Starting Solids: Baby Led Weaning

Thanks to everyone who commented on my post a month back regarding starting Mylo on solid foods. Since then we've taken the plunge with the Baby Led Weaning approach with great success! I had never heard of BLW until I started researching what foods to start Mylo with once he turned six months old. The basic idea  is to give him whole foods instead of purees. We serve him mostly unprocessed, basic food (just a veggie, fruit, rice, meat, etc) cut into finger shaped pieces. He chooses what he wants to eat and uses his little hands to scoop things into his mouth. 

There are lots of reasons that we chose to go this route but mostly it seemed like the best option for our family and seems to suite Mylo well. As you can see by his photos, he LOVES to eat and he is also a very independent baby. Both of those things made me think that giving him a bunch of appropriately sized foods and letting him go for it was a good choice for us. Although he doesn't have any teeth yet he is oddly capable of "chewing" and consuming large amounts of food. The one part of BLW that is a little hard to get used to is that babies gag a little when they are learning how much food they can fit in their mouths. Mylo has never choked but he has gagged and spit up a little food. 

Overall, we are having a blast giving him all sorts of new foods and it's encouraging me to cook healthier options at home since the idea is that he just eats what we are eating. 

If you're interested in this approach, I thought this blog post was wonderfully helpful.