How to Celebrate Baby-Led Weaning Day

Katie Ferraro (0s):

Okay. This email, a mom just sent quote, my baby Emilia is seven and a half months. She's been self-feeding since her disgust at me, trying to spoonfeed her periods on day one, I've listened to 200 of your podcast episodes in the last four weeks, 200 episodes. For real. I love this, but also totally want to acknowledge that you may not have time to listen to hundreds of hours of audio or hunt and Peck all over the internet to try to figure out how to do baby led weaning, which is exactly why I've created a one hour comprehensive online video training called baby LED WEANING FOR BEGINNERS that I want to invite you to. It's totally free. The training is packed with videos and visuals on how to safely prep BLW foods. And everyone on this free trading gets a copy of my 100 FIRST FOODS list.

Katie Ferraro (1m 2s):

Even if you're just starting out solid foods, or you don't know what you're doing, you're the parent you are actually, even though you don't realize it, the biggest advocate for baby-led weaning care, pictures and videos in your foods, you are inspiring so many other families and Baby-Led Weaning Day is a way to celebrate that. Hey, there 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, leading you with the competence and knowledge you need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods using baby led weaning.

Katie Ferraro (1m 43s):

It is Baby-Led Weaning Day. I know everybody has a day, but baby-led weaning has a day. It's the second annual BABY LED WEANING DAY, and I'm going to be sharing five ways that you can celebrate Baby-Led Weaning Day. So a little bit of backstory. What is baby led weaning? This is the second annual BABY LED WEANING DAY. It's on July 1st from this point, moving forward 2021 moving forward, actually July 1st will forever be known as Baby-Led Weaning Day. I know it is also Canada day. Last year we did the first ever Baby-Led Weaning Day on July 1st. I did not know it was Canada day, but our Canadian baby-led weaning moms. Definitely let me know. There are not enough days in the year, but there's a reason why we picked July 1st. So here's the deal with Baby-Led Weaning Day. July 1st is the six month point in the year at the six month mark babies who are six months of age and showing the other reliable signs of readiness to eat, they can safely start feeding themselves foods using baby-led weaning and baby-led weaning is a safe and effective alternative to conventional spoon-feeding, but it doesn't work if you don't wait until the baby six months.

Katie Ferraro (2m 42s):

So that's why we picked the mid point of the year. If baby-led weaning, if the calendar were a baby on a six month birthday will be July 1st, if it was born on January 1st. So that's the rationale behind the day. And we want to celebrate a baby's ability to feed them selves. So what way to do it than have a baby-led weaning day? And one of the beauties of baby led weaning is that it recognizes your baby's inborn ability and desire to feed themselves. Plus it opens the door for helping your baby to meet their feeding and their developmental milestones. It helps reduce the severity of picky eating. It has the potential to lower the risk of food hours development. And so many parents come back and say, that is the best thing I ever did as a parent.

Katie Ferraro (3m 24s):

So I hope that if you are just starting off on your baby led weaning journey, or maybe you're feeling a little stuck about new foods to feed your baby, that Baby-Led Weaning Day, we'll give you a little kind of fire under, you know, what to get back on that bandwagon and to celebrate your baby's ability to feed themselves, because this is actually going to be a lot easier for you down the road. And you were going to be so glad that you decided to take this baby-led weaning journey. So here are five ways that you can celebrate. Baby-Led Weaning Day. My original list was like 20 and then our team was like, Katie, stop talking. That's too much. Let's narrow it down to five. All right, number one, try a new food with your baby. One of the things I love about baby led weaning is that it helps to expand the parent's pallets as well.

Katie Ferraro (4m 6s):

And a lot of times parents will come to us. I teach a free weekly online workshop called BABY-LED WEANING FOR BEGINNERS, and the parents will be like, you know what? I'm going to be real. The reason why I'm here is I'm a picky eater and I don't want my child to be a picky eater. And what's interesting about baby-led weaning is that the number of food your babies can try are basically infinite, right? We can modify almost any food to make it safe for baby-led weaning. So in 2016, I created the 100 FIRST FOODS approach to baby led weaning. I have a 100 FIRST FOODS list or parents use the list to help their baby eat a hundred foods before turning one. And the list is full of foods that a lot of parents haven't tried, especially the starchy foods section. There's so many whole grains in there that parents will write and be like, Katie, I hate these wacky, whole grains. Like, yeah, I know.

