Why I Almost Quit BLW with Miranda James

Miranda James (1m 1s):

A lot of that old style is like very fear based instead of educational based. So, and that's my, my whole parenting style is to teach her how to do things, not to make her afraid of them so that she won't wanna try them. And then we're in trouble down the road.

Katie Ferraro (1m 16s):

Hey there I I'm Katie Ferraro, Registered Dietitian, college nutrition professor and mom of seven specializing in Baby-Led Weaning. Here on the Baby-Led Weaning Made Easy podcast, I help you strip out all of the noise and nonsense about feeding, leaving you with the confidence and knowledge you need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods using Baby-Led Weaning. Have you ever felt like quitting this whole solid food thing with your baby? Like maybe you're like, this is not for us. My baby's not eating anything. I, I don't know if I should be doing Baby-Led Weaning or maybe you're getting pushback from family members and they say things like "I spoon fed you and you turned out fine."

Katie Ferraro (1m 57s):

And if you're questioning your decision to do baby-led weaning and If you are feeling like giving up, I want you to listen to this interview with Miranda James. Miranda is a 24 year old first time mother who struggled a ton when she started out on solid foods. But she's gonna tell you her story and why she's glad she stuck with Baby-Led Weaning and why, as she says in her own words, it's the most enjoyable part of parenting for her so far. And she's so glad she didn't quit baby-Led Weaning. So with no further ado, here's how to stay motivated to do Baby-Led Weaning. When you feel like quitting with Miranda, James,

Miranda James (2m 34s):

Hi, thank you for having me.

Katie Ferraro (2m 36s):

Okay. I have to give you guys a backstory. I met Miranda through email. A lot of times when you like run a business, people just send you emails about things they hate. She sent me an email that started out with thank you for the encouragement when I had none. And Miranda sent me this beautiful video of her daughter, Lupin, who was eight months old, literally just chowing down food and getting all the hand-eye coordination and the dexterity, the motor skills and Miranda said, I was so nervous being a naive young mom doing Baby-Led Weaning because I got a lot of pressure from my family not to do this, but your encouragement kept me going. And now at eight months old, I know we did everything right. So I immediately emailed her back and I was like, you guys, Miranda, please. Can you come on the podcast? Because I spend so much time teaching parents about six and seven months and how we start, but like, it all kind of clicks at eight months of age.

Katie Ferraro (3m 20s):

And I want you to stay motivated If you are feeling discouraged or if you're feeling alone or if you're feeling like what's the point of this. I want you to hear Miranda's story. So Miranda, tell us a little bit, little background. Tell us about Lupin and then tell us about starting Baby-Led Weaning before we get into like, when it actually got enjoyable for you.

Miranda James (3m 36s):

So Lupin is eight months old. She'll actually be nine months in a couple weeks. She is, she's doing amazing. Like it's exciting to watch her learn and develop. And it's been so exciting watching her with Baby-led weaning because now I know that development and milestones aren't, you know, a big thing to stress about, but it's exciting watching her hit stuff through food. Like it's like the food has helped her develop all that. So I read a lot about Baby-Led Weaning and I planned to do it even when I was pregnant. And then when she hit that six month mark and we started, I like went into it so confidently until we started. And like my in-laws, I was sending videos and everybody was horrified. Like everyone was like, what are you doing?

Miranda James (4m 17s):

And I told them, like I told you guys, we're gonna do baby-led weaning thinking that that was like, you know, it's a, everybody knew, knew about it.

Katie Ferraro (4m 24s):

Okay, wait, stop right there though. Like nobody knows about it is how I found out. Oh. And I wanna know how you learned about Baby-Led Weaning. Like where did you hear it from?

Miranda James (4m 32s):

Okay. The TikTok algorithms are scary good. I spent like my whole pregnancy on TikTok, scrolling through learning about like labor and baby nutrition and all that. And baby-led Weaning just kept coming up. And so I would Google it. And then I, I got a couple books from Amazon, so I was reading about it leading up to, so I was fully prepared. And then when she hit that four month mark, her doctor, this is my first like red flag. Her doctor said I should start putting cereal in her bottle. And I was like, wait a minute. No, that's like, that's not what we do anymore. Like baby-led weaning and I didn't really, I dropped it cause I just figured, oh, he was an older doctor. And then my family started asking too, you know, you gonna put bottle cereal in the bottle. And I was like, no.

