baby-led weaning

On the dining table there was a library book about baby-led weaning. I read the intro out of curiosity. It’s pretty wild:

• Baby eats whatever the family eats. No special meals for baby.
• Baby is given food in “adult” form (with safety concessions like removing nuts and other possible choking hazards). But, like, if family is eating spaghetti with zucchini and meat sauce, that’s what baby gets. Figuring out how to handle the food is an enrichment activity.
• Baby does all their eating themselves (no spoonfeeding) and can eat as much or as little as they feel like. If all baby does is push the spaghetti around the tray, hopefully they learned something from the experience. (According to the book, babies under one year mostly get their nutrition from milk, so mealtimes are just for fun and practice.)

It’s kind of a neat theory. Babies of weaning age do put everything in their mouths, so baby will 100% put spaghetti in their mouth, and then I guess they can decide what to do next. tbh I do like the idea of letting them practice, but letting their feeding be entirely self-directed seems too freewheeling (in my totally unprofessional opinion). It’s definitely too freewheeling for brother & wife, who stayed up last night past 10 making BB’s special sweet potato meatballs. Half are baked, perfect for cutting into bite-sized pieces for little hands to pick up. Half are steamed and much softer, perfect for mixing into porridge (classic baby food) for spoonfeeding.

BB liked the meatballs, by the way. They were a big hit.

The book has a cute pic of a baby holding a chicken drumstick. Kinda curious to see what BB would do with that, although it’s probably too far above his pay grade. He would suck on it briefly and then drop it on the floor. He’s never gotten to try any food that hasn’t been pre-cut into bite-sized portions for him.

Anyway, most of the book is just a cookbook of family-friendly meals. Gonna try the corn fritters when I get home (mix flour + egg + seasoning to create a thick batter, then add corn and fry).