hey thanks for joining us today as we are covering the process of starting baby on solids foods and
baby-led weaning yeah we recently went over four signs that your baby might be ready to start solid
foods now we're gonna jump into what it actually looks like to start giving your baby real food in
case this is your first time meeting us i'm sarah i am a board certified ob gyn and a first time mom
i'm kurt i'm a board certified pediatrician and first time dad and we are the doctors bjorkman
welcome back as we mentioned this episode is all about starting solid foods for baby and we're
specifically going to take the time to share some of the medical research about baby lead weaning
the potential risks and benefits and then share some of the key things to consider when starting
solids and baby lead-weaning with your baby yeah now we don't have time to cover even close to all
that you're going to want to know about this topic but hopefully this episode serves as a
solid primer to get you started and also give you some of that confidence you're looking for
when going to start solids with your baby we also need to mention that there isn't complete
agreement about the best way to start solids for babies and so in addition to sharing some
of the studies that have been done on this um we're gonna take a bit and talk about what we
did for our own little kiddo um in hopes that our journey can help you when you are starting
to figure out feeding your own baby yeah and before actually initiating solids for your baby
you're going to want to make sure that they're ready and so if you miss our episode on that
go back and check it out now and then come back and catch the rest of this one later
you may wonder what is baby lead weaning and how can there be controversy about how to feed a baby
yeah so baby lead weaning is simply initiating solid foods or table foods in a way that puts the
focus on babies setting their own pace as they explore tastes textures colors and smells this
is in contrast to kind of the other currently more popular methods of just starting babies
off on purees and rice cereals it's important here to note that there is room for a middle
middle ground kind of based on your comfort as a parent there have been some concerns from parents
and even pediatricians that baby led weaning could potentially lead to more choking events
or even nutritional deficiencies but we're going to go into some of the research that has addressed
these questions so that if you are considering baby lead weaning you can do so safely and in
as healthy a way as possible for your baby yeah there's also another term called bliss
or baby lead introduction to solids which is very similar to baby lead weaning except for that it's
a bit more formal and has some written and verbal instructions given to parents about how to prepare
foods and introduce solids to their baby we're going to use the terms baby-led weaning and
BLISSinterchangeably but our hope is that either way the information we share today
will help you make your baby's introduction to solids as safe and stress-free as possible
currently in the us it's most common for families to start their baby with foods like purees
baby foods or rice cereals and there are mostly certainly some advantages to these foods as they
can often be purchased already prepared which makes feedings pretty easy they are
often also fortified with things that baby could potentially become deficient in like iron and zinc
and then they also pose a really low risk for choking yeah so the goal of baby lead weaning
is less on getting baby to eat the food that you give them but it's really more on helping them
develop a healthy and less pressured relationship um with the foods they eat
and then the hope is this in turn may have some benefits for the child and the family as a whole
and in our case um we felt it was even more simple than going out and buying period foods or making
of some of our own yeah from all the literature we've reviewed in preparing this episode this
week there's really not strong evidence that baby lead weaning makes a big positive long-term
difference for children but there is some data to suggest that babies who learn to eat solids
with baby-led weaning practices ate more fruits and vegetables at two years of age that they may
better learn feelings of fullness that they have lower rates of obesity and that they may have more
varied diets in the future as well having said that as i alluded to the studies on this aren't
particularly strong and there can be many other factors that could lead to these outcomes in these
children aside from just how they learn to eat solids so if you're thinking about trying baby
lead weaning or baby lead introduction of solids you should really do it because it sounds like the
best thing for you as parents and for your baby after discussing it with their pediatrician yeah
for us we chose largely to follow baby-led weaning principles because it was just easiest we
cook dinner at home most nights and so doing baby-led weaning just meant that
hey we gave our kiddo what we were eating just kind of processed and cut up in a way that was
safe for her to eat um and then the next day snack was kind of what we had for dinner so again
i kind of called it like lazy mom introduction to solids yeah um now there is also some
research that baby-led weaning or moms who chose baby lead weeding had some positive
effects or at least correlations as well like lower maternal anxiety lower obsessive compulsive
disorder scores and lower eating restraints with higher conscientiousness in these mothers
as compared to mothers who chose traditional weaning strategies now of course this isn't
causal but is just something that was seen in the moms who chose baby-led weaning
for the families who are choosing baby-led introduction to solids
the next important question to ask you know is what are the potential risks of baby lead weaning
and how can you do this as safely as possible yeah now as we mentioned earlier there actually
have been some concerns from parents and even some pediatricians that not using store prepared
fortified foods could potentially be a setup to lead to nutritional deficiencies in these babies
or that there could be an increased risk of choking now however with proper coaching as occurs
with the bliss method these risks from baby-led weaning have not actually been seen in studies
a couple studies looking specifically at the rates of choking and gagging between infants
who were fed standard purees and those who followed baby lead weaning found no statistical
difference in rates of these symptoms between the two groups yeah now we also need to address the
risks of nutritional deficiencies in infants who undergo baby lead weaning so as you can imagine
if a parent is doing baby lead weaning and the foods they're offering are maybe not
high energy foods or they don't have a lot of the nutrients that babies need like iron or zinc
that are often fortified in the purees you could imagine how these deficiencies could
develop in these babies and actually some early studies about baby-led weaning saw that this did