Katie Ferraro (5m 13s):

What was their rationale for putting cereal in the bottle? Like I know what doctors used to say. I wanna hear what they're saying today.

Miranda James (5m 17s):

He didn't give me any rationale. Family said that it was gonna prepare her to eat.

Katie Ferraro (5m 21s):

It was gonna prepare her to choke.

Miranda James (5m 24s):

Yeah. And I, I said, no, you know, there's, I'm doing an evidence based style of like introducing her to food. That's kind of what people do nowadays. And I, and it kind of got dropped until six months when I handed her an omelet strip, you know, like this big and I sent a video and everybody was just freaking out over it.

Katie Ferraro (5m 43s):

Okay. So the people you're sending videos to in-laws grandparents, are they local? Like you see them in person or you're communicating like distance.

Miranda James (5m 50s):

Yes. Yeah. I see. Yep. We see everybody we're really close with our family, so we see them regularly.

Katie Ferraro (5m 54s):

Okay. So when you started with baby-led weaning, So you waited until six months of age, do you remember, when Lupin was sitting up on her own? Was it right at six months or did you have to wait an extra week or two?

Miranda James (6m 3s):

She started sitting up pretty early, closer to five months,

Katie Ferraro (6m 7s):

On her own?

Miranda James (6m 8s):

It was still kinda wobbly a couple weeks before six months, she was like sitting up very well.

Katie Ferraro (6m 14s):

Okay. What was her first food?

Miranda James (6m 16s):

Well, Her very first food that I prepared for her was an omelet. I think like a week before that we were on vacation and somebody like, she grabbed a pickle out of somebody's hand and started munching on it and I went, oh my gosh. Like, she is like, she's gonna be ready pretty soon for this.

Katie Ferraro (6m 30s):

So you came right outta the gate with an allergenic food. I like that. It's not very conventional, but like, you're just like, I'm gonna do this. So did you, are you aware of food allergies or like had you learned about them or are you just like, I'm just gonna try it.

Miranda James (6m 40s):

Yes, I spent a lot of time reading about the allergens, like what they were the whole thing in the nineties with them telling people not to eat any allergies.

Katie Ferraro (6m 49s):

You Weren't even like alive in the nineties. I love this. You know what I also love is because normally when people say they get information on TikTok, you're like, come on. But you learned about an approach from TikTok, but then you went and did a bunch of other research and you got books. And I know you said you were listening to this podcast and I think it's, you are like very educated about feeding your baby. And I would say that that's probably, maybe not the norm, but I know you're in nursing school as well. And you were, you said you were taking an online nutrition class

Miranda James (7m 13s):

Yeah I'm kinda Absorbing information. So it was just something else. Like that's way more interesting to me at the time was studying that. So I read about allergens. So I also, during my pregnancy, I ate eggs every day. I ate peanut butter. I ate every allergen almost every day. And then I continued that with breastfeeding. I was trying that because I don't remember if there's any research on that or if it's just an idea that consuming that like might help later. I don't know. But I tried just in case

Katie Ferraro (7m 38s):

I wanted ask about breastfeeding. How were you feeding Lupin up until six months of age.

Miranda James (7m 43s):

She was exclusively breastfed.

Katie Ferraro (7m 45s):

Exclusively breastfed. Okay. So then did you introduce cows milk protein? Cuz obviously if she hasn't had formula, she hasn't had cows milk protein. How did you introduce that potentially allergenic food.

Miranda James (7m 53s):

She has had full fat, plain yogurt. She eats that pretty regularly too. That was also in the first week.

Katie Ferraro (8m 0s):

Okay. Did she have any allergic reactions to any of the foods that you introduced?

Miranda James (8m 4s):

No. Oh, she's also had cheese, I think, I guess that would have the milk protein. No, she hasn't had any actual reaction. So every time I would introduce an allergen though, I would listen to your, I would have your podcast playing in my kitchen, like as a, like I would do deep breaths and listen to the podcast because I knew that this was the right way to do it. Like I knew that this was gonna help prevent allergies later and I didn't care what, like my family was saying because they, they weren't speaking from any like research. It was just from what they did in the nineties and whatever.

Katie Ferraro (8m 34s):

Okay. Let's talk about what your family was saying. Like give me the quotes that they're telling you. When you're sending a video of Lupin eating, let's say an omelet strip.

