5 Things NOT to Buy When Starting Baby-Led Weaning

Hungry Root (0s):

I know that December is all about giving and giving to others. But if I may say, I sometimes do give gifts to myself. And the best gift that I gave myself this year was Hungry Root. Hungry Root takes the stress out of mealtimes by filling your cart with personalized picks and planning your week of meals, it gets smarter with every order. Like Hungry Root now knows I do not like beets. We accidentally got some beets in something and I made some tweaks Their, their technology is amazing with, there's over 15,000 recipes, first of all, that they choose from each week. My brain can't handle that. What I said is like, I want meals that are ready in just 15 minutes or less. There's this super wide grocery selection. There's things like smoothies and kids snacks and sweetss and salad kits, ready to eat, meals, supplements. It is so easy to find options that are gonna fit your whole family's taste and nutrition goals too, because I know that you're in the thick of it with baby life and holiday madness and you're working and trying to maybe maintain a friendship or relationship Or two, figuring out food every day for your family is a lot. Hungry Root knows that they fill my cart with the exact groceries and recipes that I need. Nothing more, nothing less. Everything is based on my own dietary goals. Our family food preferences. A little bit about what my kids will actually eat, but also kind of pushing the boundaries sometimes trying new foods. It literally gets better every single time we use it. No holiday crowds, no last minute store runs. No guesswork. Hungry Root gets us. My last box had this cinnamon oat bake. Now I want every morning. I love the pre chopped veggies, the easiest beef stir fry I've ever made with a sauce that like was so delicious I, I would never think of that on my own is all I have to say. I love that. Hungry Root is now like my kitchen brain. It's all clean ingredients, no junk. The meals are done in under 15 minutes. Truly a holiday miracle. Give yourself one less thing to worry about this season. If you want to check out Hungry Root, please take advantage of this exclusive offer for our listeners. For a limited time, you can get 40% off your first box, plus get a free item in every box for life. So go to Hungry Root.com/weaning and use code weaning. That's Hungry Root.com/weaning code weaning to get 40% off your first box and a free item of your choice for life Hungry Root.com/weaning code weaning. And check it out. I think you'll love how much hungry Root's gonna help streamline the meal prep in your family's life.

Depop (2m 33s):

Kids they grow up so fast one day they're taking their first steps and the next, they don't fit into the tiny sneakers. They took them in. You blink your eyes and their princess dress is too sizes, too small and their dinosaur backpack isn't cool anymore. But don't cry because they're growing up. Smile because you can profit off of it. For real. There are a bunch of parents on Depop looking for the stuff your kid just grew out of. Download Depop to start selling.

Katie Ferraro (3m 4s):

And there are just so many products out there marketed appearance that prey on our fears when we're doing something new and scary. Like starting solid foods. Not only are a lot of these products completely unnecessary, but they can actually be dangerous. So here's what you need to avoid. 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.

Katie Ferraro (3m 45s):

Well, Hey there And welcome back. It's another episode of the Baby-Led Weaning Made Easy podcast. And I don't know about you guys, but I'm a little overwhelmed by all of like the gift giving, gift receiving gift guides, stuff out there right now. We are heading at the time of this recording into the holiday season and we're in the thick of the gift stuff. So in this episode, I'm gonna go in a little different direction and I wanna run you through some ideas of things you do not need to buy when you're starting solid foods. That's right. We're gonna do five things not to buy when you begin baby led weaning. Now I'm a big fan of not needing to buy very much stuff or gear in order to give your baby a safe start to solid foods.

Katie Ferraro (4m 31s):

There are so many gimmicky products out there that if you're feeling overwhelmed, I just wanna let you know it's okay if you don't have one of these. I hope that this quick list will help clear your mind. Now I like to start out each of these baby led weaning mini training episodes with a baby led weaning tip of the day. And today's tip is kiss. Keep it simple, sweetheart, don't go cruising the aisles at Target looking for things to buy just because your baby is about to move to a new stage. When you start solid foods, before you start solid foods, the most important thing that you need is a safe height chair. And when I say a safe height chair, I mean one that has an adjustable footrest that your baby's feet can rest flat on.

Katie Ferraro (5m 12s):

And that's even from his or her first bites because not one of those dangling footrests, you see them on some high chairs where it's really only good when the kid is a full-blown toddler. I mean an adjustable footrest that your baby's feet can rest on starting at six months of age when you start solid foods. Now having your baby's feet resting flat on that solid surface helps support your baby's core and facilitates a safe swallow. And now you can certainly DIY an existing highchair to get there. You don't have to go and buy something fancy, but you do need a safe seat for your baby to eat in. And if you are in the market for a safe seat, I've got a few recommendations for you in my family Feeding gift guide. I'm gonna link that up for you on the show notes for this episode, which you can find@bwpodcast.com slash 81.

