BLW at Daycare: How These Parents Made it Work

Katie Ferraro (0s):

Quick pulse check. Are you feeling okay about baby-led weaning? A little nervous about this transition? Are you maybe interested in BLW but not entirely sure if this is the approach for you? Or maybe you started baby-led weaning, but you're feeling stuck or you're gonna give up, because you're not sure if you're doing this right. Don't give up. I have a brand new one hour comprehensive online video training for you called Baby-Led Weaning for BEGINNERS. It's totally free. And I think it's gonna ease a lot of anxiety for you. I just redid this free training. It's packed with videos and visuals on how to safely prepare BLW foods and what the first few days looks like and how to reduce choking risk. Plus everyone on this free workshop gets a copy of my 100 First Foods list.

Katie Ferraro (41s):

So you'll never run out of ideas about what to feed your baby next. You can get signed up for this week's video workshop times at babyledweaning.co. If you've got one hour to dedicate to learning about BLW, this is the training for you. babyledweaning.co has this week's workshop times. And don't forget you also get that 100 First Foods list from this free training. And I hope to see you there. And with baby-led weaning at daycare, the cool thing is while your daycare provider may not have initially been on board with baby-led weaning or not known what it is or how to do it. Once they see your baby succeed with the few foods you know your baby is comfortable with, they end up loving it so much. 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.

Katie Ferraro (1m 29s):

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. Hey there, welcome back. Today's episode is some group therapy for my daycare parents. If your baby goes to daycare and you're struggling with how you can make baby-led weaning work at daycare, I wanna share with you some experiences of other parents who have done this successfully because just because you work or you have someone else helping you watch your children or your baby during the day, it does not mean that your baby does not have the right to self feed from their first bites. And there are lots of strategies that over the years, I've kind of refined and streamlined.

Katie Ferraro (2m 13s):

And we found that it actually really helps daycare families make baby-led weaning a reality during the day. Even if at first your daycare is like, oh, we don't really do that, or we only do purees or I don't know what baby-led weaning is. So I wanna say thank you to the parents in this episode who shared their success stories. If you're feeling a little bit of anxiety or tension about starting this conversation with your baby's daycare, I wanna let you know. I also have another resource for you. A free feeding guide called "How to Be a Baby-Led Weaning Advocate at Daycare". This is a free feeding guide that has sample scripts that you can use as conversation starters. So you can practice what you're gonna say. I sometimes just like, need the words, tell me what to say, but I've also laid out some strategies in this guide that you might consider as you help your daycare get on board with your chosen method of starting solid foods for your baby.

Katie Ferraro (2m 59s):

Parents have actually told me that knowing exactly what to say has really helped take the guesswork out of this transition. So if you wanna grab that free feeding guide called "How to Be a Baby-Led Weaning Advocate at Daycare", just head to the Shownotes page of this episode, which you can find at BLW podcast.com/265. So now, with no further adieu, let's get started with baby-led weaning at daycare, hearing from some parents who actually made it work. First up, we're gonna hear from Jordan Lachtrupp, who's gonna advise you to keep it simple when you consider which foods you are sending to daycare. Here's Jordan.

Jordan Lachtrupp (3m 39s):

My one piece of advice for baby-led weaning at daycare would be to send your child with those more familiar, easy foods for school, you know, maybe banana or you know, something easy that your child can hold avocado that you know, they like, and then save those new or different foods for home. Not only will your child you'll know, they'll eat those foods that you send them with, but you'll also get to save those fun new foods for home, whether they like them or not. You get to see their reaction to 'em and watch them experience it opposed to daycare doing it. So my one piece of advice would, I guess, be to send those familiar, loved foods to daycare.

Katie Ferraro (4m 23s):

I couldn't agree more Jordan. It's important that as the primary feeder, you are the one doing the new foods at home first, right? You cannot rely on someone else to feed your baby, the new foods. But once you have a few foods that your baby is comfortable with, right, you're gonna continue to offer new foods at home one a day, or you know, double up on the weekend, whatever you need to do, but you gotta be reintroducing those familiar foods. Let daycare do that for you. So definitely send those one to daycare. Thank you for that tip. Next up is Amy Locher. She has a 10 month old baby who goes to daycare, and it's a little extra work with regard to prepping his lunch. But I love this tip from Amy.

Amy Locher (4m 59s):

The one tip that I would share is to give your daycare provider, the food and the tools to support your child in their baby-led weaning journey. I send my 10 month old son's lunch every day, prepared in a little bento box and I send his ezpz bowl and cup. And I just ask the teachers to feed him the food as it's prepared in the bowl, and then allow him to drink water from the open cup. They are very supportive of that so I feel very fortunate.

Katie Ferraro (5m 32s):

You are so fortunate, Amy, but you've also worked really hard to make this happen. Amy mentioned that she's sending her son's ezpz, bowl and cup to daycare. So in addition to sending the food, I agree sending the gear is key for success at daycare too. You know, you're already packing a diaper bag each day, right? So just put the ezpz bowls and the Mini Mat if you use that. They actually all come in a wet bag when you order them. So don't throw away the wet bag when you order ezpz gear; ezpz if you're not familiar with them is the brand that makes the original silicone suction mats and bowls that I use and recommend for baby-led weaning. Plus they have this open cup, which to be honest, daycare absolutely loves to show off your baby's open cup drinking skills once you get going.