Miranda James (8m 43s):

A couple of them. They would just say they were, they were concerned with that. They that's not how they did it. They don't think that that's, you know, they're worried about choking. I had somebody say that it would encourage her to put non-food objects in her mouth. And

Katie Ferraro (8m 56s):

That's also what babies do as I'm sure you've noticed. They also put food objects in their mouth, now.

Miranda James (9m 2s):

Yeah, I was, I knew that that was, you know, not true. So yeah, they said that would encourage and it kind of made me realize something that a lot of that old style is like very fear based instead of educational based. So, and that's my, my whole parenting style is to teach her how to do things, not to make her afraid of them so that she won't wanna try them. And then we're in trouble down the road.

Katie Ferraro (9m 23s):

You mentioned when we were talking before the interview that they were like concerned for your daughter's safety. I don't know If you were like kidding or were they like really actually concerned about you offering your baby real food at six months of age?

Miranda James (9m 34s):

People don't usually push back against me. I'm not used to, like, I'm not used to people like disagreeing with me. So I think that they probably were legitimately concerned and they still up until very recently would make comments every time that she would eat at their houses. My mom was really worried about the allergens. She's an ER nurse, but that does, you know, so she sees emergency. She doesn't, that doesn't mean that you have, you're an expert in baby nutrition and now she loves it. She's so on board with it she's so she loves that Lupin's doing it. And she commends me for being like brave enough to do it cuz it scares her. But

Katie Ferraro (10m 8s):

That's always what happens just So you know, I know this is your first baby, but I see this over and over, over again. Grandma's like, mm, this is not gonna work. And then mom goes into a deep dark place usually for about eight weeks and is like, oh my gosh, maybe, maybe this is wrong. Maybe they were right. "I Spoon fed you and you turned out okay" is usually the line we hear. And then around eight months of age, it all kind of clicks and your baby starts jamming. You probably notice she starts drinking less breast milk. And then all of a sudden the grandparents resurface and they're like, this is amazing. And then they turn around and they're the ones bragging about the baby, but like, who really cares, but I love when they, like we had one grandma the other day, she was like literally taking credit for it. And the mom was like, mom, you hated this two months ago. She's like, I always wanted you to do this. This is amazing.

Katie Ferraro (10m 48s):

This is what we did with you. And she's like, you were singing a different tune. So I want you to speak to the parents who are in that deep, dark place of six and seven months of age when you just start and your baby's not eating very much. And then you're getting pressure from family. How did you, Miranda, stay motivated to do what you had been researching, what you knew to be right, what you felt as a parent to be right, when everything around you is telling you not to do this?

Miranda James (11m 12s):

So I like to take a logical evidence-based approach to everything, especially with my daughter, which isn't always reasonable. Cause there's a lot of emotion in parenting obviously, but I just, I stuck with it and I continued to read about it and research. I watched videos. I listened to your podcast regularly. I also would adjust our routine so that I, I stopped sending videos to anybody. I said, that's fine. You don't, I don't have to personally connect and send this to you. You don't have to be a part of it. I wanted to include everybody. But I, so I, I stopped sending videos for a while. And then my husband, the first couple weeks, it was really hard for him. He's at work all day. So it was really hard for him to like, just be, see her eat.

Miranda James (11m 52s):

So I adjusted the routine for the first couple weeks. We, I didn't have dinner with her. We did breakfast and lunch instead of breakfast and dinner

Katie Ferraro (11m 60s):

So that you, mom, were the only person in the room with a baby.

Miranda James (12m 5s):

Yes.

Katie Ferraro (12m 5s):

I fully wholeheartedly support that. And I always recommend to parents, If you are struggling with other people in your group who don't support you, they do not need to be present when your baby's eating. I sometimes parents are like, but they're the ones who help me or I can't get rid of, I was with a mom the other day. She's like we live in a very small house and my mother-in-law lives with me. I can't get away from her, but you, you can set your own boundaries. You are your child's primary caregiver. And it's important that whoever the primary caregiver is, the one who's offering the foods, feels comfortable and is making a safe eating environment for the baby. And if there are other people there stressing that primary person out, the baby senses that and the whole thing devolves. And that's where we go into like force feeding by spoon, which is what we don't want.

