5 Feeding Mistakes Most Parents Make...and How You Can Avoid Them

Katie Ferraro (0s):

Are you trying to squeeze the starting solid food stuff into your already busy schedule? Well, I have an all-in-one done for you solution that's going to take the guesswork out of feeding your baby. My online program is called Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro contains all of my Baby-Led Weaning training videos, the original a 100 First Foods content library, plus a hundred day meal plan with recipes like the exact sequence of which foods to feed in which order. So if you wanna stop trying to piece all this feeding stuff together on your own, I would be honored if you would join me inside of the program. You can get signed up at babyledweaning.co/program. It is CPR Awareness Week. And while there is no higher risk of choking with Baby-Led Weaning compared to conventional adult-led spoon feeding, choking is a very rare but real risk.

Katie Ferraro (40s):

And knowing CPR can save your baby's life, I recommend that everybody who helps feed your baby takes a refresher infant CPR course before starting solid foods. I take a refresher infant CPR course online every quarter just to stay current, and I'm doing it again this week for CPR Awareness Week. So to heighten awareness about the importance of CPR, I'm teaming up with my friend and certified CPR instructor Brandon from Thrive Training Institute with a special offer for listeners of this podcast. So right now, when you register for our Choking Prevention and Response course, you will get lifetime access to Brandon's online CPR course for free. So The Choking Prevention and Response Course, it's a class we co-teach. So it's me, a Baby-Led Weaning dietitian, Don Winkleman, who's a speech language pathologist who specializes in pediatric swallowing, and Brandon the CPR instructor.

Katie Ferraro (1m 26s):

So we'll teach you everything you need to know about making a safe feeding situation so your baby doesn't choke on food. And we design this course for parents who are exceptionally fearful about choking. So if that's you, you can get lifetime access to online CPR course for free when you sign up for the choking course. And to access this deal, you don't need a code, you just go to this special website, it's bit.ly/cprchoking, that's bit.ly/cprchoking and get free lifetime access to online CPR. Now through June 7th, when you register for The Choking Prevention and Response Course, again, that's bit.ly/cprchoking. And then the mom will say, oh, well you're saying to introduce five new foods a week, and that's fine, except my doctor told me that we need to wait three to five days between foods.

Katie Ferraro (2m 12s):

Why did your doctor say that? That's not an evidence-based recommendation. That's very old and outdated information. And it's generally based on the idea that, oh, well we need to wait three to five days between foods to observe for any potential or allergic reactions. But here's the deal, if your baby's gonna have an allergic reaction to food, the vast majority of those reactions are going to occur within minutes and up to no more than two hours following ingestion. Okay? You don't need to wait three to five days between food. It's not like you offer your baby pasta as a way to do wheat, and then three days later there's a weird diaper and you think, oh my gosh, my baby's allergic to wheat. It doesn't work like that again. The vast majority of allergic reactions will occur within minutes and up to no more than two hours following ingestion. You do not have to wait three to five days between foods, in fact, that will unnecessarily slow down and prevent your baby's progress towards diet diversity.

Katie Ferraro (2m 55s):

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 with Katie Ferraro podcast. I help you strip out all of the noise and nonsense about feeding, giving you the confidence and knowledge you need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods using Baby-Led Weaning. We all make mistakes when we're learning something new. and the same goes for starting solid foods. In. this episode I wanna share five common feeding mistakes full disclosure, I've made every single one of these. And if you've made or are making any of these same mistakes, don't worry, it happens to everyone.

Katie Ferraro (3m 41s):

But hang tight because I'm gonna show you a few simple tweaks to help you avoid these mistakes and get back on track with helping your baby learn to eat real food. Now, I like to start each of these mini training Baby-Led Weaning episodes with a tip of the day. And today's Baby-Led Weaning tip of the day is that when you start out with solid foods, your baby is not going to eat much. And it doesn't mean you are doing anything wrong. I can't tell you how many times parents are like, I'm totally prepared. I practiced everything, I read everything. I watched your workshop, I took CPR, and then day one comes to start solid foods and the baby eats nothing. And they're like, what am I doing wrong?

