4 Surprising Things About this Podcast...Looking Back at 400 Episodes

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Are you about to start solid foods but you don't know where to start? Or maybe you started with some purees and now you want to make a switch? The best place to get started learning about starting solid foods safely is my one hour online video workshop called Baby-Led Weaning for Beginners. I just rerecorded this free training and it's packed with videos and visuals on how to safely prep Baby-Led Weaning foods, what it looks like for the first few days, how to reduce choking risk, and what to do if your baby has an allergenic reaction to food. Everybody on this free training gets a copy of my original 100 First Foods list so you'll never run out of ideas about what to feed your baby. Next, you can get signed up for this video workshop at babyledweaning.co if you have one hour to dedicate to learning about Baby-Led Weaning.

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Come take this free online video training and grab your copy of that original 100 First Foods list. While you're there, again, head to babyledweaning.co to get signed up and I hope to see you there. How is the mental load of motherhood going for you? This baby stuff is a lot, right? Well my goal is to give you one less thing to worry about and that's, hmm, what am I gonna feed the baby If? you are looking for a one stop solution that literally teaches you exactly how to safely help your baby learn how to eat real food. I wanna invite you to join my signature online program called Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro. This is the most comprehensive Baby-Led Weaning Program out there. I give you 20 weeks of meal plans for Baby-Led Weaning to help your baby safely eat five new foods a week, which means they're going to finish their 100 First Foods before turning one.

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As one mom who recently joined the program said "our lifestyle does not give us any mental capacity to think more about what to do with this baby. This program caters to our needs" inside of the program I have my 100 First Foods content library to show you exactly how to safely prepare all of the 100 First Foods for year babies current age and stage. My 100 First Foods daily meal plan is also included in there. It's all in one place and a mom in our program. She said she joined because "I'm too tired of trying to figure out so many different things at once. I want someone to tell me what to do to catch up my nine month so we can stop using the same familiar foods we've been feeding her" If you are a type A organized per person or like let's say you wanna be that kind of person, you wanna be more organized in what you feed your baby.

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Then I created the Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro Program for you. You can sign up at babyledweaning.co/program. I have one program with all the stuff you need inside of it to get this thing done and get on with your life. Again, that's babyledweaning.co/program. Check it out and I hope to see you there.

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People love the beginner episodes because I think that's usually when people find the podcast is when they're just getting started. But the podcast reviews, we have a like a Slack messenger channel where we share our favorite moments and our wins and without a doubt, every time we get some new podcast reviews, they make it to the Wins channel because they're so detailed and so great and people call out their favorite episodes and and why they like the podcast and why they can't listen to Katie faster than a one x beat. It's, it's, I just, I really love the podcast listeners.

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Hey there, I'm Katie Ferraro, Registered dietitian, college nutrition professor and mom of seven specializing in Baby-Led Weaning here on the Baby-Led Weaning Made Easy podcast. I help you strip out all of the noise and nonsense about feeding leaving you with the confidence and knowledge you need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods using Baby-Led Weaning. It's the 400 episode of this podcast. I remember when we were approaching the 100 episode And, it was the first time I ever interviewed Gill Rapley on the podcast. So she's the founding philosopher of Baby-Led Weaning, the co-author of the original Baby-Led Weaning book and we had her on to talk about the history of Baby-Led Weaning and then in the second follow-up episode, the Future of Baby-Led Weaning.

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And now she's been on the podcast a few other times since then, but I remember being like, oh my gosh, 100 episodes. That's so much. Oh, I can't believe we're at 400 episodes and I still have like a very long list of other just mini training topics that I wanna cover in the future. So who knows, maybe there'll be another 400. But in this episode today what I wanted to do is take a look back, talk a little bit about the history of the show, but I did wanna do it by myself. So I'm gonna be Interviewing Lauren Coull who is our marketing manager here at Baby-Led Weaning. She is responsible for a lot of stuff and she has a very small role in the podcast. She basically helps listen to the final episodes to tell us this. Everything sound okay, but she knows a ton about the podcast 'cause actually there from the beginning in a different role. When we launched the podcast back in 2020, it was kind of sad because we launched it like right as Covid was taking off.

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I remember I had planned this whole like launch party and we had this beach house in San Diego and like gotta do this big ta-da and then like nobody was allowed to go anywhere. And I remember like the only place I could get food from was Chipotle, but none one of us had been at a restaurant in months. So we were like all excited to have Chipotle. We had like a socially distance launch party that was very small, but Lauren was there from the beginning. So I wanted to have her on the podcast today to talk about a couple of things that you might find interesting about the history of the podcast. So we're gonna kind of interview each other with a couple of questions and I hope you guys enjoy this episode all about the 400 Episodes of the Baby-Led Weaning podcast. And thank you so, so, so much for listening. If it wasn't for you and all of your downloads, we wouldn't have a reason to do this show.

