Second Baby BLW: How I'm Doing 100 First Foods Differently for Baby #2 with Lauren McClure

Lauren McClure (43s):

I started Kiera too early. So with Kellin I was very intentional at waiting until he was six months old and exhibiting all the other signs of readiness. He was sitting up before he was even rolling over.

Katie Ferraro (55s):

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, leaving you with the confidence and knowledge you need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods using baby-led weaning. I'm always curious to hear from second time moms or third or fourth or whatever, but basically not the first time moms. When it comes to the subsequent babies, what is it that you're doing differently about starting solid foods this time that you wish you had done with your oldest child?

Katie Ferraro (1m 38s):

My guest today is Lauren McClure. She's a mom of two and she did the 100 First Foods approach for baby-led weaning with her oldest her daughter Kiera. So I remember following her page and watching Kiera eat a 100 foods before she turned one. And then I saw a new 100 First Foods page pop up recently, which was Kellin led weaning. And I did a little sleuthing and realized, wait a minute, this is Lauren McClure's baby. She had a second baby. She said she got tired of spamming her family with all the baby feeding pictures, so she spun it off and made a second Instagram and she's doing the 100 First Foods approach to baby-led weaning with Baby Kellin as well. So I wanted to have Lauren on to chat about how she's doing solid foods differently for baby number two.

Katie Ferraro (2m 19s):

And we're gonna be talking about why she feels like she started too early with her oldest daughter. Some pointers I think from both of us on way we both don't go into baby-led weaning Facebook groups anymore. And then Lauren's also gonna share her exact feeding schedule for Kellin that she's doing for baby-led weaning now that he's eight months of age. So with no further adieu, I wanna welcome Lauren McClure talking about second baby BLW and how she's doing a 100 First Foods differently for baby number two. Here's Lauren.

Lauren McClure (2m 50s):

Yeah, thank you so much for having me back. Katie.

Katie Ferraro (2m 53s):

I know we chatted once before we were talking about a 100 First Foods Graduates episode about your older daughter Kiera. She did baby-led weaning and ate 100 foods before turning one. Before we get started talking about her little brother Kellin, I just wanted to ask, could you tell us how you found out about baby-led weaning and why did you decide to take that route with Kiera when you were a first timer new mom?

Lauren McClure (3m 12s):

Yeah, that's a great question. I don't remember exactly when I heard the term baby-led weaning. I'm sure it came up when I was pregnant or when she was an infant and you know, just kind in mom Facebook groups. But what I did know even before I was pregnant was that I wanted to avoid picky eating in my children. So I have some picky eaters in our family that has carried onto adulthood. I remember like parents, grandparents making separate meals and I just did not wanna go down that route that my child needed to be, you know, fed a separate meal, wouldn't eat tomato sauce on the pasta, you know, into teenage years in adulthood.

Lauren McClure (3m 53s):

So that really started me down the route. And then when I was pregnant and when Kiera was a baby, I remember that's when a lot of articles started coming out. Or maybe it was just cuz I got on the algorithms about heavy metals and baby food, which I know now from you know, research that that's really more about diet diversity And it's not that commercial baby food is apparently bad and filled with you know, a lot of heavy metals. But it made me want to avoid commercial baby food. So I started hearing about baby-led weaning and started doing more research. And then I would say the last thing is that I really wanted Kiera to have a better relationship with food.

Lauren McClure (4m 33s):

So I didn't necessarily, I don't have like a unhealthy relationship with food, but I grew up in the nineties and in the nineties it was you were very skinny

Katie Ferraro (4m 43s):

Snack wells. Fat free fudge cookies.

Lauren McClure (4m 46s):

Exactly. I remember girls, you know, middle school age or younger dieting And that was, you know, the culture that we grew up in. But also that was also the culture of oh there's starving children and other countries, you better eat everything that's on your plate. So on one hand we're saying eat all the food that you're served and then the media's telling you to look a certain way. And especially with my oldest child being female, I wanted her to grow up having a better relationship with food. And you know, through baby-led weaning and through your resources have now learned about like intuitive eating, And, the, you know, Division of Responsibility and Feeding Theory that you know, baby-led weaning goes hand in hand with that bodily autonomy and a better healthy relationship with food.

Katie Ferraro (5m 32s):

I know we talked about Kiera in the past while we're here today to talk about Kellin, I wanna hear about how he's doing. You're a mom of two now, baby boy. When did he start solid foods? How old was he? Do you remember what his first food was?