Katie Ferraro (4m 21s):

You guys, it can take up to eight weeks on average for your baby to get the hang of feeding themselves. So the first couple days and weeks, months are a little bit brutal, but hang in there. It doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong. So let's dive in here. Our five starting solid foods, mistakes that most parents make and then how you can avoid them. Mistake number one is bringing a hungry baby to the table. Please don't forget that even after you start solid foods, infant milk will continue to be your baby's primary source of nutrition. I can't tell you how many times there'll be a family coming over to my house and we're gonna start solid foods and you put the baby in the high chair and the baby's like kind of freaking out. And I'm like, wait a minute, is this baby hungry?

Katie Ferraro (5m 2s):

And the mom's like, yeah, I, I didn't wanna feed him this bottle because I wanted him to be hungry when we got here. And the point is, when you just start solid foods, your baby doesn't know how to use food to make those feelings of hunger go away. So you actually stick to your regular milk feeding schedule and your regular nap schedule. Generally for what I do for the entirety of phase one of Baby-Led Weaning, and that's the first eight weeks of Baby-Led Weaning. So when it comes to timing, feed your baby the regular bottle like you normally would, but keep one thing in mind. You don't wanna offer milk too close to meals. There are some babies who are particularly gaggy and when they start moving some of the food to the back of their mouth and they will gag, that's typical. If the baby's belly is totally full of milk, then that gag could induce vomiting, right?

Katie Ferraro (5m 46s):

Because a particularly involved gag could make the baby vomit and then they empty the contents of their stomach all over the table. A little bit of vomiting is to be expected, but if your baby's vomiting like every meal or every day, that's really not typical. So I'll tell you a quick story. My sister-in-law Cece, she has four kids and her third baby, baby Frankie, my brother's name is Frankie. And so this is their son, Frankie. And baby Frankie, they came over to our house and we were gonna be doing lamb, it was day four. So we generally do a new fruit on day one, a new vegetable on day two, which is Tuesday, a new starchy food on day three, which is Wednesday, a new protein food on the fourth day. So first protein, we were gonna do lamb. So he made all this lamb up for the baby and he was like kind of into it and eating it and like gagged like crazy.

Katie Ferraro (6m 26s):

And I'm not joking, just like vomited all over the table and don don't know, some of you guys are grossed out by vomit, but like after you've had a baby for a while, don, don't think vomit iss the grossest thing they do. And he picked the meat up outta the vomit and started eating it again and just kind of showing, okay, listen, babies aren't really like super bothered by vomit, but you don't want vomiting at every single meal again because they baby may start to have negative associations with food and feeding. But back to Cece, I was like, Cece, did you just give this kid a bottle? And she's like, oh yeah, I fed him like a eight ounce bottle right before we walked in here. I was like, well, there's the eight ounces of formula back all over the table. So try if you need to put about an hour between the end of the bottle or the milk feed until the start of the solid food feed.

Katie Ferraro (7m 8s):

And honestly, if you're breastfeeding, breastfed, babies tend to snack and they don't drink volume wise as much as a bottle fed babies. So most breastfed babies can like snack on breast milk right off the boob and then come right to the table. But again, if your baby's particularly gaggy and you seeing some more frequent vomiting and you're like, that's just full of milk, let's give a little bit of time to allow the stomach to empty from the end of the milk feed before the solid food feed. Hey, we're gonna take a quick break, but I'll be right back.

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Katie Ferraro (8m 11s):

Alright, mistake number two, serving only healthy foods. I see a lot of families, so when they start solid foods, they're like, oh, we're doing like all these fruits and vegetables. I love it. My baby loves fruits and vegetables. Fruits and vegetables, especially if we're just doing purees, are super limiting, right? There's no texture there, there's no fiber there, there's no allergenic food protein, the baby's not getting any iron. Fruits and vegetables are fine. But with my five step feeding framework, fruit is one category, and vegetable is one category. So fruits and vegetables together are only 40% of the types of foods that we offer babies. Don't forget about the starches, don't forget about the protein foods, don't forget about the allergenic foods. So if you want to help your baby achieve diet diversity, meaning getting all of the nutrition that they need from food, and that's the goal, by age one, most of your baby's nutrition can be coming from food.