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So I appreciate each and every one of you and I look forward to 400 more episodes. So with no further ado, here's Lauren Coull talking about the Baby-Led Weaning podcast with me. Alright Lauren, thanks for doing the interview. I'm really excited to chat with you.

1 (5m 36s):

Me too finally making an appearance 400 Episodes in when we started this podcast years ago, I know you had a proposed guest list and then we had this dream team guest list, which we've actually crossed off most of them over the years I think, who are the guests from your original dream guest list that you haven't interviewed yet but you want to.

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The original dream team guest list? Like we have this podcast episode flow and then we have a list of all the guests who's been on it and who we're talking to right now, who we wanna talk to in the future. But then there's one that's called dream guests and I have gotten a couple of them off of it. Not, I mean we've recorded them or interviewed them over the years, but the couple ones that really stick out of who I'm dying to interview, the number one is Shawn Johnson East, the gymnast/mom. So one of my babysitters, I'm a huge gymnastics fan, my girls are a huge gymnastics fan. One of our sitters is a huge gymnastics fan. She used to actually help us with content a while ago when she was in college and needed to make money. And I remember the day that she found out that Shawn Johnson East followed us on Instagram, like she was actually freaking out.

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And I was like, yeah, like her babies do Baby-Led Weaning so when her second baby Jet was starting solid foods, we were like hounding her and trying to get her on the show and it never worked out but I don't know If, you saw it over Christmas, she just had her third baby. So I'm gonna, I like to do the math on the celebrities and figure out, you know about when their babies are starting solid foods. See if we can get 'em on the podcast. Actually no, they recently started a podcast network so maybe she's like a little bit more attuned to podcasts at this time. But I would like absolutely love to interview her as a major fan girl but also because I think that she's really important in the online influencer space as a mom because she's very laid back about starting solid foods with her kids and her kids eat real food and I want more parents to see that/hear about that.

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So that's like the number one. Another one that's hanging out there, and I know you were kind of hounding me about this too was Bob from Bob's Red Mill because I think we're personally responsible for the purchase of more of like the most random Bob's Red Mill grains out there than a lot of other accounts or shows because in our 100 First Foods list we have 20 different whole grains and they're kind of weird and you sometimes have to order them online. And so we buy and promote without making any money. A lot of Bob's Red Mill whole grains and I went to the Bob's Red Mill factory tours like outside of Portland, Oregon, if you guys are ever there you have to go. A few years ago, Bob was there, I was there again this summer with my kids. Bob was not there and, it was like, oh my gosh, maybe it's 'cause he's like, he's literally turning 95 in 2024.

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So I feel like I need to get on that one. But I feel like we tried with Bob, we just like couldn't get his media people to get him on the show or I don't know if it's really gonna happen, but he's one I'd like to have. And then a third one, Dr. Michael Greger from nutritionfacts.org. Like I'm a obsessed with the amount of content that him and his team are able to put out. I love his stuff. It's very science, very factual, very, very straightforward, which is what we kind of try to do with our Baby-Led Weaning content. But he's an important person in the nutrition space that we just haven't had on. So Shawn Johnson, Bob from Bob's Red Mill and Dr. Michael Greger from nutritionfacts.org.

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I've been hearing about Bob from Bob's Red Mill for the entire time we've known about each other. It'll happen I hope.

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Hope maybe for his 100th birthday, maybe for his 100th birthday. He'll come on the 500 episode, who knows? And then a couple, well I just was looking back at the list of like the actual dream team people that we had on. Well I remember Jessica Alba was on the list for a while. I don't know why I kind of, I'm not saying I like lost interest but maybe unlikely to come on the show. Sometimes you contact people enough and they're like not gonna do it. But people that we had on the podcast as far as like the actual dreams of Dr. Robert Lustig, my nutrition crush, he came on to talk about sugar. I love him obviously Dr. Joe Rapley, she's been on numerous times as the founder of Baby-Led Weaning and co-author of the original Baby-Led Weaning book we had Marion Nestle on, which was super cool. As a nutrition dietitian person, she's like kind of goals.

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So If you guys have any guests that you'd like to have on the podcast we actually get a lot of our guest episode ideas and topics to cover on the podcast from reviews of the podcast. So If, you have an idea, if you leave a review for the Baby-Led Weaning podcast. I personally read every single one of them, but I also get a lot of good ideas from you guys in there as well. All right, Lauren, I wanna ask a question about who's involved in getting the podcast out, which is as far as all of our platforms go, I would say it's the one thing that runs the most smoothly and it's probably the only thing we regularly publish on time. But who's involved in this team?

