More parents are skipping spoon-feeding their babies and trying independent eating.
NEW YORK – Ms Jenny Best was determined that her firstborn son would have a positive relationship with food from his very first bite. Years earlier, as a professional ballerina, she had struggled with disordered eating, and she wanted her son to think of food as fun.“I made the homemade purees, and I got the expensive little baby blender, and I tried to concoct these things from scratch, and then, from Day 1, he didn’t like it,” Ms Best said, wincing at the eight-year-old memory.
She came across baby-led weaning, a concept pioneered in 2001 by Mrs Gill Rapley, a former midwife and public health nurse from Britain. In the five years since, baby-led weaning has only grown in popularity, seemingly on the strength of word-of-mouth proselytising and helped along by social media. Ms Best eventually stopped posting about her own life and hired medical experts – her staff includes paediatricians, feeding and swallowing specialists, speech language pathologists and a dietitian who direct the guidance – but the company still reflects her belief that there is a superior way to teach your child how to eat.
The widespread consensus that babies should learn to eat by sampling mush in progressive stages of thickness is not backed by definitive scientific research. Paediatricians and other medical professionals who support the method say there are common misconceptions about how babies learn to eat. One is that babies need teeth; babies use their gums. Another is that gagging and choking are the same. Choking is deadly, but gagging is a protective mechanism.
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