Katie Ferraro (5m 59s):

So we're gonna talk today about things not to buy, but if you're looking for some things that you might consider picking up or might make your life easier, the Family Feeding Gift Guide has a highchair section, both traditional highchair. There's two that I personally use both for my family and in my infant feeding practice as well as my favorite portable high share. So again, go to blw podcast.com/ 81 for those high shares. Now before I get into the five things not to buy when starting solid foods, I know some of you guys are trying to guess the five things on the list and if you listen to the podcast and you follow any of my courses in classes, I bet you're like I can read her mind and I'm gonna guess the five things on the list. And I bet some of you are thinking pouches, but I want you to know pouches are not on the do not buy list.

Katie Ferraro (6m 45s):

I want you to hang tight because In this episode I'll be sharing why pouches are perfectly fine, but only if you utilize them using a particular technique that will help promote independent feeding. So let's get started. Let's look at the five things you do not need to buy when you're starting baby led weaning. Now I want to start this episode with a caveat that if you have any of these things, they're not bad. I'm just saying for parents who are like, oh my gosh, I'm super overwhelmed with all this stuff that's out there 'cause my baby's moving into this new stage. I want you to know that you could definitely live without these things diving right in the first order of business. I wanna talk about number one on the list are mesh teethers. You do not need a mesh tether. Again, if you have one, they're not bad.

Katie Ferraro (7m 26s):

But let's talk for a second about mesh teethers. If you're not familiar with the concept of a mesh teether, it's also called a mesh feeder or a feeder bag or a tether bag. It's this little plastic ring that has a mesh bag attached to it and you insert a food in there and then the baby sucks the food through the mesh bag. And they're designed for parents like many baby things to give the perception of safety. Parents like, oh my gosh, I'm scared about gagging and choking. If I put this food in a bag, then the baby can just suck it out and they'll eat it safely and they won't choke. Here's the problem with the mesh. Teethers. Babies need to experience and explore a variety of different textures. So we want to offer safe shapes and sizes and textures of foods that babies can eat.

Katie Ferraro (8m 11s):

And there's no food that you would put in a mesh tether bag that I can't show you how to make safely and serve it outside of the tether bag. There's no data or evidence whatsoever that supports this notion that a product like that helps reduce choking. And in fact, a mesh teether bag can actually be dangerous. I know my own sister-in-law with her oldest is one week younger than my oldest. When they started solid foods, her daughter already had one little tooth coming through. She put a piece of fruit, a watermelon, which yes, it is a fruit that can be challenging for some babies to eat, but they can certainly eat watermelon safely. She put it in the bag, the baby was sucking on the watermelon, threw the bag, pulled the tether bag out of her own mouth and popped her own little baby tooth out.

Katie Ferraro (8m 57s):

Now in my sister-in-law's defense, it said all over the packaging, don't give this product to a baby that has teeth. But what do you do when you get a meshed teether bag? You throw the packaging out and lots of people feed these to babies that have teeth. She extracted her own baby tooth. It's funny 'cause the girls, our daughters are six years old now and it's like totally fine for six year olds to be missing their front teeth. But my poor niece has been missing her front tooth since she was six months old due solely to a teether bag. So again, they can in some cases actually be dangerous, but they're completely unnecessary. They give a false sense of security. I would much rather see your baby and you learn how to prepare foods safely and offer them to baby safely. Some parents say, oh, I like 'em for offering frozen items.

Katie Ferraro (9m 38s):

You can freeze, for example, whole milk, full fat yogurt in a little ice cube tray and feed it to your baby. They can eat it with their hands. They can eat on a spoon. You could do it in a bag if you want to, but please know if your baby even has one tooth, that product is completely inappropriate. Alright, number two thing that you don't need to buy for baby led weaning. A baby food maker, baby food makers to me, I don't get it. I mean I get it, but like I have a pot with a lid and I have water. So I essentially have the tools that accomplish the same exact thing that a baby food maker does. I was dying, a baby food maker company approached me one time to do a collaboration and I was like, oh, I'm sorry. I just really can't justify the price of a product that essentially steams food with water.

