Back in the late 80s and early 90s, parents were told by health care professionals to wean at three to four months, so of course, being me, I ignored that completely…
“You’re overfeeding your baby! What food is he on?” the nurse exclaimed, eyeing my son with evident concern. We were in the hospital, admitted for a bout of tonsillitis. “I’m not feeding him anything except breast milk,” I protested, surprised.
She seemed sceptical, but over the next couple of days, she observed my son closely. Despite his size (he was a ten-pounder at birth and continued to be a large baby), he was content and thriving solely on breast milk. Eventually, she acknowledged that he was indeed doing well without any solids.
At 8 months old, my son showed no interest in solid foods. Perhaps the discomfort from his sore throat made the texture of solids unappealing. Around that time, I was aware of a parenting group that believed delaying the introduction of solids could benefit the digestive system and have positive long-term effects on adult organs. Influenced by this philosophy and, more importantly, led by my baby, I chose to wait.
However, I later discovered that while extended breastfeeding offers neurodevelopmental advantages, current research doesn’t support significant benefits to delaying weaning beyond seven months. In fact, introducing solids around six months is generally recommended to meet the growing nutritional needs of infants.
One aspect that remains unchanged, as my friend Tayana aptly points out, is the overwhelming array of information and opinions available to first-time parents. Navigating through conflicting advice can be challenging!
Tayana's tale:
"My son was approaching six months, and I had begun to feel like I could breathe a little. Breastfeeding had become easier, sleep was more manageable, and I was starting to relax into keeping my little human alive and happy. Enter weaning…
Weaning my baby onto solid food didn’t sound complicated to my pre-mother brain. I didn’t expect it to have me worrying and Googling, feeling guilty and second-guessing myself for months. Five months into my son’s weaning journey, and I still feel guilty if I’ve been too busy to prepare him a nutritious and varied lunch. However, as the months go on, and I learn more about it, I have become more comfortable with weaning. There are, however, some things I wish I’d known before I started, which would have undoubtedly made the journey smoother."
Like many parenting topics, there are strong, and often opposing, schools of thought when it comes to weaning. This can be overwhelming for a parent trying to navigate weaning for the first time. Some experts and influencers advocate for a solely baby-led weaning approach. This is where babies are offered finger foods from the start, allowing them to self-feed. Others say this is unnecessary and puree feeding, where you feed babies with shop-bought or homemade purees, is a better and safer option.
Having never done this before, I felt pressured to pick ‘a camp’ before I’d even started. Eventually, I was recommended a book called ‘How to wean your baby’ by Charlotte Stirling-Reed, who offered the option of a refreshing combined and slowly-slowly approach where you ease your way into weaning via purees before moving onto soft finger foods. This combined approach worked best for us and allowed me to gain confidence in my son’s ability to swallow and try flavours before moving onto soft finger foods a few weeks later.
One of the most important things about establishing your weaning journey with your little one is that you both feel safe and comfortable. Being anxious about them chewing solid foods before you both feel ready may cause you to react with anxiety and do things such as pulling food out of their mouth. Your anxiety may transfer onto them and take away from the relaxed and fun experience that eating should be.
Starting slow with purees worked best for me. I gained confidence that my baby could eat and swallow food. I then moved on to soft textures such as mashed potatoes and thicker soups before starting on finger foods.
The first time your baby gags can be a terrifying sound for a parent. It sounds very dramatic, but it was reassuring to me that it’s a perfectly normal protective reflex to stop them choking and is simply part of them learning to eat. Babies have their strongest gagging reflex at around 6 months old, which often happens when the baby is trying their first foods.
A sentence that reassured me was ‘gagging is noisy, choking is silent’. I found that the more times he gagged, the more comfortable I became with it, and after around a month of trying solid foods, he stopped gagging completely.
Although choking is rare, it can be reassuring to learn how to deal with it if it happens. St John’s Ambulance and British Red Cross have simple step-by-step guides with video demonstrations. The National Childbirth Trust and Red Cross First Aid Training also offer baby first aid courses if you want to feel extra prepared.
The best way to avoid choking is to offer baby age-appropriate finger foods. Solid Starts, is a great resource for this - it’s an app which advises you how to serve any food to your baby depending on their age. I used this frequently in the early months of weaning to avoid serving foods that could be a choking hazard.
Whilst this isn’t always possible for every meal, eating with your baby as much as possible can encourage healthy eating habits. Babies learn a lot from observation about chewing and can feel reassured that a food is safe to eat if they watch you eating it. When eating with my son, I have observed that he is more likely to eat more and try new foods when we all eat together.
To minimise the risk of food allergies in babies, it is recommended to introduce common allergens regularly early, starting from around 6 months of age. Not only will this enable you to identify allergies early on, but research has shown that introducing top allergens like peanuts and eggs at 4-6 months of age can reduce the risk of the child developing an allergy. This is especially for children more prone to allergies, such as those with eczema or a family history.
We discovered that my son, who suffers from eczema, was allergic to chickpeas, peas and green lentils when he was around 8 months old. Finding this out early allowed us to introduce other legumes to get a full picture of all the foods he was allergic to before he started nursery.
Although it can be frustrating to prepare a delicious and nutritious meal to have it all end up on the floor, your baby is learning and building their relationship with food with every interaction. My son will usually inspect the piece of food he’s given intensely before deciding whether it goes in his mouth or on the floor. Broccoli will almost always end up on the floor.
When a baby is playing with their food, they are also exploring different textures, colours and smells. They are developing their fine motor skills, such as grasping and pinching. They are also learning what foods look like and feel like, which can make them more likely to try them later on.
I was confused when I first looked into baby-led weaning before my son’s first teeth had come through: ‘How can he chew and swallow without teeth?’.
Surprisingly, babies don’t actually need teeth to chew and swallow soft food. They use their gums and a munching motion to mash the food down to be able to swallow.
If you follow baby-led weaning accounts or groups on social media, it can be easy to compare the brightly coloured, artistically presented plates posted by influencers to your own hastily thrown-together lunch.
Try to remember that it’s not a competition and no one is getting prizes for how 'Instagrammable' their baby’s lunch looks.
Weaning your baby is the start of their lifelong journey with food. Although that can sound like a lot of pressure, remembering this can also help to ease the pressure of getting it ‘right’ straight away. Your baby will go through phases of liking or hating certain foods, of throwing their food on the floor, and of refusing to be spoon-fed. Seeing these things as a phase rather than panicking can reduce the stress around weaning for you and your baby.
What was your weaning journey like? Was there anything you wish that you knew?
