Katie Ferraro (1s):

And so much of our worry originates from things we simply have not experienced yet. And I promise you, once you feed your baby these five foods during the first five days of baby led weaning, you're going to be like, what was I ever even worried about? Hey there, I'm Katie Ferraro, Registered Dietitian, college nutrition professor, and mama of seven specializing in baby led weaning. Here on the Baby-Led Weaning Made Easy podcast I help you strip out all of the noise and nonsense about feeding, leaving you with the competence and knowledge you need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods using baby led weaning.

Katie Ferraro (44s):

Hi, and welcome back to another episode of the baby led weaning made easy podcast. I'm your host, Katie Ferraro. I'm a registered dietician and mom of seven specializing in baby led weaning. And today we are talking about the schedule for the first five days. What do you need to get started with baby led weaning? I'm literally going to walk you through exactly what I would do If I were you starting baby led weaning with my baby. Now you don't have to follow this to the T, but if you're looking for an outline, I'm going to give you some really practical tips for how you can keep your baby on track to succeed with self-feeding when you're starting out with baby led weaning.

Katie Ferraro (1m 24s):

So this is an episode for parents and caregivers. If you're going to be starting baby led weaning, if you get the benefits of raising a self-feeding baby, if you're like raising your hand, heck yeah, I'm on board with this, but what exactly do I do? I made this episode for you. So as I do with all of my podcast episodes, I want to start us out with a baby led weaning tip of the day. And the tip for today is by the time you have done these five different foods, I'm going to talk about today with your baby during the first week of baby led weaning, trust me, your confidence in your baby's ability to self feed will skyrocket.

Katie Ferraro (2m 4s):

I know you've seen all those research studies about, if you do something X, number of times, it becomes a habit. This is like, if you can get through these first five days and not freak out and lose your cool, you will be so assured that your baby has the ability to do this. You're going to be like, why did I ever doubt it? So I think as parents, caregivers, so much of our worry originates from things that we just simply have not experienced yet. So I promise you, once you feed your baby who is six months of age, plus exhibit any other signs of readiness to feed these five foods, you're going to be like, why was I ever worried about what foods to start with and hang tight? Because in this episode, I'm going to share with you the exact procedure for what and how I prep foods for the first five days of baby led weaning, not just for my own babies, but also for all the other families that I work with who are just getting started on solid foods.

Katie Ferraro (2m 57s):

So let's go ahead and dive in. We're looking at this schedule for the first five days, how to get started with baby led weaning. So my absolute favorite first food for starting baby led weaning is avocado. I like to do five new foods per week. You can safely introduce five new foods per week because four of those are going to be low risk foods. And on your fifth day, you're going to introduce an allergenic food. So I'm going to walk you through the first five days, but I'm going to start with something nice and easy avocado. Now avocado is my preferred first food for baby led weaning because it's nutrient dense, there's over 20 different vitamins and minerals in an avocado. Not that it really matters because of course the good majority of your baby's nutrition is going to be coming from breast milk or formula when you're starting out.

Katie Ferraro (3m 44s):

So they're going to like maybe get a few little tidbits in their mouth if that, but avocado is a good one to start with because the texture is nice and soft and it works for my purees for a few days approach. Now I get it. Your baby has only ever had liquids, right? Thick liquids, like breast milk or formula have been the entirety of your baby's nutrition up until six months of age as it should be. So it seems like a little bit of a stretch to assume your baby's going to jump right from thick liquids to soft, solid versions of foods without doing any purees in between. Now I value purees as an important texture for your baby to learn how to master. However, purees are not the only food that babies can eat too often I work with families who are stuck on purees for weeks or months on end.

Katie Ferraro (4m 34s):

So I recommend you do purees for a few days before moving into some of those more soft, solid foods. And avocado is a great one to start with. Okay, you can make a thin puree of avocado. You can make a thicker or chunkier puree, and you can offer your baby soft, solid strips of avocados. You can actually do all of that within the first day in the first 15 minute feed. So if you guys haven't had a chance, make sure you listen to episode number five, it's called how to do purees for a few days when starting solid foods. But I recommend your first day put that baby in the highchair. Your baby's six months of age again, plus exhibiting the other signs of readiness to feed you have a foot rest on your highchair.