Katie Ferraro (10m 23s):

Like I'm all for products that make your life easier. Like when I was feeding my quadruplets, I actually had the formula maker machine 'cause we were making so many bottles and it made it perfectly at the right consistency and temperature. And if you had asked me like with one kid who would buy a formula maker, I was like, nobody needs a formula maker. But in that particular phase of my life, the formula maker worked. So maybe if you don't have a pot with a lid and don't have water, then a baby food maker would make sense. But to be honest, a baby food maker just steams food, which you could do with a pot and water. You could also do it in a microwave. So you don't need a baby food maker.

Ezpz (10m 56s):

Next item that you don't need to buy when you're starting baby led weaning, but you might be inclined to is a longhand baby spoon. Now my good friend and colleague, Dawn Winkelmann, she's a speech language pathologist and the feeding expert for Ezpz, the company that makes a lot of the feeding gear that I use both in my family and in my practice. She always makes the point that the majority of baby spoons on the market are designed for parents, right? They're designed for parents to hold, put food on the spoon and then put the spoon in the baby's mouth. They're not designed for babies to self feed any spoon with a long handle is for parents to put the spoon in the baby's mouth. And if you're doing baby led weaning, the whole premise of baby led weaning is that the baby drives the eating process. Now, we'll talk a little bit about spoons in a second, but Dawn, also known as Miss Dawn SLP, she developed the tiny spoon for Ezpz, which is radically different looking. It has a short fat round handle that babies can use. You might have, you have to help them preload the spoon, but they're ultimately the ones doing the feeding. So if you're gonna be doing baby led weaning, just get rid of all the longhand spoons. They're very cumbersome for your baby who's trying to learn the basic mechanics of dipping and then scooping. I highly recommend the tiny spoon that Dawn designed. You can check it out@ezpzfun.com. And if you use the code KATIE 10, you can get 10% off all of the ezpz products.

Katie Ferraro (12m 17s):

Now, the fourth item on the list, and I tease this a little bit at the top, you do not need to have a highchair in your feeding area if it doesn't have an adjustable foot rest. Now, if you buying a new highchair, go check out some of the ones that I recommend on the Family Feeding gift guide that's at blw podcast.com/ 81. But a lot of you already have high chairs and some people get offended at this recommendation like, I already got a highchair, I got it from my baby shower and I'm gonna use it. Okay, if you haven't opened it yet and you do a little research online and you realize, oh, it doesn't have an adjustable footrest if there's still the opportunity to return it, a lot of people end up doing that when they start educating themselves about the safest way to feed their baby. A lot of the highchair out there have very long footrests that only work when babies are like two and three years old.

Katie Ferraro (13m 2s):

There's a lot of DIY hacks that you can do if your chair doesn't have a footrest. So for those of you that have the IKEA Antelope high chair, I love the adjustable footrest that the company yay Baby goods, YEAH Yay Baby Goods makes basically an aftermarket footrest that goes on that IKEA antelope high chair. The Antelope high chair is like one of the most ubiquitous high chairs 'cause it costs $20. The footrest ironically costs $30, but the point is for $50 for $30 rather, you've just made the $20 high chair a safe place to eat. But the $20 high chair on its own is not. We don't want babies to have dangling legs. Another thing you can do with your existing high chair is take an adult chair and turn it around so that the seat side goes underneath the baby's feet and then stack it with boxes or books.

Katie Ferraro (13m 46s):

At my mom's house, she saves all the phone books so we can use that 'cause she's got some really, really bad old high chairs, but we can make adjustments to them to make them safe for a baby to eat. Hey, we're gonna take a quick break, but I'll be right back.

Nordstrom (14m 3s):

So, so good, so good. Give big, save big with Rack Friday deals at Nordstrom Rack. For a limited time, take an extra 40% off red tag clearance for a total savings up to 75% off save on gifts for everyone on your list from brands like Vince Cole Hunt, Sam Edelman, and more all sales final and restrictions apply. The best stuff goes fast. So bring your gift list and your wishlist to your nearest Nordstrom rack today.

Katie Ferraro (14m 36s):

So number five, on the list of things you do not need to buy when you start baby led weaning, include baby specific foods. Now when I'm talking about baby foods, you guys know with baby led weaning, the ultimate premise is that babies will be eating modified versions of the same foods the rest of the family eats. But if you go to Target, and I'm not dissing target, I just mentioned it because there's an entire aisle full of foods there that babies do not need to eat. And parents will see things like little star puffs, well little star puffs, which are little starch balls which have no nutrition in them. You're basically paying for air in a canister. They're so small that first before the baby has the pince or grasp, they can't even pick those little puffs up with their whole hand grasp.