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Yeah, so I think the podcast is super unique because we all have a hand in it, which is maybe why it gets out on time. So usually Katie comes up with a concept, the title, the topic, and then works with our dietetic intern to help out, outline the episode, do some research, do the research for the solo episodes, which are a bit more involved. And then from there Emmanuel who is based in Nigeria, does our podcast editing. So he hands back to our team a polished audio file which Jedi, our podcast managers schedules and designs, all the episode art. And then I have the fun task of doing the final listen through and I get to hear all the tidbits that I make.

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Any notes for Katie when she's posting the episode? I have another follow-up question for you. Some of the guests we get on the show are really excited and eager to be interviewed and then some take, let's call it a little bit more convincing. I know you have to hound and stay on top of some of them to get on the calendar. Are there any guests you've ever given up on because you couldn't get them booked?

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In the 400 episodes? There is one guest that I did give up on. So we had a mom who had a baby with limb differences and she's like, can you please do an episode on how babies can learn how to eat with their feet or non-dominant hand or if they're missing limbs, digits, etc. and I was like, oh my gosh, yes, this is a great idea. We did a ton of research. We found like who the leading expert in limb differences was in the United States who happened to work at a hospital anytime when someone works at a hospital, it's like just this layer of bureaucracy for them to get permission usually from like their boss and then the bosses boss and then the legal people, then the PR people, then they wanna see all the questions, which is fine. So we jumped through hoops like with this team, then it turned into a team. She's like, well I don't wanna do it by myself, I wanna have these other people do the podcast episode.

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And I was like, oh my gosh, okay. It was kind of a, a topic that I was really excited about but I think for well over a year we tried to schedule and get them on the calendar and, it never happened, so that's one that I do feel bad about, we just kind of gave up on that episode topic and I actually had to write to the mom who had asked for it and say like, I'm so sorry I couldn't end up getting these experts on the show. And then asked the mom like, but would you like to come on and talk about your experience? She's like, no thank you. But you know, thank you very much for trying. So that's one that I kind of feel sad that we did have to give up on.

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I think it's important to note it wasn't for lack of trying. You do really, and I'll ask this in another question, but you do really find some niche topics and wanna cover for those specific cases.

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Yeah and then like straight talk them until they answer but then sometimes they don't. Alright Lauren, since you are the numbers person, Lauren runs all of our metrics, all of our analytics we're like not supposed to make a decision that is not numbers based. Since I know you love the numbers, who has been the most frequent guest on the podcast?

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Okay, so I have the numbers on this but I want you to guess who do you think it is?

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Well I'm just guessing that it's Dawn Winkleman because she is my real life friend and very gracious and the leading speech language pathologist in Baby-Led Weaning, so anytime something is out of my wheelhouse as a dietitian, I just like have a running list of like questions to ask Dawn and then usually turn them into an episode. Am I right?

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Yes, you're correct. So Dawn has been on the podcast 16 times.

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Oh my gosh.

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And we have two runners up and they're tied for 7 episodes each. So Gill Rapley has been on the podcast 7 times, to be fair we did a part one and part two way back when. Yeah but I counted each of those separately and then Dr. Ron Sunog 7 times

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Oh I would've thought that Marsha Dunn Klein had been on it as many.

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Yes. So she's 5 episodes.

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Oh wow. Okay. So I've also started a new thing where like I mean people's time is very valuable and I very much appreciate like as you who listen have made noticed like we only have credentialed feeding experts on the show. Like there's enough misinformation from people who have no business teaching about infant feeding out on the internet. Like you don't need any more of that here. So we always do work to get credentialed experts in their respective areas to come on the podcast and then when they do, I'm sometimes like, hey If, you don't mind, can we split this into two episodes? Like if I have you on a Zoom, we book a 45 minute zoom, I send them all the questions ahead of time, I always write the title ahead of time so I'm like this is what we're going to talk about. And occasionally they'll be like, Ooh, can you massage or tweak the title? And but most of the time they're like, yes that's totally fine. And I sometimes pick two topics now.

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So like for example when we get Dr. David Stukus on like big deal, right? Like hey Dr. Dave could you please do two different topics? We'll split it and then make two episodes out of it. Which has really helped us kind of utilize these experts. Sometimes the topics are very disparate and it's like no that's a totally different topic. So I appreciate all of the guests who've been on the podcast, especially Dawn and Gill Rapley and Marsha who I know has to come on at least two more times in the fall quarter or the next, the second quarter of next year. Because we were talking about ideas like you get someone on on and then you're talking about something and you're like oh that reminds me, can we do these two other episodes? So people probably hate coming on the show 'cause it ends up making more work. But thank you Lauren for always doing the numbers for us.

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that's interesting and I'll link to some of the guest episodes too in the Shownotes for this one 'cause it's kind of fun to see all the different episodes. Hey we're gonna take a quick break but I'll be right back.