Lauren McClure (5m 43s):

Yeah, So. I, I will say that I know that I started Kiera too early. And that was a lot of pressure from mom groups and mom friends to start at four months at age. Even our pediatrician, which she's just following AAP guidelines of that's still four to six months age So I think I started her around five months and she still couldn't set up in high chair. Like she's fallen over to the side in high chair and it was, I know now that it was not the right time to start her. So with Kellin I was very intentional at waiting until he was six months old and exhibiting all the other signs of readiness and he was funny, he wanted to sit up even from a really young age, it was like three and a half months old and he was like, sit me up, I want to be looking and observing at what everyone else is doing.

Lauren McClure (6m 30s):

I don't wanna lay on my back, I don't wanna be held laying down. So he was sitting up before he was even rolling over. So we started him at six months and his first food was banana. And so I did that kind of simple starter foods, banana avocado so we could take it out just because that's what I was super comfortable with. But you know, progressed really quickly through to other foods.

Katie Ferraro (6m 50s):

And when we were prepping for this interview, you mentioned there are things you're doing with Kellin that you didn't know about or didn't incorporate with Kiera So you mentioned like starting too soon. Anything else you can share like now looking back that you might have done differently with Kiera knowing what you know now?

Lauren McClure (7m 5s):

Yeah, So I picked a horrible highchair and I know that it was just because I was four months pregnant. First time mom I typed into Google "Best high chairs 2019", probably picked the top one and put it in my baby registry. She's always been super tall. Both my kids are super tall, 95th percentile. Could not reach the footrest on that high chair until she was over a year old. It was, I mean maybe lucky that it even had a footrest to begin with cuz some of them don't. But definitely not a but it also reclined dude

Katie Ferraro (7m 41s):

I had bought that high chair with my oldest too. I was like this is cool. And then I'm like oh it's the exact angle that could choke a baby. The dumbest high chair ever.

Lauren McClure (7m 49s):

Exactly. So I was very happy when that high chair went in the, so we got a new high chair, we selected the Nomi high chair for Kellin. And then my mother-in-law has an IKEA high chair with a foot rest that I've added to it just cuz that's economical. So those are the options that we have now what

Katie Ferraro (8m 9s):

What chair does Kiera eat in now?

Lauren McClure (8m 11s):

Kellin eats in the Nomi. Kiera just eats in a booster seat now.

Katie Ferraro (8m 15s):

So besides a high chair and then starting to suit anything else like just looking back?

Lauren McClure (8m 19s):

Yeah, so with Kellin I started doing some pre feeding activities. I didn't do this with Kiera because I just didn't know about it. I just didn't have the knowledge. I was learning about baby-led weaning at the time that we were starting feeding. So we started putting Kellin in the height chair, kind rolled up some towels to support him at about four months of age, joining us at dinner time. And I would give him the tiny spoons, an open cup and so he was able to practice picking that spoon up, bringing it to his mouth, kind of mouthing the spoon, learning you know, where are the sensory bumps on it, how far can I put the spoon my mouth before I gag myself?

Lauren McClure (9m 3s):

Those type of oral motor skills and hand eye coordination that you know eventually helps when you do put food on the spoon. And then same thing with the open cup. You know they can't eat food until they're ready but you can absolutely put breast milk or formula in the open cup at four or five months old, have them practice drinking that, the lip closure, all of the tongue movements for a safe swallow and getting that practice in before starting solid foods. And I even have since learned that sometimes IBCLCs will recommend open cup drinking for babies that you know reject the bottle like a breastfed baby and moms gone through 5, 6, 7 bottles.

Lauren McClure (9m 45s):

Baby doesn't wanna take any of them. I mean there's no reason that a baby can't be doing that open cup drinking even earlier.

Katie Ferraro (9m 51s):

So, you mentioned that you started with some of the simple starter foods for baby-led weaning, avocado, banana, sweet potato at this point. How old is Kellin? How many different foods has he had and then which one do you think has kind of been his favorite so far?

Lauren McClure (10m 3s):

Yeah, so we are on week seven of baby led weaning now and he has done 30 foods so today will be 31. His favorite so far has been pears. So, I just kind of peeled the pairs, sliced them and they were ripe but I poached them just for kind of added assurance that they would be nice and soft and he was actually eating them not, not just like eating them faster than I could even refill his bowl. I, I truly think he actually ate the entire pear.

