Baby food and drink guide

Baby led weaning is a really easy way to feed your child baby food as you can feed your baby chunks of the food you eat each mealtime. Except for those with a history of allergies or other dietary sensitivities there isn’t any real restriction on the food that baby can try.

Parents who have used baby led weaning recommend using foods that are shaped like a chip, or have a handle, such as cooked broccoli spears, and are a little larger than your baby’s fist as these can easily be grasped. This is because small babies have not yet developed a pincer grip and can only clasp foods in their fists. If you would like to try baby led weaning, offer your baby a selection of nutritious finger foods when you and your family are eating and let him join in. Initial self-feeding attempts often result in very little food ingested – he will most likely practice coordinating the food to her mouth and then practice sucking and active chewing before she is able to swallow. As long as you are supplementing your baby’s mealtimes with regular milk feeds this shouldn’t be a problem. As your baby gradually eats more solid baby food, the number of milk feeds will start to decrease.

Don’t be put off if your baby’s first attempts at eating just produce an enormous mess. Just slip on one of your maternity t shirts and don’t worry how much food you get covered in!

Breast/bottle feeding is continued in conjunction with weaning and milk is always offered before solids in the first 12 months. After a while your baby will start to leave less and eat more and more baby food and at the same time that the demand in frequency or duration of milk feeds begins to decline as more calories are consumed from food. It is important to introduce a varied range of nutritious baby food into your baby’s diet, so the basis for a solid-based healthy diet is formed. It is especially important to avoid junk food and foods with added salt or sugar as these will not be beneficial to your child’s health.

Although breastfeeding is the ideal precursor to baby led weaning (as the baby has been exposed to different flavours via its mother’s breast milk and the jaw action used during breastfeeding helps the baby learn to chew), it is also entirely possible to introduce a bottle-fed baby to solids using the BLW method. Bottle-fed babies can successfully wean using BLW, although it may take a little longer for the baby to get used to flavours and develop the ability to chew on the baby food.

Most parents are excited about the first time their baby eats solid baby food.  They watch anxiously to see if he will be a ‘good eater’.  Will he try and like new things?  Will he eat enough?  Unfortunately, for many parents, the first few years of getting their baby to eat are stressful.  Moving from getting them to accept lumps, through picky eating habits and on to not wanting to eat what the rest of the family are having.

Baby Led Weaning (BLW) builds on the fact that babies are happier doing things for themselves and allows them to decide how much they eat and how quickly they widen the range of foods they enjoy.

Baby led weaning is an increasingly widespread approach to introducing solid foods to babies that was first advocated by Gill Rapley, an experienced health visitor and midwife. It works on the principle that after 6 months of age the vast majority of infants are capable of learning to feed themselves and so instead of offering babies purees as a first food at 6 months, Gill suggested, we should simply offer them a range of healthy variety of finger foods and, provided he is sitting up straight, and you are with him, you can leave him to feed himself with his hands. As long as there are no known allergies in the family, you can give your child pretty much anything, except for whole nuts if your child is under five. This approach takes a leap of faith for many parents, but the benefits are great.

Many parents unconsciously choose baby led weaning, particularly with second or subsequent children. Babies love to copy their older siblings and try to grab food from their plates and are often much happier if they are allowed to feed themselves.
Since the 1960s the recommended age for introducing solids has moved from three to four and now six months, but the way in which we introduce solid baby food is still geared towards a three month old.  In 2003 new research led the WHO (World Health Organisation) and The Department of Health to amend their guidelines so that they now recommend that infants should be fed exclusively on breast or formula milk for the first 6 months of life. They now advise parents to introduce solid baby food into their baby’s diet at around six months.

With BLW infants often begin by picking up and licking the food, before progressing to eating. Babies typically begin self feeding around 6 months, although some will reach for food as early as 5 months and some will wait until 7 or 8. The intention of this process is that it is tailored to suit each particular baby and their personal development.

Experts say snack time actually can be an opportunity to supplement children’s diets as well as calm hunger pangs between meals.  It’s a good time to give them what they are missing throughout the day, for example, if you had cereal and milk for breakfast, what’s missing is fruit, so you can use snack time to complement the other meals.

Having some fat in our diet helps the body absorb some vitamins. Fat is a good source of energy and it provides essential fatty acids that the body can’t make itself.

But eating lots of fat can make you more likely to put on weight because baby food that is high in fat are also high in energy (calories). And eating a diet that is high in saturated fat can raise the level of cholesterol in your blood, over time, which increases your chance of developing heart disease.

With all the junk food marketing that targets children, it can be tricky getting them to eat well and to think of good Kid’s Lunch Ideas . But there are some companies out there doing a good job.

ASDA do a range called ‘Great Stuff’ which is free from artificial colours, flavours and hydrogenated fats.

Organix Goodies have a no junk promise, which means no artificial colourings, no MSG, no added flavourings, no hydrogenated fat and no trans fats.  They are also free from artificial chemical pesticides, use the best organically grown ingredients and have reduced salt (at least a third less than found in most children’s snacks). For details visit ww.organix.com/compare.

Babylicious make Kiddylicious fruit snacks which have been designed for 12 months upwards (even for mums and dads). They are made from the finest fruit, sliced and crisped in a really special way to create a crunchy, melt-in-your-mouth fruit snack and each pack provides at least 1 of the recommended 5 fruit portions a day.

Now, of course, it is totally unnecessary to buy snacks for your children as it is quite possible to produce them yourself.  Try:

• Fresh fruit – bite sized pieces of fresh fruit – , cubes or slices of apple, pear, satsuma, orange, banana, kiwi, melon, strawberries and grapes.
• Chopped raw vegetables: carrot, pepper, cucumber, celery, cherry tomato and courgette.
• Toast, bread rolls or baps.
• Pitta bread pockets – on their own or with a filling.
• Crumpets or plain popcorn.
• Low salt oatcakes, rice cakes, crackers and crispbreads
• Natural yoghurt or fromage frais with fresh fruit.
• Dried fruit has a high nutritional value and is a good food for children to learn to enjoy. However, as it sticks to teeth and can cause dental decay, is should be provided at meal times only.