Baby-Led Weaning...not so crazy after all

It's official...Jellybean is eating solids!  We started almost a month ago.  When Cbear was a baby, I made a lot of her baby food--steamed or baked, then pureed and froze to be used whenever we needed it.  So, I came to terms with the fact that Jellybean was growing up and it was time to make baby food again.  And she's such a little chunker and interested in our food that I figured we'd have no problem.  Wrong!  She's very independent and stubborn (I have no idea where that came from ;)) and she was not happy about me trying to feed her.  She spit everything out, looking at me like I was a crazy person, then tried to grab the spoon and do it herself.  This continued for a few weeks, until I looked into baby-led weaning.

I'd heard of this back when Cbear started solids, and I'll admit I thought the idea was a little out there.  The basic idea is that you let your child feed themselves from the very beginning...skipping purees and going straight to finger foods.  You simply offer the food and let your baby do the rest.  Everything goes into their mouths at this age anyway, so it's pretty easy.  This allows them to control how much they eat...if they're hungry, they'll eat and they stop on their own when they're full, so they learn to self-regulate.  It also teaches them to chew first and then swallow, as opposed to starting with purees where they learn to swallow first and chew later. 

I was slightly skeptical, but figured I'd give it a try.  Success!  Jellybean loves feeding herself.  It's a little messy, but I guess by now I'm used to messes because it hardly bothers me anymore.  Of course, the foods I give her are naturally soft or soft-cooked to prevent choking, but I've been amazed at how well she does.  And I'm pretty happy that I don't have to spend all that time making purees (or money, if I were buying jarred food).  So far we've had success with banana and avocado strips, smashed sweet potatoes, green beans, brown rice and slices of pear.  She absolutely loves getting to gnaw on apples (I share if I'm eating one).  Tonight I'm steaming baby carrots to go with our dinner and planning on offering those to her.  My favorite part is that we all get to eat dinner as a family, as opposed to everyone else eating and me feeding the baby while my own food gets cold.  And Jellybean feels like a big girl eating like the rest of us.  Win-win!

So if you have an independent child like me, or if you're just wanting something more in line with your parenting style than traditional solid food feeding, give baby-led weaning a try.  And take lots of pictures!