Katie Ferraro (1s):

Jesse. I love this question because yeah. What do you say would your mom or your mother-in-law is like ice cream and fed you and you turned out fine. And Jesse's like, oh, I didn't, I don't even like vegetables. And I would like for my baby to like vegetables, baby-led weaning will help your baby like vegetables. Hey, there I'm Katie Ferraro, registered dietitian college nutrition professor, and mama's 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 the new with the competence and knowledge. You need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods using baby-led weaning.

Katie Ferraro (44s):

Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the baby led weaning made easy podcast. I got a different kind of episode for you today. This is ask me anything. If you are just starting baby-led weaning, this is an ask me anything episode. I've been wanting to do one of these for a while. I put the word out on Instagram, asking you guys who are just getting started. What are the things that you're worried about or wondering about? And I got some fabulous questions. I'm going to run through those pretty quickly in today's episode, because I think a lot of us are worried about or concerned about pretty much the same 10 or 15 things. And so I'm hoping you will find some answers to your questions. I can help allay some of your fears in this. Ask me anything episode. Today's episode is brought to you by baby Quip.

Katie Ferraro (1m 27s):

Baby Quip is the number one, baby equipment rental service. And this is such a cool concept. They deliver clean, safe, and insured, rented baby gear right to your door. And because they're now available in over 500 cities throughout the US and Canada, Baby Quip is ideal for traveling families. If you want to make your next destination, feel like home. I saw Baby Quip on shark tank a while back and they just check them out again. They've got lots of great feeding gear available in case you don't want to lug yours on your next trip. Check them out at Baby Quip. That's QUIP.com. Now, before I launch into the ask me anything, I did want to just mention three earlier episodes of the podcast that I think you'll find really helpful if you're just starting out baby-led weaning.

Katie Ferraro (2m 11s):

Cause this one is geared for those of you are just getting a start here at around six months of age. Plus when your baby is showing the other signs of readiness to feed, go check out episodes. Number one, two and three. In the podcast, I started out with episode number one, it's called "What is baby-led weaning?" Episode number two is "Five things your baby should be able to do before you start solid foods". And episode number three was "Five things parents and caregivers should be able to do before starting baby-led weaning". I'm going to link all of those episodes up plus some of the other resources that I mentioned in this episode at the show notes, which is going to be located at blwpodcast.com/44. So with no further ado, let's dive in.

Katie Ferraro (2m 52s):

You're just starting baby-led weaning. I'm answering all your questions. All right. Question from Arlee Anthem, how much gagging is normal? My seven-month old seems to be hating baby-led weaning because he is gagging a lot. All right guys, I know gagging can be scary, but gagging is a natural and necessary part of learning how to eat and your baby will certainly gag more frequently and it will be more involved early on. Okay? Because sometimes the gag can get pretty involved and then occasionally will turn into vomit. So I've got a whole episode. Number four, "Gagging versus choking. What's the difference?" It is important to know the difference, but gagging is a necessary normal part of learning how to eat. It will become less frequent. It will become less pronounced.

Katie Ferraro (3m 33s):

The more opportunities that your baby has to eat. So giving your baby the opportunity to practice eating is one of the best way to help them get past the gagging. But analogy I like to use is when you think about babies, learning how to walk, we know they need to learn how to walk and there's going to be some bumps and some bruises along the way, right? They bang into the coffee table. They fall down on their bottom. We don't rush in and stop the baby from learning how to walk because the process is making us uncomfortable, all right? Gagging is the equivalent when we're learning how to eat, right? Your baby has to learn how to eat. And gagging is part of that process. And when your baby gags on food, you can't rush in and stop your baby from the process of learning how to eat, sit on your hands.

