Baby-led weaning (BLW) is a common-sense, safe, easy and enjoyable approach to helping babies move from breast or formula milk to family meals.
It’s a way of introducing solid foods that allows the baby to feed himself from the beginning. With BLW, the baby sits with the rest of the family at mealtimes and joins in when he is ready,
using his hands and fingers at first and then moving on to cutlery. There’s no need to purée or mash the food and no need for spoon feeding. Self-feeding allows babies to use their
natural abilities to explore taste, texture, colour and smell. It encourages independence and confidence and helps to develop their hand-eye co-ordination and ability to chew efficiently.
Baby-led weaning is based on the way babies mature in their first year. From about six months onwards all healthy babies naturally begin to develop self-feeding skills: sitting upright,
picking up pieces of food and taking them to their mouths, chewing them and then swallowing. So there’s no need for them to be spoon fed have mashed or puréed meals.
All they need is the opportunity to do it themselves.
Many parents have found the introduction of solid foods difficult and daunting; baby-led weaning makes the whole process easy and enjoyable. Finger foods have always been
encouraged from about six months but, until recently, most babies had already started purées before they reached this age. Leaving the beginning of weaning until the baby is
six months means the purée stage simply isn’t necessary.
Mark-It TV’s three Baby-led Weaning DVDs are a useful resource for parents and professionals alike. Baby-led Weaning is a fact-based DVD that explains
what baby-led weaning is and why it makes sense. It shows how to prepare food so that babies can handle it and how to make sure they are safe while eating.
It explains what to expect in terms of mess and how to prepare for this, as well as how to know when to reduce milk feeds.
six months means the purée stage simply isn’t necessary.
Mark-
Baby-led Weaning Productions website designed by Mark-It TV 2010
Discovering Baby-led Weaning explores BLW through the experiences of parents who have tried it.They tell us why they decided to do it,
what it has given them and their baby, and how they have coped with explaining it to others.
Baby-led Weaning: The First Six Months follows one baby, Oscar, through his first six months of solid foods, showing how he
progresses from his first encounters with pieces of food to being a competent self-feeder. His parents share their thrill at
seeing their son demonstrate his skills and explain the benefits BLW has brought to them as a family.
what it has given them and their baby, and how they have coped with explaining it to others.
Baby-
progresses from his first encounters with pieces of food to being a competent self-
All three DVDs show just how clever babies are, how quickly they learn - and how much fun eating with them can be.
While Discovering Baby-led Weaning and Baby-led Weaning: The First Six Months will probably be the most
useful resources for parents to own, all three titles are ideal for showing to groups of parents - and the information
they provide is complementary rather than repetitive. Together they will enable health professionals to hold
meaningful discussions with their clients about this logical and simple approach to complementary feeding.
useful resources for parents to own, all three titles are ideal for showing to groups of parents -
meaningful discussions with their clients about this logical and simple approach to complementary feeding.