Katie Ferraro (15m 19s):

So they don't promote independent feeding because babies don't get their pincer grasp until a few months into eating foods. Not to mention that those little puffs with that starch that they're made from, when it combines with a baby saliva, they can actually ball up and become exactly the size that would get stuck in a baby's throat, occlude the airway and cause them to choke. And parents are like, what? It's a baby food. It says it's a first stage food. There are lots of different types of first stage foods that your baby can eat that are real foods that you don't. You're essentially paying $5 for a packet of air that could actually be harmful for your baby. So just be aware that a lot of the baby food products that are marketed to parents are actually not appropriate for babies. And the perfect example is baby yogurt.

Katie Ferraro (16m 0s):

Read the ingredient list on any baby yogurt in the store and you will see an added sugar added. Sugars are not appropriate for babies under two period. You can feed your baby whole milk, full fat, plain yogurt. You don't need to go buy baby yogurt, which not only costs more per ounce, but also has added sugars, which again, we don't feed to babies and parents are like, what? But it says baby yogurt on it. The one that kills me is the shelf stable yogurt in the baby food aisle. Have you guys seen this? Go to Target, go to your grocery store. There's a yogurt. I don't wanna mention the brand, but it's on the shelf. If it's on the shelf and not refrigerated. Do you guys think there's actually yogurt in there? No, not to mention there's added sugar.

Katie Ferraro (16m 41s):

So again, you don't need to buy baby specific foods. You can modify all of the regular foods that the rest of your family eats. And some families are like, oh, I want the convenience. Okay, but you need to analyze what's in that convenience food. If it's the size that when combined with saliva could potentially choke your baby, or if it has added sugars, which is not appropriate for your baby, we need to weigh convenience against nutrition and safety. Another example is baby oatmeal. Sometimes parents are like, well I'll just, I need to buy this special kind of oatmeal. If you compare the cost of baby oatmeal to regular oatmeal, it's ludicrous baby oatmeal. You can make baby's oatmeal out of regular oatmeal.

Katie Ferraro (17m 22s):

And if you guys want more information and tips and tricks about making regular oatmeal for babies, I've got a podcast episode, it's episode number 47 and it's called Oatmeal. How Your Baby Can Safely Self Feed Oatmeal. Some parents will say, oh, well there's more iron in the baby oatmeal. Well, regular oatmeal is a whole grain and there's iron in there as well. I encourage parents to start offering their babies a variety of foods that contain all sorts of different nutrients, including iron, but natural versions of it. Because once your baby hits one and you don't feed them quote unquote baby foods and they're not getting iron from their formula, they don't magically wake up knowing how to eat meat and whole grains and other nutrient rich foods.

Katie Ferraro (18m 3s):

So don't get in the habit of relying on baby foods. If you're starting solid foods, your baby has the opportunity to like and try and accept a huge variety of foods and flavors and tastes and textures. So there you have it. Five things not to buy your baby when you're starting a baby led weaning. Okay, and this was a little hard to for me to narrow it down to five because I reached out to you guys on Instagram to tell me about unnecessary things. And again, not judging if you have any of these things, just sharing that you don't need to go buy them if you haven't already purchased them. There's a lot of stuff out there that we just absolutely don't need. And I got a lot of other suggestions from parents about things that they bought that they now wish they didn't. There's a mom, her name is Kelly Amanda, and she wrote back to one of my emails, she said some of the most unneeded things or things that I had that ended up not working out were mats and plates and bowls that go on the baby's tray that don't stick.

Katie Ferraro (18m 56s):

'cause she just found that the baby just moves them all around. She mentioned the mesh feeder bags. She said, there's so many weird utensils out there that don't look like adult utensils and they kind of give you that perception of like, oh, they're developmentally appropriate. But the point is, our babies need to learn how to use a spoon starting at around six months, a fork starting at around 12 months. We should give them the utensils and the tools that will help them learn how to have those skills. And then another thing that Kelly added was that a lot of the traditional bat bibs that snap behind the neck, those can sometimes go really high up in the baby's neck. Like think about if you were trying to learn how to eat and swallow and something was basically choking you around the neck. That's a rather unpleasant sensory experience.

Katie Ferraro (19m 38s):

And also the bibs that snap or tie right behind the neck, babies learn how to rip them off pretty easily. So I prefer the ones that kind of tie behind the shoulder blade.

BapronBaby (19m 48s):

There's a brand called Bapron Baby that I really like. They make these Baby bibs. It's like a hybrid between a bib and an apron. If you go to bapron baby.com, the code is Katie10, you can get 10% off there.