Miranda James (12m 46s):

The big thing was I didn't want any nervous energy around her making her nervous. Cuz I saw in a lot of other babies, I had a couple friends who tried Baby-Led Weaning, and it didn't really work out for them. And part of it was the nervous energy and like the anxiety I think would get projected onto the baby and there would be some tension. So I didn't want any, I didn't want any, anybody being nervous around her, even when she's, if she's coughing or something. I tried really just to keep a, I was internally like freaking out, but I didn't wanna scare her. And so she's never had that negative association with food because I've like kept, tried to keep her away from it. The other thing I did was I would watch baby CPR and choking videos every week.

Miranda James (13m 26s):

Like, and at one point every single day before I would feed her, I would watch a video and like on the lookout for the signs. And I knew I know what to do. It's very rare that that would happen. And this is gonna prevent choking in the future. That's why it's so important.

Katie Ferraro (13m 41s):

Did Lupin ever have a choking incident? Did you ever have to administer back blows or CPR?

Miranda James (13m 45s):

No. No I didn't.

Katie Ferraro (13m 46s):

Good and I think that tip right there is so helpful. I always encourage parents to take a refresher, infant CPR course. I know you guys all took CPR before your babies were born, but that was a long time ago. And knowing what to do in the event of a choking incident and choking is very rare and there's no higher risk of choking with Baby-Led Weaning compared to traditional spoon feeding. But knowing CPR could save your baby's life or it can help you save another child's life. So I wholeheartedly recommend that and there's some amazing online options. I have an online course that I myself take each quarter. I recommend it to all the parents I work with. I'm an affiliate for them. I do have, it's already really affordable. I think it's like $35 and then there's a $10 off code, KATIE10. I'll put the link to it in the show notes for this episode in case you guys wanna take CPR, but that's a really great suggestion.

Katie Ferraro (14m 26s):

Thank you for sharing that. Can we talk back about your husband? You switched the schedule so that the first few days and weeks you Miranda were with baby Lupin, solo, getting comfortable with this idea of food. When did you feel okay welcoming your husband back into the feeding environment?

Miranda James (14m 42s):

After a few weeks, maybe after three or four weeks. And then I, I like eased him into it also. I didn't do it every night. I did it like every other because he would, would, he would stop eating. Like he would put his plate down and he would get all irritated with me and be like, someone has to be watching her. Like we can't eat, we just need, I mean, I would obviously watch her while sharing our meal, but it got to the point that like, so the stress would prevent him from eating. So I would do it every other night and he would put his food down and he would just, just only stare at her. And then he, he got more and more comfortable as she got a little bit better. I think he got used to seeing her there. He got used to her eating

Katie Ferraro (15m 19s):

And I feel like that always happens like around the eight month mark, If you started at six weeks. So for those of you that are contextualizing this to your own situation, it generally takes most babies. If you started at six months, If you start it before six months, it doesn't count because babies are not ready to start before six months. So start around six months or when your baby is sitting up on their own, which generally happens after six months of age Miranda, your baby was exclusively breasted and breastfed milk and or infant formula is perfect to meet babies nutrition needs up until six months of age, but where parents get stressed is at the six and seven month mark. When they start solid foods and the baby's not eating that much because they don't know how to eat yet. They freak out and they, they start forcing the baby to eat cause they need 'em to quote get enough.

Katie Ferraro (16m 1s):

And what I always encourage parents is give yourself some grace. The Weaning period is six months long. From six months to 12 months, we are slowly incrementally, baby steps, moving towards baby, getting less nutrition from infant milk and more nutrition from food, but it does not happen overnight. And so that eight week period is stressful and hard because you don't feel like very much is happening. But generally after most babies have been doing solid foods for eight weeks, it kind of all clicks. And if it doesn't click for you, give yourself four more weeks. If you have been doing Baby-Led Weaning for 12 weeks from the time your baby turned six months of age and nothing is happening and they're not bringing food to their mouth, you may need to consider seeking help from a feeding therapist.

Katie Ferraro (16m 45s):

And I have a whole separate episode on when's it time to call a feeding therapist and interviewed some feeding therapists, but a lot of moms who are freaking out when you actually sit down and look at the calendar, they've been doing it for four weeks or six weeks and occasionally up to eight weeks. And they're still freaking out really be cognizant of the time that you've been doing this and know that it will all start to click for your baby. It's generally about after eight weeks of doing it. How often did you feed your baby each day? When six and seven months in that beginning period Miranda.