Katie Ferraro (4m 14s):

I've got some great tips in the gagging versus choking podcast episode. That's at blSpodcast.com/four. But another suggestion is to watch videos of other babies, gagging on food and recovering on their own. It will give you so much confidence in your baby's ability to do the same question from KJ Sharps. If a baby refuses a food, should we get something different out or try again the next meal? First of all, early on, it's very unusual or unlikely or not difficult for babies to have strong food aversions or food refusal. Now some babies certainly can, but the good majority of the babies in the typical population, it's going to take them a while to figure out what this food stuff is. We know from research that it may take a baby 10 to 15 exposures before he or she likes or accepts it.

Katie Ferraro (4m 58s):

So my suggestion to you is give your baby 15 to 20 minutes with that new food. I like to see parents introducing one new food per day. It's perfectly safe to introduce low-risk foods. One at a time, day after day, we do build in a little bit of a pad when we're introducing the allergenic foods, because we want to observe or look for any potential allergies. But i you're curious about, wait a minute, my pediatrician told me to wait three to five days, go back and listen to episode number 12, "Why you don't need to wait three to five days between trying new foods". So, having said that if you're doing one new food a day, give your baby 15 to 20 minutes with that food, let the baby sniff it and smell it and smash it and smush it.

Katie Ferraro (5m 39s):

That doesn't necessarily mean they don't like it. They just need time to learn how to eat. So, I would recommend sticking with it. And then also reusing that food and reintroducing that food to the baby over and over again. Because once you track the new food, it's part of your baby's repertoire now, right in future days, work it back in to the feeding schedule. Question from CKBellman1. How many times a day should I do baby-led weaning when my baby is six to seven months old and then how many meals a day do I like bump it up to? Great question. Kind of dovetails with the last question. Practice makes perfect, right? At six to seven months of age, I like to see your baby sitting in a highchair and eating one to two times a day at the eight to nine month mark, you can bump that up to two to three times a day.

Katie Ferraro (6m 21s):

And by 10 months of age, I like to see a baby sitting in the highchair, eating with the family three times a day. Now some of you might be like, well, I'm going way faster than that. And that's fine. If your eight-month old is already eating three times a day with you, that's great. They're probably not eating a ton yet, but they're just about to hit that mark eight months is kind of where it all clicks and they're going to start eating more. So maybe you're trying to sit them down three times a day. If you can handle it, that's fine. But I give those guidelines for the families that are on the other side of the spectrum, who are like, oh my seven-month old eats solid foods. Like maybe once every three days, no way! That's definitely not enough. The more practice your baby has, the more proficient he or she will become at eating. So again, six to seven months, feed one to two times a day, eight to nine months, feed two to three times a day.

Katie Ferraro (7m 4s):

And by 10 months of age offer your baby food three times a day. If that works for your schedule. Now, if that doesn't work for your schedule, you kind of have to find a way to eventually get your baby there, but is ideal to sit with your baby and eat, if you can. I know some of you will say, well, older babies don't they need snacks? If you guys have followed my podcast or my Instagram for any amount of time, you know, I'm actually not a big fan of feeding snacks early eaters. If you go back to episode 35, it's called "Snacks. Why early eaters don't need snacks?". That's one of the most downloaded episodes because a lot of other feeding experts will say, oh, babies can't meet their needs with three meals. They need snacks. And that's definitely not the truth. In that episode, I talk about why the milk that we're feeding our babies in between meals is actually their snacks.

Katie Ferraro (7m 47s):

And it's not a good idea to get in the habit of offering your baby food four and five and six times a day. All right. Another question coming from MrsRobinson1229. How, and when do I wean the baby from the bottle? And what should the timeline look like? Great question. If you are pumping and feeding breast milk out of a bottle or feeding formula out of a bottle, the goal is to have the baby off of the bottle by 12 months of age. So you'll hear some feeding experts say it's a feeding milestone to wean the baby off of the bottle by 12 months of age in real life. I want to tell you as a mom of seven kids who did baby-led weaning was six of them. I never got around to getting off the baby off the bottle by 12 months, it was a goal, but there's a lot of other stuff going on at 12 months, right?

