7 Baby-Led Weaning Mistakes I Made...So You Don't Have To

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Katie Ferraro (1m 1s):

And when I go back in my phone and I look at the pictures of the quadruplets when they were starting solid foods, like they're sitting in their feeding table and I'm seeing their feet dangling and I'm seeing the way I prepped the food and I didn't put it on a suction matter bowl and like just like all the things I was doing cringing so hard right now. But Guess what? They lived. It's not a big deal. But like these are things I've learned in teaching. Baby Led Weaning exclusively now for 10 years. I'm like, if I can save parents some heartache, I don't feel bad. I'll tell you all the dumb stuff that I did. Here's seven of the biggest mistakes that I made. 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 (1m 57s):

I like the number seven. I have seven kids. I could highlight five mistakes I've made starting solid foods or 10, but I'm gonna do seven. These are seven things that if I look back on my phone, I totally cringe at these seven things that I did with my babies when I was starting solid foods. Now I've been a dietitian for 25 years. I've been teaching Baby-Led Weaning exclusively for almost 10 of those. I have made every mistake in the book, okay? But I also see parents making a lot of mistakes too. So the point of this episode is to help you not make the mistakes the rest of us already have. Okay? I want you to stick to the practices that are gonna help your baby start solid foods safely. So when parents in my Baby-Led Weaning program ask for feedback or they want me to review their baby eating videos, I'm happy to give it and do it.

Katie Ferraro (2m 38s):

But I am not in the business of providing unsolicited criticism about infant feeding practices. Like you will never see me post a photo in my feed or in my stories or in my content or workshops or courses that ever feature a dangerous feeding practice. Okay? I don't reshare any videos or pictures that I'm tagged in if it shows a baby being fed unsafely. So this is kind of an uncomfortable topic for me because in order to broach some of these topics, it's just way easier if I share mistakes that I have made to reinforce that A, we are all human and we make mistakes, especially when we're doing something for the first time, like raising small people and B, for the mistakes that are totally preventable. I wanna give you a few tips that you can employ in your own family if you're just getting starting solid foods, okay?

Katie Ferraro (3m 21s):

If you've made some of these same mistakes as me, or if you're currently making them, it's not a big deal, okay? Your baby learning how to eat is a continual process. You can make adjustments along the way If you notice that you're getting stuck or if something isn't working. So I like to start each of these mini training episodes with a Baby-Led Weaning tip of the day. And today's tip, do not cut your baby's pieces of food up very small. I know that sounds counterintuitive, right? Parents are like, oh, I'm just gonna cut the pieces of food up super small so the baby doesn't choke. But when your child is starting solid foods at 6 or 7, even 8 months of age, they do not have their pincer grasp yet. So they can't even pick up the foods on their own without that pincer grasp. So actually the safest size of food for early eaters are longer pieces of food.

Katie Ferraro (4m 3s):

The one shaped about the size of your adult pinky finger. And hang tight because I'm gonna be sharing some tips today about safe food preparation. But if you're currently cutting up the food's really small because it feels safer, it's actually not those really small pieces of food, they're exactly the same size that could potentially occlude your baby's airway. So even though it feels weird, offer the bigger pieces of food. Let your baby pick it up and feed it to themselves. Alright, let's dive in. Here are seven mistakes that I made starting solid foods that I don't want you to make. The first one is dangling feet at the high chair. In my case, it was a feeding table. I got gifted a feeding table for my quadruplets.

Katie Ferraro (4m 44s):

So another quadruplet family had it and they passed it down to me. And it was basically like something they use at a preschool where you drop the kids into these buckets. It was literally the cutest thing ever, except now looking back. So super dangerous because there was no footrest. So these little babies didn't have a solid foot plate where they could rest their feet. And that's one of the most important tenets of starting solid foods, is that having your baby's feet resting flat on a solid foot plate stabilizes their core and it helps support a safe swallow. So I love to look back on my phone and videos of the quads starting solid foods, but I'm also like, oh, this is so cringe because their feet are dangling everywhere. And so think about yourself, like if you're sitting on a bar stool and you have your feet dangling, okay, you feel completely uncentered.

Katie Ferraro (5m 29s):

Now what If you were just learning how to eat? Okay? And there's a lot of gagging involved and you're kind of scared 'cause the food is making it to the back of your mouth and all of a sudden it gets a little too far back and it engages your gag reflex. And you wanna stomp your feet down to stabilize your core so you can use your now developing mouth muscles to push that food forward away from your airway to protect your airway. And Guess what? There's nowhere for you to put your feet down. That's how a baby feels. Okay? And that's why not having a footrest actually increases the risk of choking when your child is starting solid foods. So get yourself a highchair with an adjustable footrest. And not all footrests are created equal, okay? Most of the footrests that are out there are for like when your baby turns two. So I've got lots of tips, lots of other episodes, videos, et cetera, about how to DIY, your own safe footrest at home.

