Customer Reviews

Baby-Led Weaning: The Essential Guide to Introducing Solid Foods - and Helping Your Baby to Grow Up a Happy and Confident Eater

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I can't recommend this book or this method highly enough. We turned to baby-led weaning when our daughter declined to eat solids well after her six-month birthday. We never bought into the rice-cereal orthodoxy, so we began by trying to feed her bits of avocado and banana from our fingers, but she wanted none of it. We tried pureed apples and pears, and then rice and oat cereal with breast milk, but she didn't like being spoon-fed. While we cooled our heels for a few weeks I learned about baby-led weaning, and by about eight months she was ready to go. The key to this method is that the baby is in control -- apart from placing food on her tray, you don't actually feed her. She inspects the food, chooses what she wants, and feeds herself.

Rapley and Murkett are careful and thorough (yet friendly and conversational) in addressing concerns about choking, allergies, and so on. But the immediate benefit of BLW is that it is SO much easier to give your baby real food than to deal with steaming and pureeing (what a bore!). Soon after we started, my daughter was eating solid apples -- we'd cut them into the appropriate finger shape and she'd shave bits of apple flesh off with her two little teeth. Now she loves eating from a whole apple; I eat a chunk of it to expose the flesh, and off she goes. At nine months she has eaten uncooked apples and pears, whole cooked peas and carrot sticks, buttered whole-wheat toast, cheese, pasta, sausage, chicken, mashed potatoes, scrambled eggs, curried vegetables, and basmati rice, all using her hands, and she drinks water from a regular cup with assistance. It's thrilling to watch her engage with new tastes and textures. She doesn't eat everything we offer, but she's getting more and more enthusiastic about new things. She surprises people at family dinners because she is well "ahead" of her thirteen-month-old cousin, who is still spoon-fed -- I say that not to be competitive, but just to show how effective baby-led weaning really is. We're so proud of how well she's learning to eat, and a lot of the credit goes to this book for its totally intuitive (not "new," as another reviewer argued) advice and reassurance.

I had read online about the idea of introducing solid foods to one's baby by offering "real" foods, the same things the parents are eating, rather than spoon-feeding purees and cereals. We did and it was a fantastic experience (although our relatives were shocked to see our baby enjoying burritos and saag ponir (Indian food with spinach and cheese which she adored) with us!

I got the book later in the process, but so much of the information would have been helpful sooner -- from the quotes and stories from other parents, to the info about which foods actually CAN be choking hazards (like grapes that aren't cut), to the ideas about dealing with cleaning up, to issues like spicy food (our baby loved moderately spicy food and would just drink lots of water and then reach for more), to the theory and research about why it works (and why this approach is the norm in many cultures around the world).

I've recommended this book to so many of my friends with younger babies. While introducing solid food this way isn't "mainstream" (yet) in the U.S., it works so well, it's so much easier and faster, and it's fun! Thanks to the authors for making the "how to" information so accessible.

I am a firm believer that BLW is the ideal way to introduce your baby to solid foods. And the information presented in the book is good. However, you can find all of the basics on BLW online, so the book really isn't necessary. We found BLW to be very intuitive, and so did not really need an "instruction manual". I also found the information in the book to be a bit repetitive. There is really only so much to say about BLW before you just start repeating yourself! However, for someone who knows nothing about BLW, this book would probably be great.

So it is an excellent concept, and one that I wish more parents would adapt. But the book is a bit unnecessary unless you are completely unfamiliar with BLW.

I was really interested in baby-led weaning/baby-led solids as an alternative to the usual three stages of mush technique. Unfortunately this book falls foul of its topics own intuitive nature. It's a fairly simple idea with a couple of pros and the book spends several chapters going over and OVER the same ground. If you've bought the book you probably don't need as much convincing as the writers assume. Also the scientific evidence offered in support is a single completely unethical study from the 1930's :p They would have been better to have excluded it. I still like the premise and will give it a try, but I wish the authors hadn't felt the need to overstate their argument and back it up with dreadful "research". Just admit that it's a new idea and you could have saved yourself a couple of unnecessary chapters.