Katie Ferraro (8m 27s):

They're starting to walk. They're hopefully getting a little words. They're, you're having a first birthday party to plan. I mean, I give myself a grace period of 12 to 15 months to get the baby off the bottle. Now that's important for parents who are like, oh, I have a 24-month old, still taking a bottle. No way. That's way too long. Extended use of the bottle can delay speech development. It also tends to lead to over consumption of milk. We want your baby drinking out of an open cup. You can doing that starting right at six months of age, but try to get your baby off of the bottle. Somewhere between 12 and 15 months is the grace period that I like to recommend. All right. I love this question from JessieGreer1.

Katie Ferraro (9m 8s):

What do I tell my family when they say quote, "but you turned out fine". This is about feeding, but I didn't, you know, with spoonfeeding families is when I say I spoon fed you and you turned out fine and she's saying, but I didn't. I don't even like vegetables. All right, Jesse, I know it can be hard to be an advocate for baby-led weaning when other people either don't understand it or disagree with it. So, my suggestion is get comfortable with feeding your baby a few foods and your own and by yourself, without anyone else in the room. As I like to say about feeding, it is not a three-ring circus. I do not need the mother-in-law and the dog and the brother and the dad in the room. If the baby's trying to learn how to eat a new food, if I'm the primary caregiver, I want to sit down with my baby in a quiet, peaceful environment, as much as possible and allow the baby the time to explore and feed that food.

Katie Ferraro (9m 57s):

And if there's a gag, then I'm the one who knows how to respond appropriately, which is not to freak out, not to lunge at the baby, right? Because lunging at the baby, when they're gagging can actually cause a harmless gag to become a harmful choke. If the baby inhales that food into their airway. So we want to be calm during gags. And if grandma is freaking out about the gag saying, oh my God, he' choking. And then someone lunges at the baby and the baby does actually choke. And the baby has a negative food association. It can kind of all be a downward spiral. So my suggestion to you is get comfortable with having your baby feed a few foods on his own before you invite anyone else into the feeding environment. And then to answer the question of, but you turned out fine. You can refer them to the research that shows us that babies who start solid foods with a baby-led approach to feeding.

Katie Ferraro (10m 40s):

First of all, there are at no higher risk of choking than our babies who do traditional spoon-feeding. If the parents are educated about how to reduce choking risks, and you guys listening to a podcast, taking online workshops, learning about baby-led weaning, you're educating yourself about lowering choking risks. There's also research that shows us that babies who start with a baby-led approach to solids, they're more likely to be independent eaters and are less likely to be picky eaters. They're learning how to feed themselves. They're learning how to respond to their inborn, hunger and fullness cues. So at the end of the day, we're allowing the baby to do the thing the baby was born to do versus shoving an arbitrary amount of pureed foods into their mouth until we think that they are full. So good luck with the family. My suggestion is get comfortable with a few foods.

Katie Ferraro (11m 21s):

And then when you are then bring grandma in who will be blown away by the baby, feeding himself sardines or eating oatmeal by himself, basically becoming an independent eater. My own mom, who's a dietitian. I've told this story in the podcast before she was so skeptical of baby-led weaning. I'm one of six kids. She said I had six kids. I spoonfed all of you. You guys are fine. This feeding yourself stuff is silly. Eventually they're going to have to learn how to use a spoon. Yeah, mom, we teach them how to start using a spoon at around six months of age. By 12 months of age, most babies can feed themselves independently with their hands and a spoon if they've had the opportunity to practice. So she was kind of turning her nose up at baby-led weaning. And then I caught her on the phone. One time when my quadruplets were about nine or 10 months old. And my daughter Claire had recently spent some time at our house and my mom was bragging to her friends.

Katie Ferraro (12m 4s):

Oh my gosh. And the baby was eating sardines and she was feeding herself beats. It was amazing. And I was like, oh mom. So now you're on board with baby-led weaning. But the truth really is you guys seeing believing, and it's important that we get comfortable with feeding our babies. I think before we invite other people who are skeptical in, but then once they see those successful foods that your baby's good with and your baby's feeding themselves, they'll be blown away. Because the baby really can do so much more than we give them credit for. Great question. A question from JenC818, do you offer water every meal and how much? No, I actually don't like water for babies, especially early on for a number of reasons. So I had did a whole episode on this.