1 (16m 27s):

So I have another question for you. I've known you and your family pretty well after having worked with you for so long now and you have a big family, some of whom have been on the podcast as guests. Off the top of your head, do you remember how many family members have been on the show that you can recall?

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Okay for sure my mom, so my mom's a Registered dietitian she used to hate Baby-Led Weaning, she now loves it but it like took her a long time to kind of come around so I had her come on the podcast. I remember to talk about why she hated Baby-Led Weaning at the beginning and what turned her mind around that was actually like one of the first bonus episodes, which I think we're gonna talk about. We don't do bonus episodes anymore 'cause it was messing up our like URL mapping for our website.

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We actually re-released that one last mother's day. So I re-listened to it and it's still really great.

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Oh okay, well my mom does not, is not a podcast person and she said that sometimes she accidentally hears it if like my phone connects to her car and that I talk too fast her feedback so that's lovely. I know I had my daughter Molly on the show once. Molly is a, I would say she's not the most adventurous eater in our household. She's totally fine with me sharing that because we, we talk about that in our house about how some people like different types of foods and she came on to talk about how when you have a baby in your house it sometimes helps the older kids increase the variety of the foods that they ate. And so she's in fourth grade now and they use the Chromebook at school, which I don't love 'cause I am like, what are you doing at school on this computer? And she's like, oh the other day I was just like googling you.

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I was like, oh my gosh. And she's like, and then I googled the podcast episode that I was on with you. So she thinks she's hot stuff 'cause one time she did come on the podcast to talk about picky eating when you have younger siblings. So I thought that was cute. And then I know my dad, he might've been in the episode with my mom but my dad has a voice that makes fun of my podcast voice. So, he I believe just came on along with my mom to make fun of me in one episode. Is that it?

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Yeah, I think the one where your mom was interviewed, your dad walked in 'cause he thought it was done and then he, I remember here we kept it in the edit because it was so funny. Yeah, he loves your podcast voice. I also think Molly every time I see her she's like the the Vanna white of Baby-Led Weaning, like she loves showcasing other babies eating and talking about Baby-Led Weaning.

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It is my hope 'cause my mom is a dietitian, I would love one of my children to be a dietitian but right now it's like not looking good and they actively tell me that that's not what they want to do. I do wanna do an episode though with like the twins with the, well we had the twins on the on YouTube remember that we had them doing, they were just like home from school and I always ask 'em like do you guys wanna be in a video? And you know they usually say no and they have no interest in what I'm doing. But these two hopped in 'cause we were making foods so we had them taste test their favorite foods from when they were babies and then we had a blind taste test for them when they were five years old. And not to ruin it, most five year olds don't love the same foods they love when they were babies. but there was a few that one was really fun to have them involved in it. I just like

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Spoiler they both still like chocolate cake,

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Ah, and, and not a fan of sardines but that's okay. That's all right. All right, Lauren, what is the most downloaded or popular episode? I don't know how I think you count downloads. I don't Lauren has a lot of numbers you guys. So which is the one that like people are the most interested in?

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So I'm gonna share a couple stats. The episode with the most plays which I mean to summarize most of our early days episodes we tried to capture what we knew everyone would be asking for. So anything from episode 1 through 20, those are the most downloaded but specifically episode 2 called 5 Things Your Baby Should Be Able To Do Before Starting Baby-Led Weaning is number one most downloaded and the runner up is episode number three, which is the 5 Things Parents Should Be Able To Do Before Starting Baby-Led Weaning. So those are our most downloaded episodes. But I also thought it would be interesting to share the most consumed episodes meaning people not just listen to it one time but kind of start listening to it on repeat.

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So the most consumed episode is that when I just read off the 5 Thing Parents and Caregivers Should Be Able To Do and the runner up is 5 Feeding Mistakes Most Parents Make and How You Can Avoid Them, which I think is interesting.

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And then wasn't there a while like we always look to, 'cause we're tracking the web traffic to the Shownotes page that are associated with these episodes 'cause a lot of times if we drop a recipe there or we have a special opt-in or feeding guide obviously then it drives traffic to the website. The vomiting episode is always like bonkers. Is that still the situation?

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I believe that's episode 20 but yes that one does get a lot of love. Again, anything episodes 1 through 20 are the most downloaded but vomiting is a, a weird one. Yes, that's episode number 20.

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People love vomiting and Trader Joe's like 10 Baby-Led Weaning Foods to Buy Your Babies.