Katie Ferraro (6m 16s):

But whatever you do, steer clear of the dangly feet. That was my first mistake. Number two, I used to with my oldest child, 'cause I did not know any better, put food directly on the highchair tray. I had a crappy highchair back in the day. It was like, I'm gonna be honest, it was the one that reclined, which is so dumb, that's so dangerous. This is another mistake. I'm gonna make this eight mistakes. This wasn't even on the list. The high chair. That reclines is so stupid because reclining actually opens up your child's airway and dramatically increases the risk of choking. You want your child's back flat. So picture my baby in this dumb, expensive high chair that also reclines, which is so silly, and her feet didn't touch, the foot rests. And then it had a tray, which is also dumb because babies, If you have a good height chair, it can just be pulled right up to the table.

Katie Ferraro (6m 60s):

But I would put the food directly on her tray when I was finally not scared enough to give her finger foods. And all she would do would smash her hand down and smash the food all over the place. When you put the food directly on the tray or the tabletop, especially for early eaters, they don't have their pincer grasp yet. They can't pick that food up. They smash it, they smear it all around, and then the family says, oh see, they can't feed themselves. I need to put it on a spoon and shove it in their mouth. The way that you prevent this is by offering the finger foods out of a suction mat or bowl that has a pliable barrier or a lip on the side against which the baby can rake or scrap the food up and into their mouth.

Ezpz (7m 35s):

So I use the suction mats bowls from a company called Ezpz. All of the ezpz feeding gear was developed by a feeding expert. Her name is Dawn Winkelmann, the Tiny Bowl. It's good for smaller pieces of food, but really my jam. My favorite piece of the Ezpz equipment, which literally no one talks about, and I don't even know how many people buy it anymore, but I love the mini bowl. This is perfect for offering finger foods for babies. It's a suction mat. It's suctions to the table if you're, you have to, the table has to be flat. So If you have like a distress surface, it doesn't work. If you have a distressed surface, like a distressed wood table, you put a flat cutting board down and then you put the bowl on top of that and it suctions to that. And then your baby has a barrier again, again, which they can rake and scoop the food up and feed it to themselves. It solves all your problems. Oh, also the surface has to be dry and clean and flat in order for the suction mat to work. If you wanna check out the ezpz feeding gear, the affiliate Discount code Babyled always works for 15% off. So you can get 15% off the ezpz feeding gear If you go to Ezpzfun.com/babyled.

Katie Ferraro (8m 33s):

So number two, don't put the food directly on the table. Set your baby up for success. Give 'em a suction mannerable. Hey, we're gonna take a quick break, but I'll be right back.

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Katie Ferraro (10m 47s):

Number three, I am a bit of a clean freak. I'm Type A, I'm a dietitian. It's fine. I've come to terms with it. But wiping your baby's face while they're learning how to eat is a very negative sensory experience. Like think about it. How would you feel If you were trying to learn how to eat oatmeal? And this lady's like constantly coming at you with her wet wipe or her wash cloth. I know it's annoying, but getting messy is part of learning how to eat. Okay? Especially when your baby's practicing that open cup drinking, they need to feel that milk dribbling down the side of their mouth and into their neck, okay? Because what they're gonna do next time is make a slight micro correction and change it so that they don't feel that uncomfortable food all over their face of their neck. Okay? So learning how to eat full sensory experience, wiping the crap outta your baby in the middle of their meal, negative sensory experience.

Katie Ferraro (11m 29s):

Let the baby finish the meal, okay? And when the meal is over, that's when we take care of the mess because our goal is not to prevent the mess. Okay? We can do a lot of things to minimize the mess, but we don't want to prevent the mess. That's number 3. Number 4, I did this with, even with my quads, I didn't know any better, but I offered CFI cups. Since then, I've learned so much about the drawbacks of sippy cups. Dawn, Miss Dawn, Dawn Winklemann, speech language pathologist. And I did a whole episode on six reasons to skip the sippy cups, but I'll boil it down for you. They promote over consumption of milk. They're bad for your baby's teeth, they're bad for your baby's language skills. There's a bunch of other reasons why they're really not good. It's a totally different mechanism than learning how to drink out of an open cup. I gave my baby all these big sippy cups 'cause I thought that's what you did after like breast or bottle and you don't, okay, open cup drinking is where we want the baby to go from breast or bottle to open cup drinking.

Katie Ferraro (12m 15s):

So you can totally skip the sippy cup. And if you'd like to learn more about that, check out that episode. Six Reasons to Skip the Sippy Cup. Number five, I originally thought Baby-Led Weaning meant totally passing on purees. So I was like, oh. It was back in the era of like Facebook groups and people would like, oh, If you do purees, you're not doing baby led weaning. Now I work very closely with Gill Rapley, who started Baby-Led Weaning, the co-author of the original Baby-led weaning book, and we're all in agreement that Baby-Led Weaning does not mean skipping purees. Purees are a very important texture for your baby to master. It's just not the only texture that your baby can eat. So you can honor the self-feeding principles of Baby-Led Weaning and still offer your baby naturally pureed foods like oatmeal and unsweetened applesauce and full fat, whole milk yogurt.

