What’s Going On With Baby Feeding Protocols??

Sounding about as old as I am (57), I gotta say, I thought feeding babies with spoons was a fine, fool-proof method. Put food on spoon and pop it into baby’s mouth. Welcomed by generations of babies everywhere. Totally effective and completely time efficient, plus relative cleanliness remains largely intact.

But now there is a new approach and – clutch your pearls! – it does not involve spoons. It includes fingers…not yours but those belonging to the baby! Mercy!!

Someone thought this was a grand idea and spread the gospel, then all the young moms locked on. I was appalled when I first learned about this!!!!

The mess! The horror! The clean up!!!!

So I had to research what was up with this nonsense. First lesson…it has a name!!

According to the internet…”Letting babies feed themselves is largely known as Baby-Led Weaning (BLW) where you skip purees and offer soft, family-meal finger foods for babies (around 6 months) to self-feed, promoting independence, motor skills and exploration, though it's messy and requires watching for readiness signs like sitting unsupported and bringing hands to mouth.”

Also: It's an alternative to traditional spoon-feeding that lets babies learn to self-regulate hunger and experience textures, building confidence and control over their eating.

Essential warning: Mess is normal.

Important recommendation: Focus on exploration…the goal isn't always immediate calorie intake but learning about food, textures and self-regulation.

Benefits: Enhances fine and gross motor skills. Potentially leads to less pickiness.

In any event, babies get most of their nutrients from milk/formula in the first year.

Did I mention how messy this form of feeding is? Mashed food lands on the floor, it gets wedged in the highchair, it’s shmeared all over the highchair’s tray and consequently, there is a bit of waste.

Do babies seem to like this method??

Yes! And there’s no stress with making that mess! Mama will clean it up, multiple times a day!

It’s kinda retro, like pre-historic! As in, the cave man era.

But if I were to be perfectly honest, there are plenty of times when I would much prefer to eat food with my hand, rather than a fork. I eat strictly with one hand since the other one has a tremor, so cutting food can be challenging. And sometimes, it’s just altogether too much trouble (then I thankfully have someone else do it for me).

Maybe for everyone, it would be much easier to pick up food and take bites or just pop it straight into our mouths…if manners didn’t matter.

(To stretch conventions even further, sometimes it’s fun to lick the plate! And really, why is that considered such a transgression??)

The secret here is that I would gladly join the savage baby beasts and eat more with my hands too! If only I could get away with it!