BLW: Ask Me Anything Q&A with Katie Ferraro

Katie Ferraro (1m 26s):

There's no evidence-based or hard and fast guidance about exactly how much we should offer babies at particular meals, because all babies are different. Your baby is going to eat varying amounts of food. 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 (2m 9s):

Well, Hey there, baby led rweanin fans a little bit of a different style episode for you today. I'm going to do a baby led weaning Q and A Ask Me Anything. So I put the word out on Instagram. I was like, what are the questions that are stumping you when it comes to feeding your baby? You're like, I've looked it up. I cannot find answer anywhere else. I got some really great questions lined up for you. These were awesome. Thank you so much to all of the parents and caregivers who submitted their questions. I'm going to go through each one of them. Try to help you out. If I can. Some of them are just like, Hey, that's a really good question. And we don't always know the answer to all this stuff. That's the point of trying to get a variety of different opinions, looking at lots of different evidence, and then you guys do what's best for your baby.

Katie Ferraro (2m 50s):

So without further ado here is episode 171. This is baby led, weaning a Q and a Ask Me Anything.

Brittany (2m 57s):

My name is Brittany. And my question about Baby led weaning is how do you do it at a restaurant? We took my baby for the first time to a restaurant over the weekend, and there was food everywhere, and I didn't want to leave it for the waitress, but it was all over the floor, all over the high chair, all over the table. And I felt so bad. So I used every wipey in my diaper bag to clean it all up before we left. But is it so bad to feed them at a restaurant?

Katie Ferraro (3m 25s):

Oh, Brittany, I love this question. I also love hearing your baby in the background, weighing in with their opinion too, but you ended the question with, is it so bad to feed them at a restaurant? And I think that really depends on your comfort level with the mess, right? There's no right or wrong way to do any of this. We're all trying to figure it out. And I know the anxiety of trying to keep a low profile to restaurant when your kids are distracting and maybe that's from the noise or the mess, or in my case, it's just like the sheer number of children and people looking at you. And you have seven kids that you're trying to corral. So there's different levels of comfort. Like sometimes I don't see it as sometimes. I'm like, I can't handle this, but to answer your question, if it's just too much to take your baby to a restaurant, are they missing out on any feeding or developmental milestones because of it? No, of course not.

Katie Ferraro (4m 6s):

But a few restaurant management tips. So bring a few of your supplies. If you can't know, obviously you can't recreate the entire feeding setup that you have at home at a restaurant, but I do like to bring a mini mat. The easy-peasy one that suctions to the table that helps to some degree with a mess, but also for sanitary purposes, because you know, having worked in restaurants, you know, it's not always super clean on those tables or the rags to clean those tables, but fun fact that easy-peasy, mini-map the bag that it comes in is actually a wet bag. So it's perfect for toting to a restaurant. Don't throw that out when you guys order the easy-peasy products, splash mat. Okay. I was just talking with some parents about this on Instagram recently. And some of you guys are super brave and you're like going to take your own splash vets to the restaurant and put them underneath the high chair and then just like fold everything up and shut it back in your diaper bag before you go.

Katie Ferraro (4m 48s):

And I think that's actually a really good idea and I totally admire it. I never had the guts to do that at a restaurant, but I definitely do it when I'm like going to grandma's house or to a play date. So splash mats could be a savior for you as well. I like the splash mats from the company Bapron Baby, they fold down really small. So those are low profiles. Shove them back in your diaper bag. If you go to Bapronbaby.com my affiliate discount code for vapor and is KATIE10, and that will get you 10% off the splash mats. That's a little bit of an investment, but like definitely worth it. If you don't want to take like a massive tablecloth to the restaurant to catch your baby's mess. Another tip asked for the broom as again, someone who worked in restaurants for a lot of years, I know firsthand that not acknowledging the mess is like the worst thing that you can do.

Katie Ferraro (5m 30s):

So I personally, as a parent always try to clean it up and then I have no qualms about asking for the broom, Hey, sorry. I made a big mess over here. Can I get your broom like, or vacuum or whatever it is that they're going to do. And then force comes to where it's always just, you know, tip big if you're feeling exceptionally helpless or if you need to get out of there. So I've done that before. I'm like, sorry, can you pack this all up? Like we got to go, I do just want to acknowledge so that restaurants can be sticky for parents. But also I just sometimes feel so bad when I see a baby sitting in the high chair and they're not being allowed to eat. Like they're clearly six months of age. They're like grabbing for the food and they so desperately want to participate in the meal. So again, you've got to make the call that's best for your family. And some families are like, Hey, we're just not ready for restaurants. And some are like, Hey, I'm just going to deal with it and figure it out. So keep us posted on how it's going.