Miranda James (17m 13s):

Oh Gosh. I think the first day I was so excited, I tried twice.

Katie Ferraro (17m 16s):

Okay. And that's good. One to two times per day when baby is six to seven months of age. And sometimes when parents are struggling and they're only feeding every three days it's cuz your baby's not getting enough practice. So I really encourage you not to skip days. And even If you have a bad meal, let the baby take a nap, come back later and try it. It's remember it's not your job to make your baby eat. You are responsible though for offering a safe feeding environment, just like Miranda did. You're in charge of offering a variety of foods like you did going through all the different foods. And you're in charge of having foods be at mealtime. We don't graze or eat all day long. And at eight months of age, when you emailed me, this was a month ago. So how many times a day was she eating solid food at that point?

Miranda James (17m 57s):

Definitely at least two, sometimes three and sometimes a like a snack in between. Cuz she'll get, if I, she sees me snacking, she gets really frustrated and starts yelling and grabbing. So I'll share a snack with her some days too.

Katie Ferraro (18m 11s):

How about your breastfeeding? Do you feel like she's nursing a little bit less now that she is eating more?

Miranda James (18m 17s):

It's so hard to tell. I think about it all the time. I think she is, but I also wonder, I also think she's a little more efficient at nursing now because it's, she nurses like quicker. Okay. But not as often, it, it changes back and forth. But yes, I do think she's taking a little bit less breast milk during the day. I kind of think that she's been more taking more in at night.

Katie Ferraro (18m 36s):

Yeah. To help her sleep through the night, which is great. Yes. Okay. Tell me about the friends who quit Baby-Led Weaning. How do you handle that? Because obviously we always try to talk about not, don't compare your baby to anyone else. Your baby's the only baby. And then you go on TikTok or Instagram or you see your friends with babies. You think, oh my baby's not doing that. They're not doing that. How are you dealing with the fact that sorry, but you baby's probably eating a lot more foods than their babies are. And how do you handle that with your friendships?

Miranda James (18m 60s):

You know, I've only had encouragement from other people. I haven't had any like, oh, well my baby didn't do that. I've only had encouragement from other people, but I also try, you know, I post a lot on my personal Instagram of Lupin cause I have friends and family on there and I also wanna spread the word on Baby-Led Weaning. And every once in a while I have a moment where I go, oh gosh, am I like showboating? My happy, my baby that's eating really well. But I, I want to encourage other people. And I always post, I'll I post videos when she gags too.

Katie Ferraro (19m 31s):

That's wonderful.

Miranda James (19m 31s):

So that they see and I, I tell them like, look, I'm internally freaking out, but I'm like, I'm not doing anything. I'm smiling and she's smiling too. She's not.

Katie Ferraro (19m 39s):

And She goes right back to eating. I've seen your videos. They're lovely. And I think that point that you made that you are the biggest advocate for baby-led weaning and that's so important. And I always ask people, how did you hear about me? How did you learn about my courses? My workshop, my podcast, our YouTube, oh, I saw a friend whose baby was eating or a friend told me, or I tell everyone else about it. And word of mouth, especially in parenting is so important because Babies can eat so many more foods than we give them credit for. And we, as parents are up against these massive conglomerates of food companies that are spending good trillions of dollars, trying to teach you that all babies can eat are foods that they suck out of pouches. Like, you know, your baby can eat more than green colored apple sauce. And essentially that's what you get in a pouch and your baby doesn't see the food.

Katie Ferraro (20m 19s):

They don't taste it. They don't smell it. They're not experiencing the textures. They're not getting the allergenic foods. Babies can learn to eat food. And the only way to help other parents understand that is oftentimes to see it. So it's funny, we're on a podcast, but the visual power of your baby eating food, thank you for sharing it. You're not bragging. Babies learn how to eat food. And sometimes there are some bumps along the way, like gagging, we always say like the analogy to walking, right? When your baby's learning how to walk, you guys it's gonna happen. But like it's not pretty. They bump and they fall and they hit their bottom and then they knocked their head sometimes. But we don't rush in and stop them from learning how to walk. And we don't set a time "today is the day that you are going to learn how to walk." And yet we're, we're so prescriptive with feeding. When at the end of the day you think about it like commercial baby food's only been around since the earlier part of the 20th century.