Katie Ferraro (8m 52s):

If you work your way through those five different food groups, you will help your baby achieve diet diversity. So when it comes to fruits and vegetables, right, they have vitamin C, that's wonderful because that's gonna help your baby absorb iron from the other foods that they're eating. But as I mentioned, you're missing out a lot of other nutrition if you're only doing fruits and vegetables. So include them as a part of the variety of foods your baby's eating. But remember, fruits and vegetables only account for about 40%. So we want the starchy foods and the protein foods and the allergenic foods in there as well. Now, if you want to grab a copy of my a 100 First Foods list, it has 20 foods per each of those five categories. So there's 20 fruits, 20 vegetables, 20 starchy foods, 20 protein foods, and then 20 allergenic foods that your baby can eat.

Katie Ferraro (9m 32s):

And you can grab a copy of my original a hundred First Foods list. I give it away to everybody for free on my online workshop called Baby-Led Weaning for Beginners. This is an online video workshop. So I'll show you what the first two weeks of starting solid foods looks like, give you some ideas on making those allergenic foods safe. And then everyone on that workshop gets a copy of that a 100 First Foods list. So you'll never run out of ideas of foods your baby can eat. You can sign up for the workshop by going to babyledweaning.co/workshop. So mistake number two, serving only healthy foods. Yeah, you wanna include those fruits and vegetables, but it's only part of the bigger picture. Mistake number three that many parents make when they start solid foods is waiting three to five days between new foods. Now, sometimes you'll hear parents say, wait a minute, Katie, you're saying five new foods a week.

Katie Ferraro (10m 16s):

If I do a new fruit on Monday and vegetable on Tuesday and starchy food on Wednesday, we do the protein food on Thursday and the allergenic food on Friday, five new foods a week. And the way that works is you do 20 foods a month and then in five short months your baby's had a hundred foods. They'll be like, yeah, but my doctor said I need to wait three to five days between foods. Now why did your doctor say that? Well, because they're probably repeating old, outdated information. Historically it was thought, oh, you need to wait three to five days between foods in order to observe for any potential allergic reactions. But here's the deal, waiting three to five days between foods unnecessarily holds your baby back. You'll never achieve that diet diversity if you're only feeding one new food a week, right? You wanna take advantage of the flavor window.

Katie Ferraro (10m 59s):

That's that limited period of time where your baby will like and accept a wide variety of foods. And with regards to the waiting because you wanna observe for an allergic reaction, the reality is that the vast majority of allergic reactions, so if your baby's going to have an allergic reaction to food, the vast majority of those allergic reactions will occur within minutes and up to no more than two hours following ingestion. So it's not like you offer your baby, you know, like pasta as a way to try wheat, and then three days later there's a weird diaper and you're like, oh my gosh, the baby's totally allergic to pasta. It doesn't work like that again, the vast majority of allergic reactions will be within minutes and up to no more than two hours following ingestion. So it's perfectly safe to offer more than one new food per day, especially if it's not an allergenic food.

Katie Ferraro (11m 39s):

I just don't do two new allergenic foods at the same time for the first time. 'Cause then how if your baby reacted, how would you know which one they were reacting to?So waiting three to five days between foods completely unnecessary. It's outdated advice. It is not evidence-based, and you unnecessarily hold your baby back. If you wanna learn more about why you don't have to wait three to five days between new foods, I have a whole episode on that. It's episode 12, go to B lw podcast.com/twelve. So mistake number four, when starting solid foods, giving up to early, okay, before your baby actually starts feeding themselves. So many families will give up like, oh, we tried Baby-Led Weaning, but it didn't work. Well, it works. It just takes about eight weeks for babies to get the hang of starting solid foods.

Katie Ferraro (12m 23s):

So I want you to hold on for the first 40 foods, right? Five foods a week times eight weeks after you have been doing the entirety. Five new foods a week for eight weeks. I promise you, almost without a doubt, the vast majority of babies will have been by that point, feeding themselves. But it takes a while. Some babies get the hang of it in six weeks, seven weeks, eight weeks. But so many families give up in week two, they'll try avocado, banana, sweet potato. The baby's not that interested. Oh, I guess they're not eating enough. And then they resort to force feeding the baby by spoon. don don't want you to be doing that. So I wanna tell you a quick story about my friend and colleague Erica. Erica is a dietitian and she's a new mom. So she wanted to do Baby-Led Weaning, did all the workshop and training, and she took her CPR and she's like, okay, I'm my 100 First Foods list.