Katie Ferraro (6m 12s):

And they'll practice a lot with you when you're at work, which is awesome. So I have an affiliate discount code for ezpz; It's KATIE10, if you wanna get some of their suction mats or their bowls, they also have baby-led weaning spoons and cups all designed by an infant feeding expert. Again, that code is KATIE10 at ezpzfun.com to get some baby-led weaning feeding gear. Next up we have Rachel, she's doing some in-home daycare with grandma, and grandma, like a lot of grandmas was not originally on board with baby-led weaning. Does any of this sound familiar to some of you guys anyway, here's Rachel with her story.

Rachel (6m 49s):

Hey, so our seven month old goes to daycare at his grandma's house. So it's just him, however, she has been a little difficult with certain things. The high chair that she got does not have a footrest, which I requested. And so we're just gonna send hacks and do it ourself. After we watch her video, however, with the feeding with baby-led weaning she was really against it. And what I did was I sent your videos to her. And so she got excited about it after being really hesitant. She got excited. So we do most of it at home, but we'll send, you know, smaller meals for lunchtime, purees that he could eat himself and things that she's just comfortable with, that she's not too nervous about, and it's been working out better.

Katie Ferraro (7m 40s):

Next up is Kate Bomar. Now she has done baby-led weaning at daycare with two different babies located in two different states. So she knows what she's talking about and Kate's gonna stress the importance of seeing and how seeing really is believing with baby-led weaning at daycare. Here's Kate.

Kate Bomar (7m 58s):

When we sent our kids to daycare, we explained what baby-led weaning was ahead of time and stressed the importance of letting our children feed themselves. We had the teachers put the food on the high chair and allow the kids to feed themselves, which both children, it was a learning process for older teachers who were not used to this style. We also make sure to send all of the food from home so that it is cut or prepared appropriately, and we do not rely on the teacher or helpers in the room to know what to do as far as how to cut things. So far we have been in two states with two different daycares and both have been very accommodating to baby-led weaning.

Katie Ferraro (8m 45s):

Amen, Kate, of course we can't rely on the staff to make the foods or know exactly how to cut them, but since you're doing it at home anyway, cut and prep a little extra, but definitely get that FaceTime in, right? Especially with those teachers, with the helpers, if they've never seen this done before, I swear once they see your baby's self feeding, even if you only have a few foods, they're gonna be blown away. They're really gonna get on board with baby-led weaning, because not only is it developmentally appropriate for babies who are six months and beyond, but baby-led weaning is actually so much easier. Once the baby is feeding themselves for all parties involved. Next up is Arianelly and she's stressing the importance of going slow, guys, this is not our race, right? It's a marathon, not a sprint.

Katie Ferraro (9m 26s):

You've got this gift of a six month weaning window where your baby is learning how to eat. Your daycare, they may be slow just like your baby to get on board, but you can make it happen. And here is Arianelly's tip.

Arianelly (9m 38s):

I think before your baby's ready to start baby-led weaning, having a really open conversation. So it gives the provider time to plan for it. It gives you time to plan to see if they require any additional supplies and then like a slow phase in maybe only two days a week, but definitely having everything already prepped and ready to go. So it's not an added burden to the provider.

Katie Ferraro (10m 4s):

Okay. So there's kind of some recurrent themes here. If you guys are picking up on it, having a plan, prepping your own food, sending your own gear and then roll it out slowly for daycare, showing them because seeing is believing. You don't have to have all the pieces together at once. Thank you Arianelly for that reminder. Last up Rebecca Eswine, sorry if I'm butchering your name Rebecca, but your tip, I loved it. Short and sweet for making baby-led weaning work at daycare. Here's Rebecca

Rebecca Eswine (10m 31s):

Send food that you know that your baby can eat and can eat confidently so that the daycare doesn't have to doubt whether or not they're capable of doing solid foods at school.

Katie Ferraro (10m 44s):

Well, I hope these were some useful and practical tips for getting your baby's daycare provider on board with baby-led weaning. I have two other podcast episodes that are dedicated specifically to some of the ins and outs of this like whole baby-led weaning daycare conversation. Be sure to listen to episode 18, it's called "Daycare: How Can I Get Caregivers on Board with Baby-Led Weaning" and then episode 42 was called "Daycare: How To Be An Advocate for Baby-Led Weaning. I did that as an interview with Poppy Duhnke who was a baby-led weaning mom of twins and also owns an in-home daycare. And she's telling you like what she likes when parents do and what she doesn't like when parents do. This was a really eye-opening episode for me. Again, episode 18 and episode 42. If you go to BLWpodcast.com, you can find those.

Katie Ferraro (11m 25s):

But if you also want to grab that free DOWNLOAD, I was telling you about it's a feeding guide called "How to Be a Baby-Led Weaning Advocate at Daycare." I've written out some sample scripts for you. Some scenarios, some strategies all laid out in a free feeding guide. So you guys can get started today because if your baby's making this transition right now and they're going to daycare all day, you might as well have them working with you. They're gonna love it. I promise that free feeding guide, it's all linked up for you on the Shownotes page for this episode, which you can find at BLW podcast.com/ 265. All right guys, wishing you a ton of luck, transitioning your baby to solid foods and getting your daycare provider on board. When you have a success story, please send it to me. I love to hear the good, a lot of times people just email, like when they're in the depths of despair, like I can't figure this out, but then when it all kind of clicks, I love to hear from you too.

Katie Ferraro (12m 12s):

So shoot me a message and let me know how it goes. All of the details from today's episode, more links that free feeding guide all at the Shownotes for this episode, which you can find at BLW podcast.com/265. Thank you so much for listening.