Re: What is Baby Led Weaning?
Posted: Sun May 16, 2010 10:22 am
the theory runs thus: (though many mums have mixed spoon feeding - which is different to purees - with finger foods although techincallly that's not true blw)
With purees the baby is sucking the liquid off the spoon which goes straight to the back of the mouth - no jaw/tongue action is involved, then they swallow.
With finger foods if they do the same i.e. suck a lump to the back of the throat this could cause full on choking (rather than the gagging you sometimes get with BLW) does that make sense?
I think however if you start with BLW and then introduce spoon foods then the baby already knows what to do with food in its mouth so this is less likely to happen...
To me BLW is in part about being led by your baby and feeding them 'normal' foods and not being afraid to let them loose on feeding themselves from the start...
With purees the baby is sucking the liquid off the spoon which goes straight to the back of the mouth - no jaw/tongue action is involved, then they swallow.
With finger foods if they do the same i.e. suck a lump to the back of the throat this could cause full on choking (rather than the gagging you sometimes get with BLW) does that make sense?
I think however if you start with BLW and then introduce spoon foods then the baby already knows what to do with food in its mouth so this is less likely to happen...
To me BLW is in part about being led by your baby and feeding them 'normal' foods and not being afraid to let them loose on feeding themselves from the start...