Is 8 Months Too Late to Switch to Finger Foods?

Katie Ferraro (0s):

Coming in tops on the list of work things I thought I was gonna loathe, but I ended up loving YouTube. We have a YouTube channel. It's about a year old. It's finally picking up steam, and there are so many valuable videos over there. If you want to see what starting solid foods looks like. I know I'm telling you about a YouTube channel while you're listening to a podcast, but if you have a chance, check it out. Our channel's Baby Led Weaning, it's literally the handle name. So original I know if you see something you like, subscribe, get notified each week when there's new videos. That's https://youtube.com/babyledweaning. Did you start with Purees? But now you wanna switch to finger foods. A mom on my workshop this week said she signed up because I started purees with my son. But now I want to transition to baby-led weaning and feel more comfortable with how to implement it.

Katie Ferraro (43s):

And I love this because that's exactly why I teach this free online video workshop. It's called Baby-Led Weaning for Beginners. I'll show you exactly how to do my purees for a few days approach, and then we're gonna get you right onto those trickier textures and the finger foods. Sign up for this week's workshop times at https://babyledweaning.co. I'll see you there. And while it can be terrifying to move your baby to finger foods when you've only ever given them infant milk or purees, you might take comfort in the research that shows that the babies who've had the least amount of practice with finger foods are actually at elevated risk for choking. So from a developmental standpoint, it is ideal. It is developmentally appropriate from six months of age even on for your baby to be eating finger foods.

Katie Ferraro (1m 27s):

We just have to be conscientious about making sure that we're preparing the foods safely in an age appropriate manner. But you should de-emphasize and deprioritize those purees because your eight month old really will benefit from more finger foods Hey there. I'm Katie Ferraro, registered dietician, 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.

Katie Ferraro (2m 8s):

One thing that we've been doing inside of my baby-led weaning program lately is grouping our students by cohort. So there's phase one, which is the first eight weeks of baby-led weaning, and they're going through a distinct group of things as they're just transitioning the baby to solid Foods. Then there's phase two, which is the second eight weeks of baby-led weaning when there's still a lot of development happening and we're moving onto trickier textures and we're doing the open cup practice. And then for the older babies, as they approach the one year mark, we're in phase three and we're getting prepared for toddler nutrition. And so the questions that parents and caregivers ask at different phases, the answer differs dependent upon how old the baby is. And that's kind of been the reason for us reorganizing our community so that we can better serve the parents who have questions about their babies starting solid foods.

Katie Ferraro (2m 51s):

And so one of the questions that comes up sometimes is a mom will come into the program or a dad or a caregiver, but most of the time it's moms, some grandmas as well. And they'll be asking questions about eight month olds, Hey, I just learned about baby led weaning, or We've been doing purees and Now, I wanna make the switch, but my baby is eight months of age, and is it too late for me to switch to finger foods? So what I want to cover in this episode are a few of the exact questions that we've been getting on our live weekly office hours. So I host online sessions each week where parents can come and ask their questions, and we always have them say how old their baby is. And so, so many questions from the eight month olds who are feeling like they're late to the game. So I wanna just share the questions that they're asking and then share what my responses are before we get started with the eight month olds.

Katie Ferraro (3m 37s):

The question I always ask the parents is, is your baby really eight months of age? Like was your baby full term because If, your baby was born prematurely. They might be eight months of age, but from a physiological standpoint because they were born premature, they're not eight month olds. And I'll give you an example. When my quadruplets were born at 34 weeks gestation, so that's six weeks premature, when they were six months of age, they were really only like four and a half month olds, right? Because they were six weeks preemie. I need to wait until their six month adjusted age before I even start looking for those signs of readiness to eat. And so well into their eight month mark when we had just really started solid foods, people would be like, oh, those babies are eight months old.

Katie Ferraro (4m 18s):

They should be eating more. No, they're really more like six and a half month olds, and we just started solid foods. So take a close look at where your baby is, meet your baby, where they're at, and do your age adjustment for prematurity. If your baby was born premature. And if the idea of how to calculate adjusted age is new to you or you're confused by it, go back and listen to episode 119. It's called Premature Babies How to Estimate and Adjust Age for Starting Solid Foods. So when parents come into the baby-led weaning world for whatever reason around the eight month mark, another question I'll get is, should I treat my eight month old as if they were a six month old babies only ever had infant milk or purees in their mouth?

Katie Ferraro (4m 60s):

And my answer is, yes. The first eight weeks of starting solid Foods, no matter how old your baby is when you decide to start, some parents feel like they're getting a late start at eight months of age. And for a a full term baby, we generally do start around the six month mark, but it's not the end of the world if you didn't do anything except purees and now you want to make the switch. But we don't jump right into phase two, okay? Your baby needs those important baseline foundational skills about how to pick up food, about how to bring it to their mouth, about how they are driving the eating process, about how they are developing their ability to chew and swallow. So we do recommend if you're coming into the world of Finger Foods around the eight month mark, it's almost as if they were a six month old, They'll catch up very quickly.