Katie Ferraro (4m 47s):

But now you've tried farro and kamut and you've tried spelt and you've tried buckwheat and there's lots of other carbohydrate sources for babies out there besides rice and pasta and potatoes. So if you don't have a copy of my a hundred FIRST FOODS list, I want you to grab it. It's free to everybody on the BABY-LED WEANING FOR BEGINNERS workshop. You can sign up for that at babyledweaning.co that's a one hour long intense in-depth video training, where I teach you everything about baby led weaning, and you walk away with that a 100 FIRST FOODS list. So you'll never run out of ideas to feed your baby. And my hope is that you'll also find some new foods on there that you guys can try together. So tip number one, try a new food with your baby. A second way that you can celebrate Baby-Led Weaning Day, help your baby practice drinking out of an open cup.

Katie Ferraro (5m 31s):

I have to be honest, I didn't always recognize the benefits of drinking out of an open cup. I didn't even know it was a thing when my quadruplets were doing baby led weaning. I was so laser focused on just trying to figure out how to get them to eat different foods. That by the time my next set of multiples, my baby twins rolled around. When the quads were 18, we had twins and then six months later, they started solid foods. And at that point it was just when the easy peasy, tiny cup was coming out. So that's the led weaning cup award-winning cup designed by Dawn Winkelman, who is the speech language pathologist and feeding expert for the feeding a year company, ezpz. And she developed this really revolutionary little cup made out of 100% food grade silicone that babies can learn to drink out of an open cup.

Katie Ferraro (6m 13s):

And he started seeing, gosh, you know, there are these milestones. Babies can start learning to drink out of an open cup at six months of age. And ultimately the goal is to have the baby drinking out of the cup on their own. I'll be it with a little spillage. By the time they turned 12 months of age, but babies don't magically wake up on their one year birthday and know how to drink out of an open cup. We need to practice and we want the baby off the bottle. By 12 months of age, we totally want to skip the sippy cup and parents are like, we'll find them. What do you want me to have? The baby drinking out of an answer is the open cup. So you can practice doing open cup drinking with your baby from six months of age on, I generally do that for about five minutes. After each baby led weaning meal, you will be amazed at how quickly your baby takes to open cup drinking. I recommend starting with breast milk or formula.

Katie Ferraro (6m 53s):

Those are the thicker liquids that your baby's already confident with. And then later on, when your baby is much older than we venture into offering water, you can also do purees out of the open cup. The cup again, that I recommend is called the tiny cup from ezpz. I have an affiliate discount code, Katie10, always good for 10% off at ezpzfun.com. If you want to start practicing drinking out of an open cup, there's one of the moms in one of my programs who she said that her baby drinking out of an open cup is her party trick. She's like, does my baby's party trick? You bring the tiny cup and a baby to any party. People are like, oh my gosh, is that baby drinking out of a cup? But as Dawn who designed the cup also points out. There are so many developmental benefits for having your baby drink out of an open cup.

Katie Ferraro (7m 35s):

It also is going to help with their speech milestones, which are coming a little bit later from a nutrition standpoint. I love it because it helps prevent overdrinking and overfeeding of milk, which is such a problem in late infancy. So start practicing drinking out of that open cup and check out the tiny cup from ezpz. That's my favorite cup for baby led weaning. The third way that you can celebrate baby led weaning is to let your baby get messy. I know that the mess that's associated with baby led weaning can be off putting, especially if you're a neat freak or type a you don't like things getting messy, but here's the reality learning how to eat is a full sensory experience. And while you may just see your baby smushing the food or smashing it or pushing it into their ear, sniffing it, they are experiencing all of the sensory aspects that learning how to eat is it's a process you guys, and eventually they'll end up tasting it and that's fine, but don't interfere with the mess.