Katie Ferraro (5m 17s):

Your baby's feet are resting flat, make three different bowls. I like the Silicon silicone suction bowls and mats from ezpz. I like the tiny bowl for trying new foods. That's a five ounce portion. It suctions to your baby's highchair, make a thin puree where you take that avocado and you mix it up with some breast milk or some formula and put it on a preloaded spoon. I also like another ezpz product called the tiny spoons. I preload the spoon for baby led, weaning, hand it to the baby, and then let the baby start bringing that spoon to their mouth. They're not going to get much of it in their mouth at first, but the point is you're testing out that your baby can do okay on a thin puree.

Katie Ferraro (5m 58s):

Do that for about five minutes and then bring a second one. Well that has a thicker or chunkier puree. Your baby might take the preloaded stuff for this one. Or might grab it with his or her hands. Do that for another five minutes. And then if your baby appears to be doing well, not no profuse vomiting, then move on and do the soft, solid strips of avocado in the 3rd five minutes of that feed. So literally in the first 15 minutes of feeding your baby, you've offered them a thin puree of avocado. So a chunkier thicker, thicker puree of avocado, and then the soft solid strips. And they're not going to eat very much of it. You're just observing that your baby can do okay on textures. Other than the thick liquids of breast milk or formula they've been having.

Katie Ferraro (6m 40s):

The point here is not to quantify or figure out how many calories the baby's getting from food. We want to give our babies the opportunity to learn how to eat. Avocado is a great one to do on the first day. If you're up for it, try the same thing again, later in the day at the six to seven month mark, we love to see your babies eating one to two times a day at the eight to nine month. Maybe bump that up to two to three times. And then by 10 to 12 months, you want to see the baby eating three times with the rest of the family, if possible. So that's the first day of baby led weaning one to two times, just do avocado, take it easy. I know your babies are smart, but don't have any like overblown expectations. It's going to be messy. There's not going to be much eating.

Katie Ferraro (7m 20s):

And again, that's fine because breast milk or formula continues to be your baby's primary source of nutrition. Day two though, again, not much happening, but try a new food. Get in the habit of trying one new low risk food per day, Monday to Thursday. And then on Friday is the day I like to do a new allergenic food. This is all part of my five step feeding framework. This is the framework that sets the stage for the a hundred first foods approach that I developed for introducing your baby to foods safely using baby led weaning. It is perfectly safe to introduce your baby to one new low risk food per week. I have an episode all about why you actually don't need to wait three to five days between introducing low-risk foods.

Katie Ferraro (8m 8s):

So if you have, I haven't already heard that. Go ahead and go back to episode number 12, why you don't need to wait three to five days between introducing foods. If you go to blwpodcast.com/12, you can find that episode. Now back to bananas. That's day two, that I do. I do a new fruit, a new vegetable, a new starch, a new protein and a new challenge food every week. I'll talk to you about the challenge foods in a second for the first five days, second days do banana, and it's nice and easy, right? We've if you've ever fed a baby, you've probably fed a baby banana. I love to do strips of banana. I cut the banana in half long wise and then cut it in half across the shorter end and then cut each half then into four pieces.

Katie Ferraro (8m 54s):

So you have like eight little Spears about the size of a big French fry or your pinky finger serve that to your baby. Fruit is fine. Your baby will not develop an affinity for sweetness if you offer fruit. But we do want to offer fruit in conjunction with other vegetables. So the second day I do banana. If you're still wanting to do those purees, do a thin puree of banana where you mix that puree. Take a soft one because the soft ones are easier to mash up with some breast milk or formula. Do that for five minutes, preload the tiny spoon, hand it to your baby, watch them go to town. They might not eat very much and that's fine. You might have to help guide the baby's spoon to their mouth at the beginning, do a thicker puree and then do the strips of banana.

Katie Ferraro (9m 36s):

Again, just spending about 15 to 20 minutes, feeding that food. And then if you're up for it, do it again later in the day with some of the banana, and then maybe bring back in that familiar food from the day before, which is avocado that's day two day three on the third day of the week, I always focus on a starchy food. So I love sweet potato as a way to introduce baby to their first starchy food. Sweet potatoes are so easy. Scrub the outside, Pierce it with the fork roasted or bake it at 350 for an hour or two hours, depending upon how big the sweet potato is, make sure it's tender all the way through. Take it out of the oven. Let it cool till you can like handle it, remove the skin. Cause it's way easier to get the skin off before it cools to room temperature, and then cut that semi cooled sweet potato into again, strips about the size of your adult pinky finger.