Katie Ferraro (13m 6s):

Like I'm all ready to start. And I was helping her by making some of the foods for my program. So we have a 100 First Foods Daily Meal Plan, and there were some new recipes that I wanted to test. So I was like, hey, here's the deal. Like I will make you these new recipes. Just gimme some feedback, send me some videos, tell me like, you know, did it, what's it look like? Is your baby enjoying it? Blah, blah, blah. So the first few weeks she's like, this is brutal. My daughter's not eating anything. I think I'm doing something wrong. Like I said, everything you're telling me is totally typical. And what happens is at about the eight week mark, it will all click for your baby and then your baby will start feeding herself, I promise you. But do me a favor, make sure you call me or text me or let me know when she turns the corner. Because what happens a lot of times is like parents reach out like in their darkest hour. Like I get these like dire emails and dms and like, oh my gosh, this is the worst.

Katie Ferraro (13m 48s):

My baby's not eating. And then, you know, give some feedback, do some tweaks, hold out, keep going, keep trying, wait until the eight week mark and then you never hear from them again. So I do have a request from you. If your baby turns the corner at around the eight week mark, reach out and let me know, because I love to hear from parents who are like, don don't want 'em to say like, oh, you are right Katie, that's not what I'm looking for. But it's like, I want you to know that if you wait and you hold it out, your baby will get the hang of self-feeding. So sure enough, Erica sent me a text. I was recently on a trip and so I was like in a different time zone. I got like at a weird hour and I was like, why is she texting me. Oh my gosh, I hope they're doing fine. The baby's not like choking or something, you know? She texted me, hi. My daughter's eating is night and day compared to two weeks ago. She seems to love food now.

Katie Ferraro (14m 29s):

She likes foods with all of the flavor. My mom is loving Baby-Led Weaning. Now that my baby is eating more, my mom still likes to stick with puree, but she's getting more comfortable to do some soft fritters. And my mom is very impressed that she can feed herself. I am loving Baby-Led Weaning. People at work have been asking me about how my daughter's eating. I've been recommending your Instagram and your workshop. Hope you guys are having a good trip. That kind of text messages just absolutely makes my day because I feel like this mom was on the fence about like, ah, I don't know about this Baby-Led Weaning thing. But again, sticking it out, don't give up too early. And when it clicks for your baby, please email me, DM me, text me, let me know when your baby turns the corner.

Katie Ferraro (15m 9s):

And I bet you it'll be around 40 foods or so into starting solid foods. And that's a long time. 'cause model parents will give up Way before that. Hey, we're gonna take a quick break, but I'll be right back.

What Should I Read Next? (15m 22s):

Hello listeners, this is Anne Bogle, author, blogger, and creator of the podcast. What Should I Eead Next? Since 2016, I've been helping readers bring more joy and delight into their reading lives. Every week I hack all things books and reading with a guest and guide them in discovering their next read. They share three books they love, one book they don't, and what they've been reading lately. And I recommend three titles they may enjoy reading. Next, guests have said our conversations are like therapy, troubleshooting issues that have plagued their reading lives for years and possibly the rest of their lives as well. And of course, recommending books that meet the moment, whether they're looking for deep introspection to spur or encourage a life change or a frothy page-turner to help them escape the stresses of work, school, everything. You'll learn something about yourself as a reader and you'll definitely walk away confident to choose your next read with a whole list of new books and authors to try. So join us each Tuesday for What Should I Read Next? Subscribe now, wherever you're listening to this podcast and visit our website. whatshouldIreadnextpodcast.com to find out more.

Katie Ferraro (16m 29s):

Alright, Mistake number five when starting solid foods is not having a plan. One of my favorite quotes, I think it's a Benjamin Franklin quote, but I use it on my husband all the time and he hates it, is if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. If you don't have a plan for starting solid foods, if you're like, oh, I'm just gonna give my baby like a little bit of whatever I'm eating, okay, not always will those foods be appropriate for the age and the stage that your baby is not always will they have the blend of the nutrients and the different textures and those allergenic food proteins. If you just kind of go at it willy-nilly. If you're the type of person who listens to a Baby-Led Weaning podcast, I'm just gonna go at a limb here and guess that you like to have a plan. And so having a plan that you can stick to when you start solid foods will help your baby get to that all important diet diversity point.