Katie Ferraro (12m 59s):

We just do that using what's called the preloaded spoon approach. Got a whole training on how to do the preloaded spoon approach that I'll link to. I use the ezpz tiny spoons that Dawn invented. Actually got to try those out with my twins. So they came after my quadruplets. So before the ezpz tiny spoons went to market. We got to beta test them with the twins, which is so fun. These are now like the award-winning first Baby-Led Weaning spoons. Everybody uses them, but it was so cool to like get to use them before they were out. So I feel like I didn't know about a baby Led Weaning spoon before they were invented. So I'm glad they're out there now, and I hope you can use it so that you can do purees safely. But your baby is the one leading the way. Number 6 mistake that I made when we were starting Solid Foods with the quads, I didn't know what foods to offer.

Katie Ferraro (13m 44s):

I kept doing the same simple starter foods over and over. Avocado, banana, sweet potato, like If you would like look online or in Facebook groups at the time, early days of Instagram, it was like, yeah, avocado, banana, sweet potato. There was lots of info out there about why baby Led Weaning was a good idea, but not a lot of good info about how to actually then make the foods safe. And so part of the whole reason why I created my Hundred First Foods program was to show parents how to make a whole variety of different baby Led Weaning foods safe. 'cause once I realized, oh my gosh, I have to do more than the simple starter foods, or they're never gonna get all their nutrition, get all their allergens, have all these textures, I started realizing, oh, you can modify all these foods that I'm already eating. Just make 'em a little bit differently to make them safe for the baby.

Katie Ferraro (14m 24s):

I wanted parents to have access to the same exact program that I wished I had when we were starting Solid Foods. So that's the whole crux behind the hundred First Foods approach. If you wanna grab a copy of my original a 100 FIRST FOODS list, I give it to everybody on my free workshop called BABY-LED WEANING FOR BEGINNERS. This is a one hour free online workshop that shows you how to, you know, make all the food safe. I show you the visuals about food prep, and then I give you the 100 First Foods list so you'll never run out of ideas of foods your baby can safely eat. You can sign up for that, that workshop at baby led weaning.co/workshop and grab that 100 FIRST FOODS list. So don't do the same simple starter foods over and over. Get the 100 First Foods list, print it out, put it on your fridge, start knocking those foods off.

Katie Ferraro (15m 5s):

The last thing that I would say that was like a mistake that I made is I used to stress out when my babies wouldn't eat, especially with the quads, like one of our sons, Henry, he would just put his head down for like the first six weeks when they were starting solid foods. I was like, what is wrong with him? Why is he not eating? I now know that all babies get ready to eat on their own timeframe. Your baby at nine months of age, if you're just switching from purees, they're not gonna be eating the same foods as another baby in the program who's already been eating solid foods for 12 weeks. Okay? All babies have their own timeframe as far as being able to tolerate different tastes and different textures. So don't stress out if your baby is not eating the same amount of food that another friend's baby is at the same exact age. Probably heard that phrase.

Katie Ferraro (15m 44s):

Compare and despair. Don't compare your baby to anyone else. Now, I do want your baby to be moving towards a point where by age one, most of their nutrition is coming from food. And even If you feel like you're getting a late start to starting solid foods with Baby-Led Weaning, you can make the switch from puree your baby provided their six months of age and sitting up on their own. They can start eating finger foods. It's developmentally appropriate for babies to start exploring with finger foods at six months of age and when they're showing those other signs of reliability and readiness to eat. So don't be shy about making that switch. And if you're doing this at eight or nine months of age, you just gotta double it up. So we actually have a track inside of the program for parents who are getting a late start where they can double up and they do two new foods a day so that we can get your baby to a hundred foods before they turn one.

Katie Ferraro (16m 27s):

So If you wanna check out that program, it's called Baby Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro. You can actually sign up and save $50 when you join using the code BLWPOD50. My program has a whole 100 First Foods Daily Meal Plan. It's literally, I wrote 20 weeks of meal plans for you guys, show you exactly which foods to make on which days I got all the videos and instructions and recipes for your baby's age and stage. Check that out at baby-led weaning.co/program again, that code BLWPOD50 will save you 50 bucks. If you wanna check it out, I'll also link it up in the description, wherever you're watching or listening to this, and I'll put everything on the show notes, which you can find@blwpodcast.com/87.

Katie Ferraro (17m 9s):

A 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 Media. We are online@blwpodcast.com. Thank you so much for listening and watching. I'll see you next time. Bye now.

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