Katie Ferraro (10m 25s):

Take some of that, mash it up for a thin puree, make a thicker chunkier puree, and then also make a third bowl with those soft solid strips. The sweet potato feed. Each of those to your babies, five minutes at a time. So five, 10, 15 minutes. Most babies can sit in their high chair for 15 to 20 minutes. You have now introduced your baby to the third food. And in about this time, you're like, hold up. Like I don't even know that my baby needs the purees. And to be honest, you don't need to unnecessarily puree foods that your baby could eat soft, intact versions of like sweet potato. But the first few days using my purees for a few days approach, you might want to do that. So go with sweet potato for day three, nice source of carbohydrates, good amount of energy.

Katie Ferraro (11m 8s):

There's other nutrients in there. There's some fiber, a cool new flavor profile. You're three days in and your baby has now tried three different foods. Once your baby gets a few foods under their belt. I generally say a baby can sit for 15 to 20 minutes at a mealtime. Most babies can do that. The way I like to do it is to split that 20 minutes where the first 10 minutes I offer the baby the new food. So let's say sweet potato, maybe, you know, do the thin period or the thicker period, do some strips. And then after 10 minutes swap in a more traditional meal with three foods, we never want to feed our babies more than three foods at a time. It can be very overwhelming for them of those three foods include two familiar foods.

Katie Ferraro (11m 49s):

So in this case, your baby's already seen avocado. They've already seen banana put a little bit of that back on the plate, and then also include the new food of the day, which is sweet potato. So in that way on day three, you're starting to cycle in some of those previous foods. This is you fulfilling that idea of, Hey, I need to introduce it's my baby to these foods early and often again, we don't do it too early. We wait until the baby is six months of age, plus exhibiting the other signs of readiness to feed. But there you have it. That is day three. Now we're moving into day four. This is where people get frustrated. This is meat day. If your family eats meat, just get in the habit of offering your baby meat. You know, it's a valuable source of iron.

Katie Ferraro (12m 29s):

Iron is important for your baby's cognitive development. But as parents, we sometimes freak out like, dude, I can do sweet potato. I can do bananas, but sweet potatoes, bananas, avocado. Those are soft, solid foods. I recognize that, but like meat are you saying my baby can eat meat. The first week of solid foods. I don't want to, you know, cause any ideals of grand delusion for you, but the reality is your baby's not going to actually eat that much meat. Okay, they're going to suck on it. They're going to smell it. They're going to taste it like it. There's not very much happening, but do try to offer a meat on day four. And here's the deal. I teach a introduction to solid foods, a free workshop called baby led weaning for beginners.

Katie Ferraro (13m 12s):

And many of you have taken it. If you go to my show notes page, it's always linked up there. And in that course, I show you the first 10 days of baby led weaning. And a lot of parents are like, whoa, you do lamb on day four. Like they're halfway paying attention. They're like avocado banana sweet potato, no big deal. Whoa lamb on day four. And I kind of do it to get your attention. Like people say, why did you pick lamb for day four of your a hundred first foods program? The reality is I was, I did that first foods program first with my quadruplets when they were doing baby led weaning. And then I refined it with my baby twins. After I'd already developed it into a program. When I went to feed them a meat on day four, the only meat I had to my freezer was a boneless leg of lamb.

Katie Ferraro (13m 53s):

So I was like, oh shoot, well, I need to make a meat recipe. So we did lamb on day four because babies, to be honest, can try any type of a fatty cut of meat. That's nice and soft and moist and juicy. It could be chicken or pork or things people are more familiar with, but I just happened to have lamb. That's actually the story behind why lamb is on day four of my a hundred first foods program. Of course you don't have to follow these to the T, but every week when you're doing a new food on the fourth day, if you're following my five-step feeding framework, you do lamb or you do a meat rather. Yeah. And on the first week I just happened to do lamb. So lamb is great because like all animal flesh, it's a good source of iron.