Katie Ferraro (21m 3s):

What do you think like cave mama did back in the day, she didn't go to the grocery store and buy pouches. She fed her baby modified versions of the same food the rest of the family eats. So what you're doing, not only is it evidence based, as you mentioned random, it's, it's nothing new, you know? And so reminding parents that this is not the exception, this is the norm and parents like you out there doing it. I also just wanna commend you. I think you do a fabulous job of surrounding yourself with positive people. And if someone's giving you negative vibes, not that you cut them off or withholding, but I'm not gonna send you any more baby feeding videos if they're stressing you out, cuz it's stressing me out. And that's you, you have like a lot of good tips, especially for a very young parent that I know other parents really, really need to hear. So I just wanna say thank you so much for sharing your time and your story with us. And in closing, If you could just share one, there's parents listening right now, or caregivers who are on the verge of quitting Baby-Led Weaning, they're a few days or weeks in, they feel like nothing's happening.

Katie Ferraro (21m 51s):

Is this worth it? Is this safe? What advice would you give to them to help them not quit and stay motivated?

Miranda James (21m 57s):

I would say you can start now or you can start in a few months and feel like you wish that you started a little bit earlier because the more practice it's just like absolutely anything. The more practice, the more opportunities given, the better they're going to get at it. So now with my almost nine month old, I like when I sent you my that email it's because I took that video and I like, I just realized how amazing it is for her to be able to at eight months use her peripheral vision to eat like looking, focusing on something else, but have that hand eye coordination. And it's because I was really persistent in that practice. And If you know, if you're not that's okay, but don't feel don't quit. You know, you don't have to give it up all together.

Miranda James (22m 40s):

You can practice as much as you're comfortable with.

Katie Ferraro (22m 41s):

You can always take a nap and come back after naps. That's what I tell, tell parents to do. A real quick, funny story yesterday I was organizing some photos. And my oldest daughter came in. We did not do baby-led weaning with her, but she knows a lot about it because it's my work. And there's always other babies over that were feeding for work. And she was like, mom, do you have any videos of me eating? You're always showing I have a set of quads and a set of twins who I did do baby-led weaning with. She's like they always get to see the videos of them eating. And I know you didn't do Baby-Led Weaning with me, but I wanna see a video of me eating. And I was like, Molly. I was so embarrassed of how much I struggled with feeding you that I don't even have any videos of you eating, cuz it was a really hard time for me. And I felt like a failure as a parent because I couldn't make you eat this gross pureed food off of a spoon and what was I doing wrong?

Katie Ferraro (23m 22s):

And then she's like, that's okay, mom, you don't have to feel bad. I eat well now, you know, but like kids love to go back and watch the videos of them eating. So like save all those videos of Lupin and just So you know, it will get a little bit tougher when babies turn one and they're toddlers. There is some degree of picky eating that will set in and it doesn't mean baby-led weaning did not work. Your child will be significantly less picky because of all the foods you exposed her to. So get to that hundred foods or pass that a hundred foods. Count the foods your baby is eating. Go through my hundred FIRST FOODS LIST. Check 'em off. Try to get there before one, knowing that If you lose 10 or 15 of those to picky eating in the second year of life, it's no big deal, right? Cuz you still have 85 or 90 foods that Lupin will eat. But If you do traditional spoon feeding and your baby only has 10 or 15 foods when they turn one and you lose those to picky eating, that becomes such a challenging child to feed.

Katie Ferraro (24m 5s):

And so really, really working towards that diet diversity, whatever you have to do to stay motivated, I would encourage you to do so. And Miranda, Thank you again for taking the time to share your story with us. You are an incredible inspiration.

Miranda James (24m 16s):

Thank you. Thank you so much for all of you post, all that you posted it really helped me and I just, I let, you were like a lighthouse. Like I was like, I just grabbed onto everything you recorded and posted.

Katie Ferraro (24m 28s):

Well, I appreciate that. Cause some days I'm like, why am I doing this, is anyone, and you get like a beautiful email like that. I literally have a folder in my email program that's called like nice emails from moms. And sometimes when I'm having a bad day, I read it and I'm like, no, this is definitely worth it because you know, a lot of us as parents would be the first ones to admit. We don't have the best relationships with food. And a lot of the parents, especially in my groups will say like, I don't wanna replicate my weird food stuff. I don't wanna project my history of fad dieting, my disordered eating onto my baby. And you're presented with this blank slate. Like babies, they don't have food preferences. They, they don't have body image issues. Like we really can help our babies develop a strong relationship with food from their first bites. It's in our power to do that. And I just wanna remind parents it's, sometimes it feels like a lot of pressure, but it is within your power to do it.