I bought this book because nothing about feeding my baby solids has seemed intuitive. This seemed like the answer, and the book makes a good case for starting babies on real solids instead of purees. However, after watching my baby gag on broccoli, apple, and just about everything we gave him, we decided to go back to purees. The book specifically says that gagging is okay, and it's different from choking, and I get that. But try watching your baby gag - it's pretty terrifying. We reached into his mouth to pull out pieces of food on a few occasions.

If you look online at all the blogs about BLW, you see a lot of positives and not a lot of critiques. I can't find any doctor organizations that have weighed in on it. Ironically, trying this approach gave me more confidence in my ability to read my baby's cues, and I feel pretty good about sticking with purees for now and maybe trying tiny pieces of finger food soon. I was fed that way, and I am a good eater!

I think this book is worth reading, but that parents should feel empowered to trust their instincts. There is nothing evil about purees, and I think some babies just do better on the puree-chunky-finger foods track...The book even mentions that in some cultures mothers will pre-chew meats to give to their babies, but then it says to go ahead and offer your 6-month old strips of steak...I just was not comfortable with that. Balance what you read with what you observe in your baby and trust yourself!

This is quite possibly one of the best books you will ever read if you are a parent or caregiver of a new child! It helps you take it back to basics. Babies don't need pureed jar food, in fact, it may actually be harmful in that it doesn't teach children to properly eat. I read this in one night and highly highly reccommend it to any parent or caregiver!

I enjoyed the information in this book and look forward to using real food with my baby when she is old enough. I did find the information was tiresomely repetitive. This would have made a great magazine article, but it was a rather boring book.

I also would have liked a bit more of a "how to" approach rather than a "just give the baby real food" approach. It is a big change of perspective to go from baby food to real food and a bit of coddling goes a long way.

I had never considered why purees were said to be the 'normal way' to start a baby on solids, nor did I consider that there were any other way. After just the first chapter, I knew Baby-led was the best, most natural choice to start our daughter on solid foods. After almost two months of spitting out the purees, turning her head to avoid the spoon full and all out crying when we put her in her high chair and the spoon came to her mouth, I finally decided to read this book that someone had loaned me. The first meal was a complete 180 in terms of intrest in food. Every meal thereafter has been happy, entertaining and filled with laughter as she tries all the wonderful flavors and textures in their true form. So glad I opened the book, so glad we tried it and I now tell every parent starting their baby on solids about it!!! So obviously natural, I can't believe I never thought of it!

My daughter is 5 months and I could see that she was ready to play with food (she sits up beautifully by herself and is constantly bringing everything and anything to her mouth). But I had been dreading the pureed food experience. While I had fed many babies this way when I was a babysitter... Now that it's my baby, something about it just seemed completely strange. I say this because I had already made up my mind that I wanted to introduce my daughter to real food, but didn't know how to go about it.

The book has been *FABULOUS* in helping me decide how to go about it. My daughter started playing with her food this week and it's been a pleasant, fun, and messy experience. (If something changes drastically, I'll be sure to update my review).

Yes, the book is repetitive. Yes, possibly to help parents defend themselves in their choices. I don't think of myself as a non-traditional mom, but apparently, this is a non-traditional theory and people just have a hard time understanding when you go against the norm. This book is not my "bible", but is sooo helpful in guiding me through what I think makes sense to begin with.

I read chapters 2 through 6 in one day (during my daughter's various naps). I think chapter 2 is the crux of "how to", but I enjoyed reading the other chapters as well.

One last note, I will ask my pediatrician regarding this book's claims to choking, but so far, everything the book says, it's true.

If you read the first several chapters of this book, you've got the general gist. It's a lot of rehashing the same basic premise after that. All told, though, I like the concept. I'm happy to try it in a few weeks with my daughter when she turns 6 months old.