Katie Ferraro (14m 33s):

It's a new flavor and a texture experience for your baby. If you cook it with broth, let's say in a slow cooker, you just want to make sure you use a low sodium broth, okay? They're not going to eat very much of it. But one thing that's good about doing meat on day four is that you are getting in the habit of serving your baby one new, different per week. You can puree. If you want to personally, I think pureed meat looks gross, but this is not about what it looks like. Your baby doesn't care. You can preload that spoon offer than the thin puree of meat, the thicker period of meat, and then some soft solid strips of juicy moist meat. Again, not eating much, but the more moist the meat is, the more fluid there is. The more juice, the more sauce that helps reduce choking risks because dry meats equal a choking hazard.

Katie Ferraro (15m 21s):

So don't serve your baby chicken breasts or Turkey breast right off the bat. There's not enough fat fat equals moisture. Moisture helps to reduce the choking risk. So that's day four, offer your baby and meat. You can do lamb or whatever other meat you have on hand, but day five. Here's the kicker. This is where you want to do your first allergenic food. And a lot of parents kind of balk at this like, whoa, I can do avocado. I can do banana. I can do sweet potato. I know you can. Those are easy foods to feed. And after three days bring in a meat, that's a little more challenging. Day five, push yourself, do the first allergenic food. There are eight foods. We call them the big eight. They account for 90% of food allergy, the guidance and the data.

Katie Ferraro (16m 3s):

And the research is increasingly leaning towards early introduction of these foods helps prevent food allergy. So we want to introduce the allergenic foods early and often, but parents are scared of them and you don't need to be scared of them. Starting in week. One of solid foods at six months of age, when your babies exhibit any other signs of readiness to feed, just get in the habit of every Friday, introduce one new allergenic food. It is perfectly safe to introduce the other low-risk foods that are not allergenic foods one per day, but on Friday when you do the allergenic food, hold off on doing any other new foods until the following Monday, you want to give yourself two to three days to observe for any potential reaction. And it doesn't really matter what order you introduce foods in, but with the allergenic foods, I think it makes the most sense to start with either peanut egg or milk.

Katie Ferraro (16m 52s):

Those are the three most common pediatric food allergies. So pick one milk. You can do yogurt, do full fat, plain whole milk yogurt preloaded on a spoon for your baby as a way to introduce them to cow's milk protein for peanuts. I like to do peanut puffs because peanut butter and Intact peanuts are a choking hazard. So the peanut puff brand that I like is a brand called puffworks, baby. And you can get 20% off their product. If you go to their website, puffworks.com with the code 20 baby led. I like those for peanuts. Do that in week two or week one or week three, but basically do peanuts do milk and do egg in the first three weeks as again, those are the most, the three most common pediatric food allergies.

Katie Ferraro (17m 36s):

So pick egg, if you feel comfortable with it and do it and then do it twice on Friday, once or twice on Saturday, once or twice on Sunday, keeping in mind that the allergenic reaction that allergic reaction may occur on the second or subsequent exposure. It's not going to happen the first time you feed the baby egg all the time. It might be on the second or the third time. So do it a few times over the weekend, observe for the reaction. And then the following Monday, jump right back in to doing food number six and other fruit. So there you have it. That's the first five days you guys, literally by Friday, you're going to be like, wow, this is so easy. I'm not scared to introduce my baby to these foods. I recognize that the foods that I'm offering, they're not eating very much of because breast milk or formula is still the majority of that baby's nutrition, but you're giving your baby ample opportunity to learn how to eat.

Katie Ferraro (18m 26s):

And you're also giving yourself a ton of confidence that the foods that you're offering, gosh, we're building up this repertoire. My baby is going to learn how to eat a variety of foods and flavors and tastes and textures. That's what helps you raise an independent eater and prevent picky eating. So for those of you who are just getting started on baby led weaning, if you're looking for some additional information, I've got a great guide. It's an ebook it's called the start guide to baby led weaning. It is 16 pages that is jam packed with everything you need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods. I've got a whole nutrient deep dive in there of why you feed different foods. I've got ideas about allergenic foods. I've got different tips for seasoning your baby's food without salt and a few of my favorite combination food recipes.

Katie Ferraro (19m 12s):

You can download the quick start guide to baby led weaning. If you go to the show notes page for this episode, I've got all the other links from this episode lined up there as well. That's blwpodcast.com/ 25. Thank you guys so much for being here and I hope you enjoyed the schedule for the first five days getting started with baby led weaning. Bye now!