Katie Ferraro (12m 45s):

If you go back to episode number 24, it's "Water, when to offer your baby water and how much?" I don't like water for two reasons. First of all, it's a thin liquid, which can be more challenging for babies to swallow. So the speech language pathologist that I work with, they'll differentiate between thin liquids and thicker liquids. Your baby's used to thicker liquids, right? Breast milk or formula. Those are easy for your baby to swallow parents like water because it's easier and less messy, but it's more challenging for your baby to drink. So I would recommend practicing that open cup drinking with a little bit of breast milk or formula for the first few month. Secondarily, I don't like water because it takes up room in the baby stomach and can cause the baby's stomach to feel distended that starts sending messages to the baby's brain, that the baby's starting to feel full.

Katie Ferraro (13m 27s):

I don't want the baby to feel artificially full from too much water in their stomach. I want them to be able to feel hunger and respond to hunger and to satisfy that hunger need with the food that I'm offering, not to get artificially full on water. Now, the exception is if you live in a very hot climate, you may need additional free water, or if your baby has an underlying medical condition or is on certain medications that require them to have more water than water may be appropriate. But for the most part, just stick to breast milk or formula, that's providing your baby with most of the nutrition that they need as well as their fluid needs. And they're getting fluids from some of the new foods that you're offering as well. All right. Oh, I love this one from Paducel. How can I incorporate Indian vegetables, dishes with spices? I'm trying to raise a vegetarian baby.

Katie Ferraro (14m 9s):

So I get a lot of questions about seasoning and flavoring and spices, and more often than not, as long as it doesn't have added sodium, whatever seasoning or flavoring you're thinking about adding, go ahead and do so if it's part of your food culture to have cumin or turmeric or garam masala or chili powder, whatever it is even a little bit of chili powder. Sometimes parents freak out like you're giving your baby chili powder? Chili powder is not very spicy, sprinkle it on some of the fruits or vegetables that you're making. It's a unique new flavor for your baby to try that's not harmful. Now, of course you want to avoid extremely spicy things that could be dangerous to the baby. But as long as the seasoning of the flavoring doesn't have added sugar or doesn't have added salt or isn't especially spicy, then it's totally fine for you to feed that to baby.

Katie Ferraro (14m 53s):

And if you're interested in learning more about sodium and why we want to minimize that for baby, go to episode number 33, it's called "Salt three easy ways to minimize sodium for your baby". Great question. Thank you so much. Here's another question from BabyLeonean how do I know if my six month old is ready to start? I love that you mentioned six months because most babies will be demonstrating the signs of readiness to feed at about six months of age. Now, if you had a premature baby, you want to wait until they're six months adjusted age. So I'll use the example of my quadruplets. They were born at 34 weeks gestation, right? So full term is 40 weeks. So they were essentially six weeks early. I waited until they were six months plus six weeks in order to start solid foods.

Katie Ferraro (15m 35s):

So they were seven and a half months chronological age. When we started solid foods, they were demonstrating the other signs of readiness to feed. They were sitting up relatively unassisted, that extrusion reflex with a tongue thrust reflux, where they push everything out of the mouth with their tongue that was starting to subside. They were also very interested in food and looking at what I was eating, grabbing at it. That meant it was time to eat. Now, when we started the solid foods at seven and a half months, chronological age, starting with four babies at the same time, three of them took to self feeding rather quickly. But one of my quadruplets, Henry, he put his head down on the table and he did not participate in eating for the first six weeks of solid food. Okay. So he was nine months chronological age before he picked his head up and decided he wanted to start feeding himself.