Katie Ferraro (5m 45s):

But we do need to give them the time and the space to practice some of these motor skills that are associated with learning how to eat. And so we do start them back at phase one, but we have a way that we can kind of move them through a little bit more quickly so that they can reach their feeding milestones. And one thing that we're working towards in the baby-led weaning process here is that when your child starts at six months of age and starting to transition from infant milk only and incorporating some more solid foods at the very beginning, a hundred percent of their nutrition is coming from infant milk. And by 12 months of age, most of baby's nutrition can be coming from solid food. Hey, we're gonna take a quick break, but I'll be right back.

Katie Ferraro (6m 27s):

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Katie Ferraro (7m 7s):

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Katie Ferraro (7m 53s):

So somewhere around the nine month mark is when most families will be getting about half of nutrition for baby from food and half from infant milk. but if you just started at eight months of age, that timeline might look a little different for you, and that's okay. It might be a little bit later where your baby is getting most of their nutrition from solid food, but safety is key, and we don't wanna push your baby to achieve a skill that they're not yet ready for because they haven't had the requisite amount of practice. Another question that the parent of an eight month old asked recently was, you talk about dropping a milk feed at eight months of age. If we're just starting to experiment with Finger Foods, do I do this yet? And the answer is no. We generally don't drop that first milk feeded until baby has been eating solid food for about eight weeks, or I should say, learning how to eat solid Foods for about eight weeks.

Katie Ferraro (8m 41s):

It's generally as we enter into phase two, the second eight weeks of baby led weaning, that's when we'll drop the milk feed. So again, your timeline might look a little bit different. And if you're not sure about the importance of Finger Foods, one thing that kind of inspires parents to really up their game with moving away from the purees is the knowledge that if we look at the research, especially regarding choking, and a lot of parents are hesitant to move off of purees because they think their baby will choke, and I remind parents that there's no higher risk of choking when you employ a baby-led approach to starting solid Foods. We compare that to conventional spoon feeding, but also the research shows us that for babies who've had the least amount of practice with finger foods, they're actually at elevated risk of choking.

Katie Ferraro (9m 25s):

And you hear this all the time from feeding therapists, oh, it's the babies who've only had puree or infant milk for way too long. When they start trying to learn how to eat solid foods and they're much, much older infants, that's when things go haywired. That's when they have choking incidences, that's when they have repeat vomiting, or the gagging is so severe because they haven't had that practice in the earlier stages of the Weaning process. So even if you're getting a late start or you're scared to make that transition, know that it is developmentally appropriate for six month old babies to start experimenting with finger foods. So you, you don't have many more months to sit around doing purees. You know your baby can't eat puree till they're three year old. We need to get them going with finger foods. And so what I would encourage you to do is if you're having trouble moving off of the puree deprioritize purees, don't offer puree Foods anymore.

Katie Ferraro (10m 12s):

We certainly never want you to put the spoon in the baby's mouth. Putting anything in a baby's mouth, including a spoon, can be a choking hazard. Your baby's starting at six months of age when they're showing those other reliable signs of readiness to eat. They can pick up the foods, they can learn how to feed themselves. And if you didn't do it for the first two months, that's fine, but stop putting the foods in your baby's mouth. Don't put the spoon in their mouth. Don't put any food in their mouth. Let them do it for themselves. You'll be surprised at how quickly they take to it because they're designed to do this. They want to feed themselves and they can do it. If they're seated properly in the high chair and you're preparing the Foods properly, these finger foods are no big deal to these babies. They're so excited about it. So I would encourage parents to really emphasize the Foods from the hundred first Foods list that can easily be made into finger foods.

Katie Ferraro (10m 58s):

If you need help with which foods your baby can eat or ideas of finger foods, you can grab my a 100 First Foods List. If baby-led weaning is new to you and you're just figuring it out, take my free online workshop called Baby Led Weaning for Beginners. I'll walk you through the first two weeks of what it looks like when you're doing finger foods plus, everybody on that workshop gets a copy of my 100 First Foods List. You can sign up for this week's workshop times at baby-led weaning dot co, but don't be scared to make that switch to finger foods. We always tell parents, listen, you've got to feed this child for the next 17 and a half years of their life. You might as well do the hard work now and really take advantage of that flavor window where your baby will like and accept a wide variety of Foods and flavors and taste and textures.

Katie Ferraro (11m 41s):

I know it can be scary anytime we move into the next transition with our babies, but you can do this, and I hope that I can help you. If you need more finger food info, check out that free workshop at https://babyledweaning.co. Thank you to our partners at AirWave Media. If you guys like podcasts that feature food and science and using your brain, they are AirWave Media and they have some great podcasts, we are so happy to be a part of the AirWave Media Network. If you want the show notes page for this episode, go to https://blwpodcast.com/343. Thank you so much for listening, and I'll see you next time.