The Transition to Solid Food: What Gives?!
/Let's apply "the power of and" to the internet's hot topic: solid food transition.
You may have read about baby led weaning and seen videos of babies chewing on adult-sized foods. You may be thinking about spoon feeding your baby the Gerber purees that line the baby aisles at the grocery store. Your pediatrician may have given you a hand-out about giving your baby rice cereal at 4 months. So what gives?! How should your baby move from breastmilk or formula to solids?
Our answer: there's many ways to do it! But there's a main principle to stick to: Regardless of the type of food you feed your baby, the way you feed your baby is crucial! A baby who initiates eating, whether by leaning in toward the spoon or by picking up a slice of avocado to take a bite, is a baby who will eat “best.” When a baby is internally motivated to eat, they will be a happier eater. Following your baby’s lead will reap benefits in the long run.
Soon we will spend time looking at readiness signs for solids, like sitting unassisted, and debunking some myths related to this topic.
Big picture…
Yes, we think the type of food you feed your baby is important: whole and/or homemade foods pack a better nutritional punch, help ensure healthy eating and a wide variety of accepted foods throughout life, and are the best exposure to true flavor. And, we also know it's not easy, practical, or affordable for every family to introduce food this way.
Yes, we think babies learning to self feed is important for developing independence and skills. And, we also know that our lives are fast paced and don’t always allow for the mess that self feeding can bring.
Yes, we think prolonged spoon feeding in the absence of any other textures than smooth purée can negatively impact a child’s acceptance of and ability to manage regular table foods as they develop. And, we also know that giving small humans “big people food” can be terrifying!
The opposing ends of the spectrum can become polarizing, so back to our point: there’s no perfect way to do this thing! There’s benefits and drawbacks to any approach out there. There’s plenty of amazing resources that take you step by step through “how” to make this transition (including your local feeding therapist 😉).
Let’s take a quick positive (non-exhaustive) look at the 2 different ways to transition.
🥄 Pros to starting with purées:
You can make subtle changes to purées by thickening or thinning them for babies struggling with new textures
Purees are a little bit cleaner than little hands navigating full blown solid foods 🤪
Babies can self-feed pre-loaded spoons of purees to practice self-feeding skills
It eases anxiety about this transition for some parents
🍓 Pros to starting with solid foods:
Encourages independence in eating
Allows for early practice of oral and motor skills as babies manage and manipulate textures with tongue, lip, and jaw movements and use fine motor movements to bring food to mouth
Baby eats what you eat (in modified ways sometimes), which means less prep time and more inclusion with family meals
Typically less expensive than buying individual jars and pouches
Early exposure to a variety of flavors and textures, which can help prevent selective eating and sharpen the sensory system
While the pros of starting with solids seem to theoretically outweigh the pros of starting with purées, the beauty of an “and” approach is that your baby can certainly learn those golden self feeding skills with purées. And we do eat purées as adults (think yogurt and hummus 😋), so this is not a texture to be “skipped”! Some families are nervous to jump into tough textures - and that’s okay! Some of our tiny friends have overarching difficulties compromise safety of eating solid textures, so an individualized plan must be developed in this case.
Enough sweating it out about what "program" to follow. Know that reading your baby’s cues while eating is paramount to the raising a successful eater!