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The most popular series. We've done a couple different series, we did some female founder interviews and a few different series but the most popular series that we've heard feedback about are your grocery series. So you did Trader Joe's, Walmart Whole foods, you did a general grocery store one so people seemed

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Yeah I think we did Costco, we did Target, we did Aldi like pretty much the major grocery stores which which point people started writing like why don't you do this random store in Germany? I was like oh my gosh 'cause I don't live there. But why don't you, you wanna come on the podcast and tell me about your favorite stores in Germany. We don't get a ton of like cold outreach like parents who write like can I be on your podcast? It's usually like me reaching out and saying will you come on the show? But we've had a couple where people like you know, will contact us and if you have an idea, do you want to come on and talk about it? Remember this Sous Vide Bomb that came on? I thought that was so cool. Like her family that was a great one runs a Sous Vide meat packing company somewhere in the Midwest in the United States and her baby was eating all these rad meats and I was like how are you making these? What are the recipes?

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And then she came on to talk to us about Sous Vide and I thought that one was really cool 'cause she was like a part of our community also another one, remember the the Barbecue Pitmaster mom that came on and was talking about like Barbecue meats like that one was so awesome

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That's different from the Butcher from Brooklyn, right? Because I love that episode too.

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Karen Nicoletti, the fifth generation Butcher from, she came on talk all about like choosing cuts of meat that are safe for your baby to eat. So like a lot of these ideas, it's like sometimes there are people in our own program or in our own community when I'm like wait, that's what you do for a living. And then I know for the mom who's the Barbecue Pitmaster, like we're actually working on like a Barbecue Meat masterclass that she can come for people inside of our paid program to like learn directly from her. Which I think is so awesome 'cause like that's not my specialty but it's her specialty and we kind of have put together like a curriculum of you know, just for parents that are really, really overwhelmed about eating meat. So look for that in the new year as well.

1 (22m 56s):

Yeah definitely and so speaking of podcast episode brainstorms, sometimes I will propose an episode topic that I know will perform well with lots of downloads just based on the data and sometimes you propose very random niche nerdy nutrition topics. Can you talk a little bit about how we ultimately decide on the topics for the episodes?

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Okay, so it is true that a lot of our audiences, like they're going back to the beginning and listening from episode 1 and I know we were, our show was recently featured on another fairly prominent food related podcast is all I'll say. And they were snaring pretty hard about Baby-Led Weaning and in passing said something about oh and this girl's almost like 300 Episodes of her podcasts. And I was like, by the way, it's almost 400 episodes, thank you. But the point is I wouldn't be putting these episodes out if people weren't listening to them. And I think what people really like about the podcast and we hear this from feedback especially in the reviews and from people in our program or just like random general emails or comments that we'll get is that I like that you cut right to the chase that there's not a lot of fluff. It's like hey today we're talking about sardines, here's how you pick this type of tin fish and you have it safe for your baby to eat at these different stages and here's what you stay away from like short and sweet, some of those, those solo mini episodes that come out on Monday, like those are training episodes about nutrition topics and they're generally like, I think they're pretty mainstream and and the truth is I am a Registered Dietitian.

0 (24m 14s):

The majority of my audience is parents and caregivers of typically developing babies. However of course there are the outlier situation. We have babies with feeding challenges, we have babies with developmental delays, we have babies with growth, faltering failure, thrive, different medical can conditions or diagnoses. And I believe that all of these babies have a right to learn how to feed themselves. And I think we say sometimes that the very exception is like if you're an exclusively tube-fed baby and it's not safe for you to swallow anything by mouth as determined by your speech language pathologist and the team you're working with. Or if you're fed via total parental nutrition which is basically like into your veins because your gut doesn't work, then you can't put food in your mouth. But the rest of the babies, like when I started working in Baby-Led Weaning, there'd be these lists And, it would like super random and arbitrary like here's conditions that that baby led weenie doesn't work for these babies And, it was like babies with a tongue tie and it was like oh that's pretty much every baby these days.

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Or babies with cleft palate or a cleft lip babies with down syndrome. And we know from experience, from anecdotes, from like seeing with our own eyes and working with these babies that Baby-Led Weaning certainly does work for babies that have feeding challenges. And I have to give a shout out here to Jill Rabin who's the speech language pathologist who kind of started the entire field of adapted Baby-Led Weaning. So Jill Rabin, she's based outta Chicago, she actually wrote a book with Gill Rapley, the original co-author of the Baby-Led Weaning book like Jill and Gill got together and wrote a book about adaptive Baby-Led Weaning and how you can use this approach for babies with feeding challenges. And so it's been very important to me to cover those topics so that when parents see a list, oh my baby has down syndrome, I can't do Baby-Led Weaning.

0 (25m 47s):

No categorically untrue, here's the expert in Baby-Led Weaning for down syndrome who is Jill Rabin, here's her talking about the babies that she's worked with and giving you some clues on how you might do the same thing along with your medical team and acknowledging that the timeline for Baby-Led Weaning and independent self-feeding looks different for children with feeding challenges than it might for your typically developing child. But for me as a dietitian, it is really important that we cover those topics. So we, we have covered all sorts of medical diagnoses. I think the the cleft lip and cleft palate episode that we did with the surgeon from New York was like to me so important because routinely parents will send me an email saying my doctor told me that I can't do this 'cause my baby has a cleft lip or a cleft palate. And I'm like well here's the doctor in the country who's done the most work in this who says that you can and here's an interview we did on why Baby-Led Weaning does work.