Katie Ferraro (10m 34s):

Was he ready right at six months? So is he like almost eight months or did you do six months plus one week, two week or something like that to start?

Lauren McClure (10m 40s):

Yeah, we started the week that he turned six months and so he's almost eight months.

Katie Ferraro (10m 44s):

So you're a different kind of busy now with a three year old and a baby who's doing baby-led weaning. Just curious how big sister Kiera engages at mealtime. Does she like to prep foods? Is she interested in what her little brother is eating? How's that dynamic at home?

Lauren McClure (10m 56s):

I love to encourage her to be involved in dinner prep whenever I can involve her. So one thing I love is a learning tower that I can pull up to the kitchen counter and she can climb up and help with the food prep. I wanna get her some like toddler safe knives.

Katie Ferraro (11m 12s):

Oh I have some good recommendations. I bought every single one on Amazon, I'll put them on the show notes page for this episode. Some of them really stink. Actually a really cool one is the Kiddicutter knife from Bapron Baby. It's like a smaller one but it has tines on it. We use that one. I have an affiliate discount code for Bapron, KATIE10. So that works for 10% off for those knives. I start using those with kids around two but you know, ezpz has a line now the Happy line for older kids for two and up. And, that knife is pretty good for smaller pieces. But like for chef knife and stuff, I have some brands, there's actually some pretty good ones that I'll link up cuz it is kind of fun to have them cut. Can I ask what learning tower you're using? Do you know the brand of it or did you make it yourself?

Lauren McClure (11m 49s):

It's from Guide. Okay. And that one cuz it has also a a mesh net. So for younger kids they can't like fall

Katie Ferraro (11m 57s):

Oh, fall through it. Yeah, I have the Learning Little Partners one, I've had it for years, I have two of 'em. I love 'em but they're really big. Like I have to store in my garage and then pull them in. I know they kind of make some collapsible ones now. That's really cool I think. And there's really cool if you're like crafty or someone who lives with you is I've seen some pretty cool like designs on Etsy and stuff where you can make of yourself but basically a learning tower. If, you guys aren't familiar. It's like it's a stool that you kind of pull up next to the counter but it's like four sides around it so that the kid doesn't fall off. I I have the little partners, one is huge. I can put like three or four kids in there. I swear as they get bigger obviously it gets tighter and they kind of fight but it's a way for your kid to be at the counter helping you prep foods. Just curious about this time around, have you been doing anything different as far as trying the new foods and trying to get to a 100 foods with Kellin versus Kiera?

Lauren McClure (12m 42s):

Yeah, So I think that the biggest thing is staying off the Facebook groups. So when I was learning about baby-led weaning, I joined a lot of baby-led weaning Facebook groups and some of them are, they're very intense of,

Katie Ferraro (12m 58s):

Tell me about it. We actually shut down a massive, our baby-led weaning Facebook group with over a hundred thousand followers because it was an S h I T show in there. I mean it is so incredibly negative and judgmental. And the entire focus of my content is to be positive and help parents recognize all the foods that their babies can eat. So I can't tell you enough how much I that that sentiment resonates with me because it can be a pretty nasty place out there. Especially in those groups like who talks to other people like that.

Lauren McClure (13m 23s):

And there's, there was one group that was very intense about baby needs to be eating exactly the same meal that the family is eating. And the comments would, you know, If you served your baby yogurt and strawberries for dinner And the comments would be, did you eat yogurt and strawberries for dinner?

Katie Ferraro (13m 40s):

I know we've actually, I've had Jill Rapley on the podcast a number of times the founder of baby-led weaning the pioneers to be like, hey here's some stuff. She's like I don't even wanna talk about the Facebook groups because also it's important I think to hear from the person who created the movement And the philosophy and like if that's your interpretation of baby-led weaning, you have completely missed the mark. And no offense, I don't wanna be in a group or ever intimate that other parents should be learning from groups like that as well. It's so important that we really analyze where we're getting our health nutrition and Infant feeding information from and there's so much disinformation out there. So

Lauren McClure (14m 10s):

They're not credentialed either. Like these Facebook groups who, you know, who are they to be giving advice on what babies should be doing, what's safe when just someone running a Facebook group, Right?