occur in some children however if you are able to offer a variety of high-energy foods to baby
and are also using vitamin supplementation which is really recommended for most babies
regardless of their diet um these differences and nutritional deficiencies were not seen
so now let's say your baby is somewhere between four and seven months old and they are able to sit
with great head control they're showing interest in table foods and they've had great growth with
breast milk or formula these all things lead to show that your baby is probably ready to
start the first steps of trying real foods as we mentioned in our recent video about assessing
whether your baby is ready for solids now is a great time for them to try a slightly thickened
liquid like some diluted rice cereal a thin gravy or something similar to show that they
can get that little thickened substance to the front from the front to the back of their mouth
so they can swallow yeah it's also a great time for your baby to get taste of foods that maybe
they won't actually eat this could be like sucking on a large piece of meat or even something like a
corn cob that still has some juice in it but the kernels are removed so it's not a risk
for them to choke on when offering food to baby don't be surprised if they don't take
much at first that is okay and if they don't seem to like a food the first time or two
keep offering it remember that this is not about baby eating a lot or getting in a lot of calories
this is about baby practicing and learning to eat yeah these early feeds are really again all about
building good eating habits so start by offering a wide variety of foods um try not to rush or hurry
your baby and like even trying to find times to offer food to baby when they're otherwise
happy so this could be they've just had some milk and so they aren't that hangry hungry baby who's
just starving for something to eat where they can really just kind of focus on the experience
of having food in their mouth and working on swallowing and then also
please please don't forget some basic safety rules that we're gonna share with you next
when it comes to safety make sure to be thoughtful of baby's positioning for very early
simple tastes it's okay for baby to be seated on a parent's lap but as you start to transition to
true meal times with baby you're going to want them seated in their own seat um in a high chair
or an up seat you don't want to have them leaning back which is why we would recommend not feeding
baby in a car seat or a stroller also never ever leave your baby alone with food in front of them
remember baby is still just learning how to swallow and there may be times where even with the
food they've seen comfortable with before could be a challenge for them on a different day yeah
avoid potential choking hazards so next week we're going to share some of the most dangerous foods
for early eaters while also giving our favorite 10 foods for baby to start with and finally
trying to make sure baby is in an environment where they have as few distractions as possible
again they're learning a new skill and they ideally can be as focused on what
they're trying to do is possible while learning and having fun yeah
now the next step is to actually let baby progress to real meal times where they're eating table
foods yes for us we simply made these the times we were also eating so maybe she we'd do this
for lunch and dinner or breakfast and dinner a couple times a day yeah now until baby is nine
months old any table foods that they're given are complimentary to their breast milk or formula
feedings what i mean by that is that these extra solids aren't meant to provide any substantial
amount of calories babies should still be getting the 24 to 30 ounces of milk a day to provide the
complete nutrition that they needs and the solids they're eating are just for learning how to eat
while also gaining that exposure to new tastes and textures and even potential allergens
now since we mentioned allergies i just want to take a couple quick moments to touch on the topic
um which we're going to actually take more detail and cover in the upcoming weeks about but um for
this episode there's really not medical evidence that shows that there's any benefit to avoiding
allergens for babies in these first early months and there's actually maybe benefit in exposing
them to some of these potential allergic foods that it could potentially reduce their risk of
developing an allergy to that food later having said that it's a good idea to introduce only one
new food every two to three days so that if your baby has a reaction to a food you know exactly
which food caused it so if you're offering avocado on monday you would want to wait to introduce
bananas until wednesday and then you could add in mashed chickpeas on friday
so but by the end of the week you could be having avocado and hummus and a banana during meals as
they are continuing to build um those foods that they are safe with yeah exactly and it's really
important to also consider the situation you're in so now for us we don't have any significant
family history of food allergies we actually had some allergy medication in the house that's for
infants and we live less than 15 minutes away from a children's hospital if any serious event were to
happen so if you have significant allergies in your family you should definitely talk to your
baby's care provider before offering some of these potential allergic foods to them
things like peanuts tree nuts egg chickpeas shellfish dairy wheat sesame and soy
the final and likely biggest question um that you probably have are what do you actually feed
the baby to start out and how do you prepare it yeah so we don't mean to be a tease about this
but we're actually going to use our next episode to share kind of our 10 favorite early foods for
babies and then also kind of 13 foods that can be really dangerous to young infants until next week
though um we have to mention that kind of the biggest help to us when starting to do this was
with baby Cec was a program website app called solid starts and couldn't more highly recommend
their app and website we are not sponsored in any way um it's just a resource we use that we thought
was really really helpful yeah um we ended up getting their like starting solids bundle
um which i think costs right around a hundred dollars it's a one-time fee to get access to all
sorts of resources online their app their guide and it doesn't expire and so actually that like
one time investment i think more than paid for itself in terms of like it was just we were able
to use foods we had at home without having to go buy purees and other things and so it just worked
so well for us um hopefully that's something that works well for you too if you can afford it
otherwise um our next episode we're gonna dive into just some simple foods to start with to
give you guys a good head start we will see you next week bye guys we're doctors but not your
doctors anything we've said in this video is for education or entertainment purposes only it is not
medical advice any specific medical questions you have should be directed to your provider