0 (26m 32s):

Same thing for parents, a baby's with down syndrome for babies that are working on tube weaning. So weaning your baby off of a tube. We just had a mom from who's doing our 100 First Foods Program who just hit 100 Foods with her baby. She's actually the it's episode coming out episode 402 is that mom sharing her experience of how they got their baby to eat 100 Foods even though the baby started out on a tube feeding. So to me it's important to cover those topics so that that one mom who emails me who said, oh someone told me that I couldn't do it, even if it's a super random small number of children that have a diagnosis, obviously down syndrome something like that's pretty major. but there are some more smaller diagnoses that I still think it's important to talk to the experts in that space and be like, can you share the babies who've had success or, and then what are the drawbacks too?

0 (27m 12s):

Like what should these parents be aware of and it pretty much it's just to answer like that one random outlying email, the mom's gonna write and I wanna be like, yes I have an episode for you. We already covered this topic and if we didn't cover it yet, we definitely are going to.

1 (27m 25s):

And it's definitely important to be a resource for those special cases. I just wanna shout out those two episodes you mentioned. So episode 148 is the episode interview about cleft palate and then episode 260 is adapted Baby-Led Weaning.

0 (27m 46s):

Hey, we're gonna take a quick break but I'll be right back.

0 (28m 51s):

So let's shift gears and talk a little bit about advertising 'cause Lauren, as you know Lauren also helps manage all of our affiliate and collaboration work on social media, podcasts, etc. And I'm super cautious as a parent and a professional. I'm very cognizant about the brands that advertise on our podcast. I want them to be products and services that are useful to our audience but also are things that I personally use and recommend in my own family and in my infant feeding practice. Right? Because I think we're all very highly aware of influential people in the online space who like literally will show or recommend anything and you're like, have you ever even used that product? Like I, I'm not interested in that Lauren, share a little bit about why we decided to move to a podcast network and then how we decide which advertisers we work with on the podcast.

1 (29m 36s):

Yeah, so I think a few years ago we had a few brands reach out to us to sponsor the podcast and they were looking to get more involved beyond social media and Instagram. So we were curious about working with a podcast network purely just logistically it's a little bit more complicated than just partnering on Instagram. It's a bit more involved to insert an ad on a podcast. So we were Interviewing a couple different podcast networks and Katie, I believe you found AirWave Media through a like-minded podcast called the Unbiased Science Podcast. You're a loyal listener.

0 (30m 8s):

Yes, I'm obsessed with them and I was like any network like those gals have a lot more guts than I do to put out like controversial material. Like I am not interested in doing provocative stuff that's gonna spark a lot of conversation but I love that they do it 'cause it's all science backed. And I remember when we were looking for a network, like we've had trouble with this, right? Like finding agencies to represent us who understand the importance of like growing your audience but also doing so in a way that's like not going to put your credential into jeopardy. So like I liked that they were credentialed experts, like they're both PHD's I believe, but really science-based and, it was like any network they're on, like they've done their research. So I reached out to them and then that's I think how we got connected with AirWave was through Unbiased Science podcast.

1 (30m 47s):

Yeah so we had a list of networks we wanted to consider and we really liked AirWave specifically because of what you just said. We wanted to align ourselves with professionals, researchers, people with credentials a little bit more on the nerdier science side of podcast networking rather than like maybe true crime or celebrities,

0 (31m 5s):

Which is like the celebrity mom networks, which are insane that, that's even a thing.

1 (31m 9s):

Yeah totally. But just not our lane and not who we are aligned with as a podcast. So we felt it was really good fit. They have, I think kids and family shows, science shows history and so the Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro podcast felt like the right show to add to their network. And then in terms of the brands we accept, there are host red ads and programmatic ads. So I think if programmatic ads like almost like a radio ad, it's kind of automatic and then hosted we're very particular about, so usually we get a request from a brand who likes our podcast through the network and then Katie and I will chat, we'll approve or deny the request and then we'll usually have a meeting or get some sort of script to talking points, receive the product, make sure Katie feels aligned with it and good about it and then we'll move forward with partnering with this brand but that's usually

0 (31m 56s):

Usually how it works. And Lauren like 500 emails being like you need to record this ad today. I'm like oh my gosh, yes. Sorry. She's very good at mic.

1 (32m 3s):

If I could just like have your voice and record it for you, I would, but we're not, I'm not yet that comfortable with AI.