Katie Ferraro (17m 16s):

So we hear from families all the time who come out of the gate really strong, like, oh, I'm doing Baby-Led Weaning. My baby's had avocado, banana, and sweet potato. And then you check back a few weeks later, and guess what? The baby's still having avocado, banana, and sweet potato, and the family's feeding those same foods over and over and over again. So if you want to help your baby, take advantage of that all important flavor window, I highly suggest you try out that five step feeding framework that I mentioned. The one that's five new foods a week, it's 20 foods a month. In five short months, your baby will have tried a hundred different foods. If you like having a plan, and I heard this from parents a lot. They were like, Katie, thanks for the advice, but don don't wanna pick out the five foods every week.

Katie Ferraro (17m 58s):

Can you just do it for me? Yes. That's why I have a 20 weeks of done for you meal plans, my 100 First Foods Daily Meal Plan. It's part of my signature online program called Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro. I did all the work for you. The foods build on each other, the recipes build on each other in complexity. We stack all of the allergenic foods in the first nine weeks so that your baby can start trying some of these fritters and these finger foods and these different combination textures so that you can get through some of the trickier textures and trying those more difficult proteins and some of those wacky whole grains. 'Cause yeah, everyone can offer their baby fruits and vegetables. That's not that hard. But I want your baby to get that variety of foods that we know will help them become an independent eater and will also help prevent picky eating.

Katie Ferraro (18m 42s):

So if you wanna check out that program, it's at babyledweaning.co/program. Again, there's the 100 First Foods Daily Meal Plan. That's part of that program. 20 weeks of done for you meal plans if you just like having somebody else tell you exactly what foods to make and what recipes to do that. Again, that's at babyledweaning.co/program. Let's do a quick summary. The Five Mistakes that Most Families Make and How You Can Avoid Them. Number one, bringing a hungry baby to the table. Don't do it. Remember, don't switch your nap or your milk schedule. For the first eight weeks of Baby-Led Weaning, I have a whole bunch of feeding schedules laid out for phase one, phase two, and phase three of Baby-Led Weaning. That's all inside of that program. Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro at babyledweaning.co. If you like schedules, I got 'em for you. But you don't switch the nap or the milk schedule in phase one, the first eight weeks of Baby-Led Weaning.

Katie Ferraro (19m 27s):

Mistake number two is serving only healthy foods. If you just stick to fruits and vegetables, yeah, you get some vitamin C, but you're not getting the texture, you're not getting the allergenic food proteins. There's no fiber in those. So work your way through that five step feeding framework. Picking out five foods from the hundred First Foods list each week. Mistake number three, waiting three to five days between new foods. Please remember, it's perfectly safe to offer one or more new food every day. You can do multiple new foods for families that are a little bit late to the game. Like, oh my gosh, I have an eight month old who's only ever had purees in their mouth. It's never too late to start eating more solid foods. You can do multiple new foods a day. I just don't do two or more new allergenic foods at the same time on the same day. Mistake number four, giving up two early, okay, before your baby is self-feeding.

Katie Ferraro (20m 7s):

Remember, it's going to take your baby about eight weeks to get the hang of self-feeding. And when they do, can you please send me a message and let me know because I wanna hear about your successes as well. And mistake number five is not having a plan. Okay? Stick to a plan with offering new foods, because as we know babies don't just wake up on their first birthday and magically know how to eat a hundred different foods. They need you to be in charge of picking the foods for them. That five step feeding framework will help you. So don't feel bad if you've made any of those mistakes. There's always time to change. I'll put some more of the resources that I mentioned in this episode on the show notes, which you can find at blwpodcast.com/10. And that special thank you to our partners at AirWave Media. If you like podcasts that feature food and science and using your brain, check out some of the podcasts from AirWave or online at blwpodcast.com. Thank you so much for listening. I'll see you next time.