Katie Ferraro (25m 9s):

And especially when you're the primary caregiver like you are, I think you handled it so well dealing with people that maybe weren't as supportive as you and then you didn't have any falling out. Like you still talk to your in-laws, right? Like now they like love Baby-Led Weaning, right? Yeah. But you did a really amazing thing for your daughter by allowing her to do what she's developmentally capable of doing and wants to do with baby-led weaning.

Miranda James (25m 29s):

I'm glad you brought up the disordered eating thing. That was one thing I wanted to say. So that I think is actually why I was initially so interested in baby-led weaning. I have struggled my whole life with my relationship with food and my mom does too. And I know that when I was younger, I was really, my mom said I, I only ate pureed carrots until I was like two years old and that I was so picky and I remember being picky growing up and now I've been exploring food a lot more, but I want her to develop from day one, a healthy relationship, not being force fed, not in, just learning her body signals and how that's, what I'm really concerned about is, you know, how she, what her relationship with food is when she grows up.

Miranda James (26m 9s):

And that was the biggest draw to Baby-Led Weaning. And just what I kept telling myself when I felt like a failure, because I absolutely felt like I was just doing a terrible thing for a couple months, but

Katie Ferraro (26m 19s):

It's pretty nice. You wait, you guys wait it out three months and you're gonna feel like amazing. Like a lot of other things in parenting, you're like gonna be 80 before. You're like, Hey, I did a really good job with that kid. Like this is one and you're gonna be like in three months, you're gonna be like, dude, I'm so glad that I did this and Miranda, I know you're going to nursing school, but I'm like, can we please talk about like transitioning to possibly being a dietitian? Like the Dietitian world needs more parents who understand the relationship between food and psychology and nutrition and all the things that you said, like as said, like, I can't believe you're 24 years old because you, you are much more of an older soul in that regard, but you're doing an amazing job as a parent. And I would love If you would be a Dietitian. That's just a plug for my profession though.

Miranda James (26m 58s):

You teach nutrition right? In college?

Katie Ferraro (26m 60s):

I do, I teach college nutrition. I teach at a number of different places. I used to teach undergrad at UC Berkeley. And then I moved to UC San Francisco and was in their graduate department. I live in San Diego now. So teach at San Diego State university, University of California, San Diego. If anybody wants to take online nutrition classes or become a Dietitian, get in touch with me.

Miranda James (27m 16s):

I'm not kidding. Like I, so I took it just, it's an entry level like nutrition class. It's pretty basic, but I think it was just called nutrition. It was the best class I've ever taken. Like I absorbed all of the information in that class and it, it totally changed my attitude towards food. So I, highly recommend.

Katie Ferraro (27m 34s):

I love it. I did not mean for this interview to turn into a plug for the field of dietetics. But again, it's an amazing profession. Just consider it, the next class, you take a nutrition throughout the lifecycle class. That's where you see all of the different things that happen as we, as human beings, progress and how food affects our body. And it's really fascinating. It's one of my favorite classes to teach. So Miranda, thank you again. It was a pleasure chatting with you and I appreciate you sharing your time and all your stories with us.

Miranda James (27m 59s):

Thank you.

Katie Ferraro (27m 59s):

Well, I hope you guys enjoyed that interview with Miranda. We like stayed on even longer after and was just chatting away with her and cut off the recording cuz you guys are probably like stop talking already Katie, but I loved her energy. I loved her message. I loved that she persevered and she really just did send me a beautiful email that got me thinking, actually I don't know if I shared the beginning of the email, but it was basically like, thank you for giving me hope when I had none. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is deep. But I do know how painful food can be and the transition to food for some families. And so my goal with all the content that I create is to help you make this transition easier because we shouldn't have to struggle with feeding our babies. And I hope that Miranda's story inspired you to stay on track with letting your baby do the thing that developmentally they can and want to do.

Katie Ferraro (28m 40s):

I'm gonna link up all of the resources. She said it was fine to share her Instagram. That'll all be on the shownotes page for this episode, which you guys can find at blwpodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening. I'll see you guys next time.