Katie Ferraro (6m 10s):

Brittany props to you for going out to the restaurants. Can you

Maggie (6m 13s):

START before six months? And what can you give them before then? My baby is four and a half months old and she has not had any food yet, but I do plan to start that in the next couple of weeks. Thanks.

Katie Ferraro (6m 25s):

Hi, Maggie. I am so excited that you are excited to start solid foods. Your baby's four and a half months of age. And I know I asked this question cause like you see stuff out there, maybe your doctor's telling you, Hey, go ahead and start solid foods. But I want you to know that babies do not need anything except breast milk or formula until they're six months of age. And that there's no strategic advantage to starting early, right? We live in this like hyper competitive parenting society sometimes where it's like, oh, if you know your baby can do that at nine months, the mine's going to do it at six oh, your baby started at six with solid foods. I'm going to start at four. It actually can be dangerous to start solid foods before your baby's ready. And as you get closer to six months, your baby will start to exhibit. What I personally think is the most important sign of readiness to feed. And that's the ability for Baby to sit relatively unassisted.

Katie Ferraro (7m 8s):

That's so important for facilitating a safe swallow. It's key in preventing choking. That's why we really have to wait until your baby is ready, but I get it. You're chomping at the bit. You want your baby to be involved at mealtime, definitely get your high chair, bring the high chair up to the table. You can put that four and a half month old in the high chair. They're probably gonna need to be propped up a little bit, cause they're not sitting yet with some, you know, receiving blankets or you can rope some kitchen towels just to, they're not flopping all over the place. You can put toys on the tray or the table. You can do the open cup, right? You can get the, I like the easy peasy, tiny cup. It's a two ounce cup that we use for baby led. Weaning, put some breast milk or some formula in there. Even little babies can start to practice drinking out of the open cup and it's perfectly safe for them to have breast milk or formula.

Katie Ferraro (7m 48s):

We don't want to do any water though, especially for the really early babies like yours, because water is a thin liquid and that's more challenging for your baby to swallow than the thicker liquids like breast milk or formula they've been used to. So you can get the plates out, get the little baby spoon out if you want and let them play with it and participate in mealtime. But I would hold off on anything except breast milk or formula until six months of age. If you guys are working with premature babies, we want to wait until the baby is six months adjusted age. And if you started purees really early, before six months of age and you're like, oh fuck, I maybe started to really now need to pump the brakes. Like what do I do? I have a separate episode all about this is episode 109. It's called. I started periods too early. Should I stop before switching to baby led weaning.

Katie Ferraro (8m 29s):

If you go to BLW podcast.com/109, you can hear that. And then for the premature parents who are like, hold up what she's talking about adjusted age, I've got an episode. That's all about how premature babies can succeed with baby led weaning and that's episode 158. So head to BLW podcast.com/158. And you can listen to that. So thank you for the question, Maggie, and can't wait to see you get started when your baby's ready. Hi

Tony (8m 53s):

Katie. I have not been able to find a good, consistent source of serving sizes for babies under one. So my baby is 10 and a half months old and I just need help figuring out how much to serve her at one meal. So let me know. And if you could talk about that, that'd be great. Thank you so much for all you do.

Katie Ferraro (9m 16s):

Tony. I love this question and you're not alone. The reason why you can't find a consistent source of serving sizes for how much babies should eat less than 12 months of age. It's because it doesn't exist. There's no evidence-based or hard and fast guidance about exactly how much we should offer babies at particular meals, because all babies are different. Okay? Your baby is different from my baby is different from someone else's baby, but also your baby is going to eat varying amounts of food even within the same day or from day to day. And if we say, oh, you have to offer the baby this much, or maybe should be eating that much. All it does is set us up for failure. So I like the idea of trusting your gut because you know your baby best.

Katie Ferraro (9m 57s):

Now there are some general guidelines, okay? You'll never catch me being like, oh two ounces of a nut butter or four ounces of a fruit and vegetable. And you need to have a half a cup of starch. No, we want to see babies get a variety of foods and flavors and tastes and textures. Some days they're going to eat everything you offer. Some days they're gonna eat less. What we do want to do though, is to avoid dripping food. And so dripping food is where he put a tiny bit of food out. And then we wait for the baby to pick it up and put in their mouth. And then we put a tiny little bit of food out and we wait for them to put it in their mouth. A lot of times, parents who are like super type A controlling and I'm raising my hand because I'm definitely that type of parent, but they tend to do that because they really worried about the mess. We've got lots of resources about why it's a good idea to get over the mess, right?

