Below, Laura Lucas, MS, RD, CSP, LD, a Senior Clinical Dietitian at Texas Children’s Hospital The Woodlands, answers questions about this increasingly popular trend.

What is baby-led weaning?

As the name implies, BLW promotes self-feeding and the independence of your baby. Essentially, BLW puts your baby in charge of their own transition to solid foods. Parents follow their baby’s cues and allow babies to enjoy solid foods with the rest of the family during mealtime, encouraging them to pick up food with their own fingers and eat as much or as little as they need. Babies introduced to solids with BLW are not weaning off breastmilk or formula — they will continue breastmilk or bottle feeding to meet their nutritional needs. BLW simply refers to the gradual shift from an exclusive diet of breastmilk or formula to one that includes solid foods.

“Around six months of age, most infants can sit up and reach for objects and bring them to their mouths,” says Lucas. “So parents are responsible for putting baby-safe, healthy finger foods in front of their babies, and babies are responsible for deciding how — and how much — they want to consume.”

What are the benefits of baby-led weaning?

“One of the main benefits of BLW is that it helps babies learn to recognize their own satiety levels,” says Lucas. “When spoon-feeding purées, it can be easy to miss the cues that your baby is full. By putting your baby in charge, however, you are giving your baby the chance to self- regulate.”

Other benefits include:

• Social interactions: BLW brings the baby to the table with the rest of the family. By participating during mealtime, babies see how chewing and swallowing are done, babies learn by watching us eat. BLW brings the whole family together and increases social exposure, allowing everyone — siblings and parents — to enjoy the meal with the baby.
• Development skills: BLW gives babies a chance to exercise their fine motor skills and to learn how to self-regulate.
• Food variety: With BLW, babies are exposed to a wider range of tastes and textures — including foods unique to families from different cultures — than traditional purées can offer.

When can parents start baby-led weaning?

Babies will be ready to try BLW as soon as they can eat solid foods. For most babies, that’s around 6 months old or older. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends exclusive breastfeeding (and/or formula feeding) for approximately 6 months.

“The current recommendation for complementary feeding, which means introducing solid food alongside breastmilk or formula, is when your baby is around six months old,” says Lucas. “With BLW, you’ll want to make sure that your baby has the developmental skillset to sit up, reach for objects, bring them to their mouth. So it’s typically when they are 6 months or older when they are ready.” 

What are the signs that a baby is ready for baby-led weaning?

• They can hold themselves upright in a seated position, with little to no support from a parent.
• They can reach for objects and put them in their mouths.
• Their tongue thrust reflex is fading. This is a natural reflex in babies that protects them from choking hazards and helps them feed — when something touches a baby’s lips, their tongue pushes forward to help them latch onto a nipple or bottle and swallow. When a baby is outgrowing this reflex, they don’t immediately spit things out of their mouth.

What foods are recommended for baby-led weaning?

• Foods that are nutrient-dense — iron-rich and zinc-rich foods, for example, rather than processed foods. 
• Foods that can be cut into small strips and easily eaten with fingers.
• Foods that are soft and easy to chew. 
• Foods that are room temperature.

“Eggs are a good food to start with, among others,” says Lucas. “Parents will want to make sure they cut the food into strips so the baby can not only grasp it, but hold it and bring it to their mouth.”

What are safety tips for baby-led weaning?

“The main thing to avoid is choking hazards,” says Lucas. “This includes all foods that babies can’t chew. Avoid firm, round foods like grapes or whole berries, and avoid hard, crunchy foods like popcorn, nuts or tortilla chips. Obviously, avoid foods that are too large for your baby, like hot dogs.”

Other safety tips include:

• Make sure your baby is seated upright and well-supported.
• Make sure your baby is supervised.
• Consider taking a CPR class to learn what to do in the rare case of choking.

“The bottom line is that, when properly handled and supervised, baby-led weaning is safe for most babies as long as they are developmentally ready for it. I encourage parents to have fun with it,” says Lucas. “Enjoy that first year with your baby. Baby-led weaning can be a rewarding adventure.”

Learn more about caring for your newborn here. Click here to make an appointment at Texas Children’s or call 832-824-9322.