Katie Ferraro (8m 26s):

We say, you got to get comfortable with the mess. And I know it's easier said than done because our job here is not to prevent the baby led weaning mess, but we certainly can do our part to minimize the baby led weaning mess. And so I recommend getting a baby led weaning bib. I liked the BLW bibs from the company called bapron baby. They use a waterproof material. They're really great for baby led weaning. They don't restrict the range of motion, and I love that they tie in the back underneath the baby's shoulder blades, not all up in their neck, which can be a negative sensory experience. Bapron baby also makes these amazing splash mats that go underneath your baby's highchair. They dropped the food down, you pick it up from the clean splash mat, recycle it back up onto the plate you're in business. You also could take it with you if you don't want to get grandma's house messy or your friend's place messy while you're still figuring out baby led weaning that company that I like again for the bibs and the maths it's called Bapron baby.

Katie Ferraro (9m 14s):

And my affiliate discount code is Katie10. If you want to get a discount on the bibs or the splash mats, but let your baby get messy, but you don't let that mess dry. My suggestion is as soon as you're not, and I always take my baby over to the running faucet, put my hand underneath the faucet, lukewarm water wipe all the stuff up there. Face arms, body, pat them dry with a dry towel, clean towel, set them down somewhere safe, and then get to town cleaning up that food mess cause dried food mess is our pain. All right, tip number four for celebrating baby-led weaning, watch and learn from other babies. Gagging on food videos. I know this one is weird, but ever since we started posting gagging videos on my Instagram back in 2018 than one of the most engaged with, and popular pieces of content that we do regularly, because gagging can be scary when you're starting solid foods.

Katie Ferraro (10m 2s):

And some parents don't want to do baby led weaning, oh my baby's going to gag on food. Your baby's going to gag on food no matter how you start solid foods, but we know that they can start practicing with different textures beyond purees at six months of age. And gagging is very, very different from choking. So it's important to understand what a gag looks like. And to know the difference between a gag and a choke. I have lots of a gagging videos on my Instagram page at baby led weaning team. We also just started a YouTube channel. So YouTube/C/babyledweaning will take you right there. Got some good gagging content. A lot of parents have been sending me stuff from the new YouTube videos, which is so fun. If you have a good gagging video, by the way, send me a DM on Instagram, just type gag, video along with it so I could find it. And I love to reshare them because the truth is watching videos of other babies, gagging on food, and then recovering on their own.

Katie Ferraro (10m 47s):

That can actually give you so much confidence in your baby's ability to do the same. And if you want to learn more about the difference between gagging and choking, I do teach it on that free one hour video online workshop that I teach each week called BABYLED WEANING FOR BEGINNERS. You can sign up for that at babyledweaning.co. We spend a lot of time differentiating between gagging and choking because I don't want this to stand in your way of trying new foods. All right? The fifth way for you to celebrate BLW day is to share a video of your baby doing baby-led weaning in action. I know a lot of you guys are like Instagram creepers or social media stalkers. You're like, I don't really post anything. I'm just here to learn, but I'll tell you one thing your baby feeding themselves is so powerful for other people in your community to see you are an inspiration to your friends, to your family members, to the grandparents who don't believe that babies can feed themselves.

Katie Ferraro (11m 38s):

Seeing really is believing and as much time as I put into creating audio content for you guys here on the podcast, I really, really do recognize the power of video. And so if you do have an opportunity to share on any of your social media channels, your baby eating real food. Yeah. It's messy. Yeah. It's funny. Yeah. It can be a little freaky at first, but it's so amazing to watch these babies safely eating the foods that you have prepared for them. We don't have to shove spoonfuls of white rice cereal down a baby's mouth. Babies can feed themselves, seeing is believing. So if you're not one for posting, do me a favor on Baby-Led Weaning Day, July 1st, or right now, whenever you're listening to this, get a video up of your baby eating tag me on Instagram at babyledweanteam.

Katie Ferraro (12m 21s):

You guys are the biggest advocates for baby led. Weaning your babies are doing amazing things and you guys are doing amazing things for your babies by giving them the opportunity and the space to learn how to safely feed themselves. Happy Baby-Led Weaning Day. Thanks so much for listening. I'm here every day of the year, but I especially love BABY-LED WEANING DAY. And I love the opportunity to get to work with you and your babies and share all of this knowledge. I am going to link a ton of BLW day spam with lots of other shareables for you guys in the show notes page for this episode, where you could find at blwpodcast.com/242. Happy Baby-Led Weaning Day.