Baby-led weaning (BLW) has been on the scene for a few years, but the jury has always been out on whether babies get enough food into their tummies when they eat this way.
For those of you who are not familiar with the term, baby-led weaning is an approach to introducing your baby to solid food where you allow and encourage your baby to self-feed solid finger foods, instead of being spoon-fed pureed or mashed foods.
The finger foods are softened through steaming/cooking.
Those who favour the approach see the advantage in babies having the freedom to explore new tastes and textures without the pressure of having to eat a set amount or a specific food.
But parents and experts have been skeptical about whether a baby will eat enough, and enough of the right foods, when they are in complete control of what they eat.
However, a recent clinical trial led by the University of Otago has shown that letting babies control how much solid food they eat (instead of traditional spoon-feeding) doesn’t mean babies will gain less weight.
And while baby-led weaning doesn’t seem to have an effect on body weight, the babies in the self-feeding cohort were less fussy in their food choices and had a greater enjoyment of food.
The randomised clinical trial, led by Professor Taylor and Associate Professor Anne-Louise Heath, included 206 women and involved assigning 105 of them to an intervention that included the support of a lactation consultant.
It found that baby-led weaning did not appear to improve energy self-regulation or body weight when compared with more traditional feeding practices, but it did provide evidence that babies who fed themselves from the start had a better attitude toward food at 12 and 24 months and were less fussy about food than the children in the study who were spoon-fed, says Prof Taylor.
“For instance, the BLW infants in our study were more likely to show they were enjoying their food and to be less picky eaters.
“We also found no evidence for previous suggestions that infants following a baby-led approach may not eat enough food, and no sign that they were underweight,” she says.
Prof Taylor cautioned there are some limitations to the study, including that it involved a small sample that was relatively socio-economically advantaged.
Babies show signs of being ready to start solids at around four to six months of age.
