Baby Led Weaning Could Mean Problems

Baby led weaning is a term that supports babies feeding themselves solid food, as against the usual pureed food being spoon fed to them. However, we are now cautioned that this method of weaning could lead to nutritional problems for some babies who may develop differently than typical.

baby led weaningFor this reason, research led by Professor Charlotte M Wright from the University of Glasgow, Scotland, who is a child specialist, advice that traditional spoon feeding should also be combined along with self feeding in baby led weaning.

Babies aged between 6 and 8 months will usually reach for food by themselves and researchers examined data relating to these and other feeding milestones of babies to arrive at their conclusions.

Researcher found that a majority of babies (56%) were reaching for food at 6 months. They also found that this milestone was correlated to others such as when the baby walked unaided, spoke their first word and so on.

The study stresses that the small number of babies who develop more slowly could face nutritional problems if they were left to self feed by way of baby led weaning. This is why, a combination of baby led weaning, which could be offering solid finger foods during family meal times assisted by spoon feeding purees is an ideal solution.

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