Katie Ferraro (14m 21s):

Absolutely. Other things different this time. Kellin versus Kiera,

Lauren McClure (14m 25s):

One thing I'm trying to put less pressure on myself. So the food of the day doesn't necessarily have to be exactly meshed in with what we're having for dinner, right? If I'm giving,

Katie Ferraro (14m 37s):

Especially in the first eight weeks Lauren, you know like they cannot eat the same foods that you eat. They're still learning how to eat in phase one of baby-led weaning. And I feel terrible if parents are hearing that message that they need to be eating the same thing that the rest of the family is. Eventually we're working towards that So I think it's good. You've kind of backed off the pressure of yourself

Lauren McClure (14m 54s):

And then the same thing with not feeling like I had to do too many meals at right off the bat with Kiera. I think I started two meals a day right off the bat. And that's a lot of pressure when you're trying to figure this out. You know, going from just doing bottle feeding to now trying to prep two meals for a kid. That's a lot of work. So I kind of backed it off. Okay, let's start with one meal a day and just this week we're bumping him up. So two meals a day.

Katie Ferraro (15m 21s):

Do you mind sharing at eight months of age, what is Kellen's feeding schedule right now? Milk and food.

Lauren McClure (15m 26s):

Yeah, so we just changed his schedule starting this week. So we're bumping 'em up to two meals a day. So what we're trying to shoot for right now and it's kinda a work in progress, is a milk feed every three to four hours. So six total milk feeds a day and then doing two meals a day of solid foods about an hour after a milk feed. So we're doing milk at 10 and then brunch food at 11, then he'll have a bottle at two, a bottle at five and then we'll do dinner at six. So six six milk feeds, three to four hours apart, two meals one hour after a milk feed.

Katie Ferraro (16m 8s):

He doesn't have anything before 10:00 AM or did I miss a feed there?

Lauren McClure (16m 11s):

No, he, he does a 6:00 AM milk feed.

Katie Ferraro (16m 13s):

6:00 AM milk feed. Okay so 6:00 AM milk, 10:00 AM milk, 11:00 AM food, 2:00 PM bottle, 5:00 PM bottle, 6:00 PM food and then a bedtime bottle

Lauren McClure (16m 21s):

And then bedtime feed and then a dream feed.

Katie Ferraro (16m 24s):

Okay. As far as dropping milk feeds, what do you think you're gonna do first?

Lauren McClure (16m 27s):

So probably the first thing that I'm gonna look at dropping is the dream feed. Okay. At least get me to the point where I don't have to stay up so late at night.

Katie Ferraro (16m 35s):

Yeah, definitely. And

Lauren McClure (16m 36s):

Then you know two, about eight months of age getting into nine months of age will probably look at shifting solids to come before milk feeds and, and then of course the milk will probably gradually it decreases

Katie Ferraro (16m 50s):

Yeah, I think you're kind of coming right into that golden age of baby-led weaning at 8, 9, 10 months of age after your baby's been eating for about eight weeks, you start dropping a milk feed, you start shifting milk behind food. Have a whole separate episode about how to move milk behind food cuz that can be kind of challenging for parents. It's called when to move milk behind food And we interviewed another mom who's going through it with her eight month old. That's episode 2 3 5 If. You guys wanna listen to that. And then I always think the morning feed, I mean what works for you? One family might not work for another but for most of the families I work with, including with my own babies dropping that morning feed as long as you have breakfast ready can really, really kind of jumpstart a good day for eating. Cuz if you, your baby's starting to feel a little casual hunger when he comes to the table.

Katie Ferraro (17m 32s):

He can go right to that food and then you're doing the milk in between meals, then he is starting to eat more at meals, drink less. That's Weaning in action with our ultimate goal of baby eating modified versions of the same Foods the family eats by the time they turn one. But I love that you're reminding us that that that's not how Babies start out and we shouldn't be pressuring ourselves to feel that way way cuz that's not the point of baby-led weaning. Babies need lots of time and space and grace to learn how to eat. So Lauren, where can our audience go to learn more about your family and follow Kellin's 100 First Foods before he turns one with baby-led weaning?