Katie Ferraro (16m 20s):

And if you were my only baby, I probably would have freaked out, like, what is wrong with this kid? He's almost nine months of age, but he wasn't ready. Okay. At that point, breast milk or formula was still meeting ost of his nutrition needs. We were starting to offer some high iron foods, but he just didn't take to it as quickly as the other kids. So the message there is that not all babies are ready at exactly six months of age. It's better to wait a little bit longer. It's always safer and way more fun to feed a baby who's ready to eat. So some parents like on a six month birthday, like I'm ready to go. Well, that's great, but your baby might not be ready to go. And if you had to prioritize, I generally tell parents that the ability to sit relatively unassisted, that's probably the most important sign of readiness to feed.

Katie Ferraro (17m 1s):

After being six months of age. I know with my sister-in-law Charlotte, when her daughter Eleanor was getting ready to eat at six months of age, she sent me a picture and I was like, let me see her sitting up. And then she sent me a picture. I was like, let me see a video of her sitting up. There's going to be a video. She sat for like a second and flopped over on her face, wait a week in a week, send me another video. The baby could sit for like two seconds and would face plant on the bed. The baby's not ready at six months and three weeks, one week later, the baby, I could sit for 10 or 15 seconds that was showing that she had the core strength that she needs need to be able to facilitate a safe swallow and to you and me like a week or two weeks. But like what's the big dif, like that's not a big deal. That's a huge amount of time as far as developmental time for your baby goes.

Katie Ferraro (17m 40s):

So when in doubt, wait it out is what I say. It's always better to wait a little bit longer. Already. Great question from Bri0085 oh oh eight, five. I'm very interested in baby-led weaning, but we do daycare three times a week. Do you have any suggestions for us? Should I just do purees then?My suggestion is whatever approach to feeding that you're going to undertake. You find a way to make that consistent for your baby at all eating experiences. So you can certainly succeed with doing daycare. And I'm actually working on an upcoming episode with you guys from a daycare owner who does do baby-led weaning in home. She also is a mom of twins, and she's going to be sharing with us how she talks to other parents about being an advocate for baby-led weaning in daycare. So I'll have more tips for you guys moving forward, but you certainly can do it, okay?

Katie Ferraro (18m 25s):

My suggestion though, is that you get comfortable with feeding your baby or allowing your baby to self feed at home, do it on a weekend, do a couple of nights. And then once you're confident request a meeting with the daycare provider or your childcare provider, and you bring the food, you bring the splash mat that you put underneath the highchair, you bring the silicone suction mat. You bring the babyled weaning spoon, whatever the gear is that you need, you have to bring it. You can't assume that they're going to have it there. Okay? And you set the baby up and you put out some familiar foods that your baby, you know, can successfully self feed. And then you allow the daycare providers to observe how you set the food up and how your baby self feeds. And if you're going to follow the principles of baby-led weaning, it means refraining from putting any food in the baby's mouth.

Katie Ferraro (19m 7s):

Okay? So even if we do purees, you can teach the daycare providers how you want to do the preloaded spoon approach to allow the baby to self feed. Okay? so you can do purees, but you don't want anyone else putting the spoon in your baby's mouth that takes away the baby's ability to regulate their own intake. It also increases choking risk. If you want more information on how to successfully combine purees, but maintain the principles of baby-led weaning and self feeding. Go listen to the bonus episode, which was purees. Plus baby-led weaning that was with speech-language pathologist and feeding expert, Dawn Winkelman. Great episode. If you want to learn more about spoons. All right. Another question is from RaygunElan.

Katie Ferraro (19m 47s):

How do I deal with extreme constipation and pain? Okay. So when it comes to constipation, it's a side effect that all babies experience, right? Their gut is getting stronger. Your gut is a huge muscle. Babies are going to have some constipation when they start solid foods, there's nothing you need to do for the most part. I mean, think about it. They've only ever had liquids in their gut, right? And now all of a sudden we're introducing more complex components of foods and fibers and different nutrients in different forms than they've had before. And that's fine, but there's a learning curve. So the gut is also learning. It's kind of the way you can think of constipation for your baby, but there is occasionally problematic constipation where you will need to do an intervention. If you go back and listen to episode number 28, it's called constipation from nuisance foods.