0 (32m 10s):

We're getting there. No, I'm just kidding. It still be and I think like we've been actively working to kind of change some of stuff in the inside of our business. Like we are a really small team as Lauren told you kind of who's involved and it is a ton of content that we're putting out and we're trying to be, you know, only putting out stuff that you guys wanna hear. So we really do value and listen to feedback from our audience. And I think the podcast reviews, I don't even know how many reviews we have at this point Lauren, but like we read every single one and I love them so much 'cause it's really like what people like and what they don't like and what they wanna hear more of. Like I've got ideas for another 400 episodes I feel like, but I wanna make sure that it's the stuff that people wanna hear. So you're, you do a very good job of like keeping us even keel. Like no I maybe we could table that until next year. If someone's really dying to have that episode, why don't you do this kind of more, you know, mainline thing that's gonna help mainstream parents of typically developing children with, again some of that outlier stuff because we wanna make sure that all parents are really recognizing their baby's potential to feed themselves.

1 (33m 4s):

Absolutely. And I think, yeah, people love the beginner episodes because I think that's usually when people find the podcast is when they're just getting started. But the podcast reviews we have a like a Slack messenger channel where we share our favorite moments in our wins and without a doubt, every time we get some new podcast reviews they make it to the Wind channel because they're so detailed and so great and people call out their favorite episodes and and why they like the podcast and why they can't listen to Katie faster than a 1x beat. It's, it's, I just, I really love the podcast listeners

0 (33m 35s):

And I know I talk too fast and I should slow down and that's been feedback I've gotten for years. I just can't, I get so excited about you guys feeding your babies. So do you have a final question Lauren?

1 (33m 46s):

Yes I do. So speaking of the podcast in its entirety, how do you think the episode topics have changed over the years? Are there types of episodes you wished we did more of?

0 (33m 57s):

Yes. Stop. We used to do, I feel like when Instagram story traffic was a lot better than it is now, I, it was easier for me to get parents to be on the podcast. Like there's this tool called SpeakPipe, it's so awesome you just, it's free, it's you hold your phone like I'm asking you a question like what's been the hardest food to feed your baby? And parents would just like click the button and be like, Katie, I hate feeding my baby rice. It ends up all over the floor. And then we could take a bunch of those and just clip them together really fast. And it was so fun to hear from other parents and then it got to a point where I feel like, you know, I think just people's interest in social media has kind of petered off and we didn't get like as great of responses or just like not as many people responding to those. But I really, I loved those SpeakPipe episodes. I feel like we should actually probably just be Interviewing more of our own audience that's inside of our program who are like very eager and willing to share like their wins and also their challenges for feeding the babies.

0 (34m 42s):

Like we used to do it so much more off of Instagram but things have kind of changed there which is totally fine. So we don't do a ton of those anymore. I don't, we don't do bonus episodes anymore. Like when I just started like I remember, well we launched the podcast like literally right as COVID was kind of peaking it was like May 1st of 2020, is that right? Lauren

1 (35m 1s):

Either late May or

0 (35m 2s):

It was in May. Yeah I think it was but you know when stuff started in March, so I remember like as the COVID stuff was popping up or like okay look we should be covering this like parents asking questions about introducing allergenic foods during COVID and we started to do these bonus episodes and I was like oh my gosh, what am I doing? Like we're already putting out two episodes a week on top of all of our social content plus our email marketing in the meantime we layered in a YouTube channel. Like you don't can't be everything on every platform. And so I really wanted to stick to like the two episodes a week we do solo Baby-led Weaning mini training episode on Monday and then we do a guest interview on Thursday and I'm proud to say like this is a fairly well run operation at this point. We usually are batched about a quarter out, so usually about three months ahead we have everything set. Occasionally we have to move stuff like if a friend in the baby space is like, you know, has, has a big launch or a new book that they wanna promote, I mean we usually know those like pretty far in advance.

0 (35m 50s):

So it's something that I like 'cause it's actually quite easy to schedule but we definitely don't do bonus episodes anymore 'cause I always wanted it to be really easy for you to guys to find the, so like for example when Lauren was just mentioning before like okay If, you wanna hear this particular episode like let's say you want hear about the Back Blows for Babies, like I know that's episode 390. Go to BLWpodcast.com/390 to hear Brandon from Thrive Training CPR teach you how to do back blows over the podcast. Like I wanted it to be BLWpodcast.com/390. And when we started doing the bonus episodes, it messed up the URL mapping and I was like I can't handle this 'cause I couldn't remember what they are but also we can slot them into regular places so I feel like yeah

1 (36m 30s):

And I think strategically the bonuses didn't make sense because we have a training and then an interview. So if, if we need to move the schedule around a bit to move a quote bonus one into an interview spot, then we'll just shuffle the calendar a little bit instead of creating a whole new episode. I think the bonuses now just fit into our interviews a bit better.

0 (36m 51s):

Hey we're gonna take a quick break but I'll be right back.