Lauren McClure (18m 3s):

Yeah, So I think I annoyed my personal social media audience enough with Kiera's 100 First Food journey that I decided to make a separate account this time. My husband actually loves it cause it's a nice documentation almost a year in review what will become. And so that's on Instagram @kellinledweaning and Kellin is K E L L I N

Katie Ferraro (18m 24s):

Kellin led weaning So I remember I found your page cause I follow all the 100 First Foods pages and I was like wait a minute, that's Lauren McClure cuz I knew you were on your personal Instagram but I actually, the reason why I started my baby-led weaning Instagram was because I was annoying my personal social audience cuz we did baby-led weaning with our quadruplets. Then once they hit one, I started actually working in baby-led weaning full-time and I was like well people just wanna see your kids. They don't care about baby-led weaning if they're not Babies anymore. So I spun off the baby-led weaning one right after our twins were born to actually document our twins 100 First Foods journey. And that's how that account actually started, which was super cool because if I go all the way back in my feet I could find their 100 First Foods and I was really kind of tweaking and refining this program that I'd originally created in 2016 So I just love seeing babies around the world and families really pushing their pallets to get those babies to eat a 100 foods cuz it really does make a difference.

Katie Ferraro (19m 12s):

You know, most babies have only had 10 or 15 foods by the time they turn one with traditional spoon feeding. And if, you lose those 10 or 15 foods to picky eating that becomes such a challenging child to eat. But if your baby has a 100 foods like Kellin is going to and Kiera did you lose 10 or 15 to picky eating in the second year of life? It's really not that big of a deal cuz your kid still has a ton of foods that they will eat. Do you mind sharing how Kiera's doing? I mean I'm sure she's got some degree of picky eating which is developmentally appropriate for a toddler, but would you say you're happy with your decision to do baby-led weaning with her?

Lauren McClure (19m 41s):

Absolutely. I like to say that she is not picky, she's just decisive on what she wants to eat that day and that's perfectly fine. You know, we serve the family meal and it's her responsibility to decide what of that meal that she's gonna eat and and she eats most foods and accepts most foods. I love, this year her, her teacher documents everything that she eats for the day and most days it says ate all, ate most.

Katie Ferraro (20m 7s):

Oh that I think that's so cool. Honestly the like that's praise from Caesar when the daycare providers, we actually, we do a post purchase one question survey of everyone who buys our course and we were looking at the recent ones and we saw a comment that said Baby Jacob, who's a baby we've worked with on Instagram, I take care of baby Jacob I have at a daycare, I have never seen an Infant eat as well as he did. My baby's five months old and I want my baby to eat like that. That's from a daycare provider. So she bought the course that was like, so actually we got in touch with her. We're gonna start working with her and her baby cuz we're really trying to help our daycare families. It's such a pain point and it doesn't have to be, but it's So important to be educating the daycare providers about the benefits of baby led weaning, So I think like when someone sees your kid and is like, I want my kid to eat like that. You can't help but feel good about it and then when you send them or someone else is watching them and you know that they're being taken care of and they're being nourished, like that's very unusual.

Katie Ferraro (20m 54s):

Most families have a lot of stress cuz their Babies won't eat anything at daycare or they won't eat anything in general. So congratulations to you guys and thank you so much for taking the time to chat. I know you're super busy with a job and two kids and family and life stuff plus Kellin's 100 First Foods. Instagram is so cool. I love it. Like you don't like overdo it. It's not like perfectly perfect, which is real life. I'm like just good ideas of foods that babies can eat in real time. You're watching now almost eight month old and just to see even in recent days how much more confident he's gotten than from when your account started. I just like love to watch the progression. All right, take care. Thank you, Lauren. Thank you. Well, I hope you guys enjoyed that interview with Lauren McClure. I was thinking afterwards like, Oh my gosh, she is so educated about a lot of stuff in the feeding space that I think in many other cases moms either don't pick up on or just aren't aware of So.

Katie Ferraro (21m 40s):

I really enjoyed chatting with her and we mentioned we're talking a little bit about high chairs in that episode. Lauren mentioned that she has the Nomi high chair, that's the high chair that I use for all my own children, but all the Babies that I work with, it's my favorite highchair for baby led weaning from both a safety and an efficacy standpoint. If you're shopping the Nomi Highchair, you know that it definitely is an investment. But I do have a very special tip for my podcast listeners on how you can get into this at a price. I think you're really going to like, I can't share the particulars of it on the podcast, but If, you send me an email, Katie baby led we team.com and put Nomi in the subject line. I'll respond to you with the details on the Nomi Highchair special offer.

Katie Ferraro (22m 21s):

All right, well, thanks so much for listening. All of the links from today's episode, including the knives that we were talking about, some of the other stuff about high chair safety, some more tips on how you also get that a 100 First Foods list and get your baby eat a hundred foods before turning one. That's all linked up on the show notes page for this episode, which you can find at BLW podcast.com/ 2 6 8. Take care.