I’m going to confess to 5 mistakes I made when moving on to baby led weaning with Mole.

Baby led weaning

Background

I began weaning Mole at 4 months old after thinking we were both ready, turns out we was not quite ready yet so waited another month.

Mole began of smooth pur?ed foods and loved it!

I could feed Mole any flavour and she would eat the whole lot.

As mole reached 7 months I began to change up her eating routine to gain techniques with different textures.

However, this is when I made some silly and avoidable mistakes.

Baby led weaning mistakes

  • Eating hard foods straight away.
  • Giving up on foods my baby does not like.
  • Not judging the length of time correctly it takes my baby to eat their food.
  • Cutting the food into the wrong shapes.
  • Over facing my baby with too much food.Baby led weaning help

Baby led weaning mistakes explained

Eating hard foods

I never took a minute to think that Mole had mainly smooth pur?e. Moving on to hard food such as cucumber just did not work for her. She had no teeth and found it hard to break down. Mole would just gum the cucumber making no progress or just spit it out and gag.

After practicing with soft foods like croquettes and strawberries, Mole felt confident to have a go on harder foods. I also felt like she was enjoying eating and not getting as frustrated.

Giving up on foods my baby does not like

This one is my main mistake. Each time Mole would display signs of not enjoying a food I would give in and never feed her that food again. This also goes for pouches. However, I have now noticed that she changes her mind like the wind. One day she could love a food and the next day she will hate it. I just have to count my luck with her. Knowing this mistake has helped a lot with our baby led weaning journey.

I began giving her vegetables as this is the most healthy type of food for her. Mole did not like eating a piece of broccoli compared to eating broccoli pur?e. I switched it up to giving her fruits knowing that she will eat fruit. And she did. I tried again with her veg and suddenly she was eating it with no issues.

I do think that her mood and time of day has a big role to play too.

Baby led weaning advice

Not judging the length of time correctly it takes my baby to eat their food

A mistake I made was trying baby led weaning with her right before we had to either go out or be out in a restaurant.

I am sure some babies take to this okay but mine did not.

If we were out there was always far too much going on for her to even have any interest in picking up her food and eating it.

Compared to feeding Mole a pur?e, baby led weaning takes so much longer. Not my best idea if I had plans afterwards. Obviously you can not rush them to eat so you have to be patient. This was a little frustrating for me when all she would do is throw food on the floor or spit every little bit out.

I made sure that when we were doing baby led weaning, we had all the time in the world to eat. It was also nice as I could get a hot cup of coffee whilst she was still eating.

Cutting the food into the wrong shapes

I Googled what shapes to cut the food into when I first started baby led weaning. I did this because I was terrified of her choking. Every website I read said cutting into halves or finger sized slices.

I think this is one mistake that maybe more unique to Mole. She preferred her food in small bits. Mole seems to hold the food better and put it into her mouth better compared to finger sized foods.

Now she is getting more confident I am giving her food in bigger pieces.

Over facing my baby with too much food

Looking on Instagram for inspiration I would see beautiful plates full of colourful food.

I basically copied not taking into account that Mole had gone from a smooth pur?e straight to a plate of food would be too much.

She would not eat any of the food and try to throw the plate on the floor. I gave up quickly and I became discouraged after seeing so many other babies eat plate fulls of food online.

I still display all her food nicely on a plate for photo purposes but when it comes to giving her the food I just take a little bit off the plate and let her eat that. Once she has finished I give her more. I could not believe how much progress she made doing it this way.

Baby led weaning tips

  • Start off with their ultimate favourite foods such as fruit
  • Use kitchen roll to get rid of any excess juice which will discourage their grip
  • Use a knife with a serrated edge to help their grip
  • Start off with Ella’s melty puffs to build your confidence with them not choking
  • If your baby is still struggling then they might not be ready. Feed your baby textured pur?e instead for a bit longer.
  • Try again tomorrow. Don’t give up
  • Choose soft foods to begin
  • Feed them in your baby’s usual eating environment
  • Turn off any distractions such as the TV
  • Get a dog to help clean up the mess haha.

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Zoe
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