Katie Ferraro (20m 31s):

What to do for your baby. I think you'll get some great suggestions in there. The last question I have is from Viv and she's in Australia. What she's can eight month old baby. These have Alrighty. Cheese is made from cows milk, right? Cows milk. Protein is one of the big eight allergenic foods. It's a food that your baby certainly can have. Sometimes parents get confused. They're like, wait a minute. I thought we weren't supposed to give milk until after the age of one. Here's the deal with that? We want the baby to be exposed to cow's milk protein early and often as a way to help reduce milk protein allergy down the road. But yes, it is true. Baby should not have fluid cows milk in place of formula or breast milk until after the baby has one, but it's perfectly safe and recommended for your baby to have milk foods starting at around six months of age.

Katie Ferraro (21m 18s):

So the way I like to introduce milk, the potentially allergenic food to babies is using yogurt and did a whole episode. Number 13, all about milk protein. How to introduce your baby to this potentially allergenic food. Go check that out. If you need more advice about milk, but when it comes to cheese, you guys are probably aware at the concern for cheese with baby led weaning is that it tends to be rather high in sodium. However, there are some softer cheeses out there that are lower in sodium than you might think. Now, ideally, the goal is to minimize sodium, but in real life, we eat foods like cheese and cheese has sodium. So let's be smart about the cheese foods that we choose. Look to some of the softer cheeses. So one of my favorite cheeses for babies is ricotta cheese.

Katie Ferraro (21m 58s):

You always want to do a whole milk or full fat dairy products for babies up until the time they're too. They need that fat for their brain development. After two, you can do the reduced fat milk products, but look for full fat, whole milk, ricotta cheese. It's relatively low in sodium. It spreads nicely on things like dry crackers and dry toast. And if you guys are familiar with baby led weaning, you probably know that dry bread products can be a choking hazard. So we want to soften them up with a dipper or a topper and ricotta cheese is a great way to do that. My general rule of thumb when I'm looking for cheeses is cheese is generally listed. At least in the U S it may be different in Australia, in one ounce portions and an ounce of cheese is about the size of a domino. Or if you think about like the old school, like American cheese slices, that's an ounce of cheese as well.

Katie Ferraro (22m 41s):

One ounce of cheese. I like to see a hundred milligrams of sodium or less per serving, okay? Because most of the foods that we're feeding to our baby don't come from packages. They're not processed. They wouldn't have sodium in it. So cheese is certainly a sometimes food, but when selecting cheeses or all foods for baby led weaning for that matter, if it has a label on it, I like to see less than a hundred milligrams of sodium. There are certainly some mozzarella cheese is out there that would fit the bill. Some of the other softer cheeses, one note about softer cheeses. You always want to make sure that they are pasteurized. We never want to feed raw milk products to babies because of the potential for foodborne illness and that it could Harbor pathogens. Well, I hope you guys enjoyed that episode of just starting baby led weaning, ask me anything.

Katie Ferraro (23m 23s):

It's actually the first ask me anything episode that I've done. So I had a lot of fun doing it. I'm not sure if you guys enjoyed it or you found it helpful. I got through what I hope were most of your questions and hopefully allayed some of your fears because I know it can be scary when you start out with solid foods, you're scared about gagging and choking and how to do the allergenic foods. And then

0 (23m 44s):

How do textures? There's a line previous episodes in the podcast. I went

Katie Ferraro (23m 56s):

Ahead and linked to basically every single thing I mentioned in this episode, in the show notes for this episode. So if you guys want to grab that, the links for everything from today's episode, that's at B L w podcast.com/ 44. You can also sign up for my free weekly online baby led weaning for beginners workshop. By going to that page again, the website is B L w podcast.com/ 44. Thank you so much for listening. I'll see you next time. Bye now.