Katie Ferraro (19m 58s):

So Kelly, I just wanted to say thank you for chiming in and to everyone else who sent stories or ideas about things they don't need. We had to limit the list to five for this episode, but there's probably hundreds of things that you could live without, right? So I hope you guys enjoyed a quick little run through of some ideas of five different things that you do not need to buy when you begin baby led weaning. It was hard for me, I have to be honest to limit it to five just because I think so much of the gear out there is so gimmicky. But I reached out to you guys on social media and was asking like to share some ideas of things that you bought or got that you now realize like related to feeding, you totally don't need one follower Kelly, Amanda wrote back to one of my emails and she said, okay, some of the things I have not needed so far are like I have a lot of plates that don't suction, so they like slide all over the place and it just frustrates everyone and makes a bigger mess.

Katie Ferraro (20m 44s):

She mentioned mesh feeder bags as being something she doesn't need. Weird utensils that don't look like adult utensils. And then also traditional bibs that like snap or tie behind the baby's neck. Because if you think about it, like those get pretty tight sometimes and if you're trying to learn how to eat or even eat when you know how to and something is like basically choking you around the neck, that can be a pretty negative sensory experience. So I prefer the bibs that tie underneath the back of the baby's shoulder blade.

BapronBaby (21m 8s):

There's a brand I like called Bapron Baby. They make this hybrid, it's like a bib, but an apron perfect for baby Led Weaning. If you go to bapronbaby.com, the code KATIE10 works for 10% off there and you can check out those bibs that then don't kind of choke off your baby around the neck.

Katie Ferraro (21m 27s):

Now I just wanna reiterate, if you have any of these things that we talked about, there's nothing inherently bad about them. In some cases they can be dangerous, but just keep in mind if you're feeling overwhelmed by all the stuff out there that a lot of the products that are market to us as parents, especially when we're learning to do something that is new or a little scary, like starting solid foods, they're really just there to prey on our fears and they end up being totally unnecessary. I do think there are a few pieces of gear that can make your life easier when you're starting solid foods. In some cases, like the item, like a highchair, I know it's a big ticket item, it is an investment, but you do have to think, gosh, this is something I'm gonna feed my child in for at least three times a day. Some of these chairs extend well into adolescence, certainly worth the money investing early on versus wasting our money on a bunch of other gimmicky stuff out there that we'll never need.

Katie Ferraro (22m 14s):

So if you wanna check out some of the picks that I have selected that I really do like and use again, both in my family and practice, I line them all up for you guys in a family feeding gift guide. There's a high chair section you'll wanna check out. You can find that@blwpodcast.com/81. And just to finish off the episode, remember I mentioned pouches are not on the list. Now pouches which contain pureed foods, babies don't need to learn how to suck out of them. The thing I don't like about pouches is that there's no developmental milestone or feeding goal that we have to teach our babies how to suck out of a foil tube. Purees are fine provided that you're allowing your baby to feed the purees.

Katie Ferraro (22m 55s):

And how do you do that? If you have a pouch, you can squeeze the pouch into a bowl. You can scoop the food from the bowl onto the spoon, hand the spoon to your baby handle side first and allow the baby to bring the spoon to their mouth. Now, pouches end up getting really expensive. I was laughing. It was at target. I had a lot of target references today. This is not in any way sponsored by Target, but I was at Target and there's a particular brand of refrigerated pouch food and it was $5 a pouch. And I was like, if parents buy three of these a day, which by the way is not even nearly enough food, when your baby gets going with eating solid foods to meet their nutrition needs, that's $15 a day. Like I don't even spend $15 a day to feed my seven kids, I feel like. So pouches can get really expensive. They're not developmentally necessary.

Katie Ferraro (23m 35s):

I prefer to feed babies if it's a puree, which is an important texture for babies to learn how to master, we do purees. But I prefer foods that naturally need to be pureed or are pureed like oatmeal and unsweetened applesauce and yogurt. Those are great for doing baby led weaning, but you don't need to unnecessarily puree foods that babies can eat soft solid versions of after the first few days of baby led weaning. So if you wanna learn more about my purees for a few days approach to starting solid foods, go check out episode five of the podcast. It's how to do purees for a few days when starting solid foods, but you never need your baby to suck out of that pouch.

Katie Ferraro (24m 16s):

Alright, see you guys later. Bye now.

NortonLifeLock (24m 25s):

The holidays mean more travel, more shopping, more time online and more personal info and more places that could expose you more to identity theft. But LifeLock monitors millions of data points per second. If your identity is stolen, are US based restoration specialists will fix it. Guaranteed or your money back, don't face drained accounts, fraudulent loans or financial losses alone. Get more holiday fun and less holiday worry with LifeLock. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com/podcast terms apply.