0 (38m 1s):

I agree and I think especially the new episode ideas, a lot of them come from either 'cause I do still all of my own Instagram, I do my comments in responding to comments on the the live feed stuff, unless it's like an automated, we use a lot of ManyChat right now for automations in Instagram, but I'm the one there responding to all the comments. So when I see something with a good idea, I just screenshot it and then put it in a shared note that we have or in Slack for episode ideas. And same thing for guests like anyone we see around the internet or someone who's got a new book or a new angle or something related to infant feeding, we just kind of make a note of it and reach out. 'cause you know it can take up to six months from the time we start thinking about the idea until the episode is actually live. When you flush out all the details, try to get two people's calendar together. I can only work when my kids are in school and a lot of the people we interview are kind of in the same boat.

0 (38m 45s):

So sometimes it does take a while to put this stuff together but it does make me so happy to know that people are going back all the way to the beginning and listening if they're just starting solid foods or that we get so much web traffic as well. People searching like how do I feed my baby quinoa safely or you know, is it safe to do shellfish? 'cause they'll hear something on like a different social media account like oh your babies can shellfish before one. And it's like, is that true? And then other than me writing up the whole answer to that, I'm like, here, go listen to this episode where teach you exactly how to safely feed your baby shellfish before one. But yes, shellfish is one of the big nine allergenic foods and you should do it early and often and there's perfectly safe ways that you can do it. There's lots of unsafe ways to do it, but I wanna show you the safe ways to do that. So Lauren, thank you so much for doing this episode.

0 (39m 25s):

This was super fun. I you're gonna have to come back on, we gotta get your guest count up there with like Dawn and Marsha and Gill Rapley.

1 (39m 34s):

Okay. I prefer being behind the scenes but I'm happy to support.

0 (39m 35s):

Well Lauren, I love this stage too 'cause a lot of her friends are starting to have babies and they're interested in Baby-Led Weaning and it's just like, she's like here, here are all these, there's 400 different pieces of content if you need it on how to do Baby-Led Weaning safely. So thank you for all of your work Lauren, for keeping the show going and running smoothly and running on time and getting it out there so that people can listen to it 'cause it's, it feels really good to be able to give like this much free content about giving your baby a safe start to solid foods away. We, as you guys know, we have a paid program if you're interested in it. It's called Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro. Go to babyledweaning.co/program. If you want it all laid out like which how to feed your baby the 100 foods. I got it for you. But in the meantime, for those of you that either don't wanna buy it or can't afford it or not right now, we'll continue to have the podcast for you, two episodes a week with tons of free content about how to give your baby a safe start to solid foods with Baby-Led Weaning and hopefully there'll be 400 more episodes.

0 (40m 26s):

Who knows, right Lauren?

1 (40m 27s):

Yeah. Well I'm happy to help and leave a review with any episode you want Katie to cover.

0 (40m 31s):

Yes, thank you. Thank you for the reviews, we really appreciate them, especially Apple Podcasts. If, you scroll all the way down to the bottom and click leave a review. I read each and every one of them and hopefully yours will make it to our wins channel in Slack. Thanks Lauren.

1 (40m 46s):

Thanks.

0 (40m 46s):

Okay, that was fun. Definitely not waiting another 400 episodes to have Lauren back on. Thank you Lauren for doing the interview we went through after the interview and listed out like all of the other episodes that we had referenced 'cause I always like to include them in the Shownotes and the description and it was kind of a lot, but you can find them if you're interested on the Shownotes page for this episode, BLWpodcast.com/400. Also thank you to Jedi, our podcast manager who makes this happen. To Emma, our fabulous podcast editor who makes all of the sound, sound wonderful and puts everything together and cuts out a lot of the crap that you guys don't need to hear. Thank you to our interns who help with the outline and the scripting. And thank you guys so much for listening.

0 (41m 26s):

If it weren't for you, there wouldn't be a reason to make this show. So I love doing it. It's my favorite part of my work. Week Wednesday is my podcast day where I do all of my mini episodes, all of my scripting, all the questions, all the interviews, but it's also the day I don't have to like literally get outta my pajamas or put makeup on because I love that there's no video involved with our podcast. So thank you guys so much for listening. Also, thank you to our partners at AirWave Media. As we talked a little bit in this episode. If you like listening to podcasts that feature food and science and using your brain. Check out some of the podcasts from AirWave If. you wanna check out our program. It's called Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro. It's got my original 100 First Foods daily meal plan. I've got my 100 First Foods content library in there where I show you how to make all the foods. I know you guys like listening to this stuff, but If, you wanna see the videos on how to do it with 20 weeks of meal plans laid out for your baby.

0 (42m 12s):

It's all at babyledweaning.co/program. Thanks again for listening. I'll see you guys for the next 400 episodes.