Katie Ferraro (10m 39s):

That's a sensory part of learning how to eat easier said than done. I know, but we do want to refrain from dripping food in order to allow the baby to visualize how much food is there and then let them self pace the rate at which they put it in their mouth so that they can expect and know how much is out there. So we're not surprising them. So I've got a whole episode about that episode, 133, it's called don't drip food. How to pre portion for baby led weaning. And there's some more tips in there about like what you might expect your baby to eat, but please know you're not missing anything. If you guys are looking for like portion guides for baby led weaning, because if someone's offering you that it's made up because there's no, again, hard and fast evidence about how much babies should eat. So sorry if that doesn't really answer your question, but go with your gut. You know, your baby best 10 and a half months.

Katie Ferraro (11m 21s):

You're kind of like, I think the golden age of baby led weaning volume wise, they're eating a lot, but don't be surprised if as you approach the one-year birthday, your baby's volume of food slows down. Their rate of growth is slowing down. So sometimes the most food that they'll eat is at 9, 10 and 11 months. And the parents are like, whoa, we turn one. And their food intake went way down. That's actually quite typical because they're responding to their rate of growth,

Sita (11m 43s):

How to prevent picky eating. And one of the parents will be really picky eater. My husband has having arthritis, colitis. So his diet is very limited. He can't eat a lot of stuff. This also his diet is like salt based and of fat-based diet due to his condition. So my son, when I do build a mea for him, seeing his dad not eating all the food, will he become a picky eater as well? How to prevent that?

Katie Ferraro (12m 12s):

Thank you. Oh, Sita. I'm so sorry to hear about your husband's ulcerative colitis. It really is important that he follows that therapeutic diet that he's been prescribed. And I know it might be a challenge as your baby's trying new foods, that dad can't be participating in all of the same foods, but I know a lot of other parents are shaking their heads. Like maybe it's not all sort of colitis, but one or more of the parents or the caregivers is really picky. And if they're not medically limited, as your husband is, sometimes we find that baby led weaning actually can even expand the palette of the parents. So if they're going through my a hundred FIRST FOODS LIST, for example, and picking out different foods to try for their baby, sometimes the parents end up having a more expansive palette as well.

Katie Ferraro (12m 52s):

It certainly works for the toddlers. They tend to try more foods, especially if they're engaged in eating them. But I don't want you to worry that your son seeing his dad stick to a diet that he has to, for his medical condition, that it's going to cause him to be a picky eater and a picky eating is a very subjective area of feeding. There's nothing that sure-fire 100% prevents, picky eating. We know that diet diversity. So the greater, the number of foods and flavors and tastes and textures that your baby's exposed to that can help reduce the likelihood of picky eating or the severity of picky eating. But almost all children experienced some degree of picky eating as they head into their second year of life. I'm not saying it's not inevitable, but if you can give your baby a wide variety of foods and you lose a few of them to picky eating, it's not a really big deal, but if they only have a few FOODS to start with, and then you lose them to pick eating, that can be more challenging.

Katie Ferraro (13m 42s):

So I would say, keep up the good work with trying to offer your baby a variety of foods, wishing your husband luck with his health and that hopefully eventually he'll be able to eat more of the foods that he wants to as well. All right. I could answer questions like this all day long. I love hear your guys' voices. This was so fun. So I'm actually going to do a few more of these episodes cause I got some other great questions and I know that parents like to be able to ask their questions and hear them get answered. So thank you guys for the great questions. If you want to check out the links to the questions cause I've referred to a lot of different episodes for some of these topics that I've already covered in separate episodes. In more depth. If you head to the show notes for this episode at BLW podcast.com/171, you can grab the links to those.

Katie Ferraro (14m 25s):

And if you're looking to grab a copy of my hundred FIRST FOODS LIST for more ideas on all the foods your baby can eat, I give that a hundred first foods list away to everybody on my FREE BABY LED WEANING FOR BEGINNERS WORKSHOP. It's a workshop that I teach a couple of times each week. That's all about how to teach your baby to eat a hundred FOODS before turning one, without you having to spoonfeed purees or buy pouches. So you can sign up for this week's workshop times. If you head babyledweaning.co I also do a Q and a at the end of those workshops, I try to make a point to answer every single question. If I can't get to them on the workshop, I'll respond to you by email. So if you submitted a question and you didn't hear it answered, come check out the workshop.

Katie Ferraro (15m 5s):

If you want more Q and a there as well. So thanks again for listening. You guys, the workshop signup page one more time is babyledweaning.co. And I'll see you on the next podcast episode and we'll be doing some more Q and a Ask Me Anything because I really love this format. And thanks again for all your great questions.