The Science of Parenting
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The Science of Parenting
Baby-Led Weaning or Spoon Feeding | Bonus
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Baby-Led Weaning is an infant feeding method that’s been getting more attention in recent years, but some parents are wondering if there is science to support it. In this episode, our special guest cohost will help us explore the research and reality on this infant feeding approach!
Send us an email: parenting@iastate.edu.
Find us on Facebook: @scienceofparent.
This institution is an equal opportunity provider. For the full non-discrimination statement or accommodation inquiries, go to www.extension.iastate.edu/legal
Hi, welcome to the Science of Parenting podcast. I'm Mackenzie Johnson, parent of two littles with their own quirks and I'm a parenting educator. And today I have someone new joining me. We have Lyndi Buckingham-Schutt, who is an assistant professor at Iowa State in food science and human nutrition and, and a parent. And a parent.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYes. And a parent. Yes. Yes. I'm assistant professor. I'm also a state specialist in food and health with Iowa State Extension and Outreach. Um , but more importantly, most important? I don't know .
Mackenzie JohnsonAlso important.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttAlso important. I I'm a , I'm a mom of two. I have a baby at home and I have one s weet angel baby as well.
Mackenzie JohnsonYes. And we love, I'm so excited today, if you couldn't have guessed from the title and description, listeners and viewers , uh, we get to talk all about baby led weaning. And this is fun for me . I think like this episode's fun for me for a lot of reasons. One, I'm like, "Hey, Lyndi, let's hang out. I want to hang out with you." That's fun.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYeah.
Mackenzie JohnsonUm , I like that.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttLet's talk!
Mackenzie JohnsonRight? Let's just like sit and chat.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttMm - hmmm.
I also love that like, a new face! People are used to seeing me and Lori or like me and Barb , right. Like a mix of our team. And we're adding a new face to the mix, which I always love.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttA new face, a new voice.
Mackenzie JohnsonYeah. New voice. Right. Um , but I'm also, I love, I'm excited that we get to do this episode together because we each had different feeding styles on this topic, right?
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttMm-hmm, yes.
Mackenzie JohnsonMm-hmm, I used, I did like a lot of what people would call spoon feeding or like purees or, I mean, some people would call it like the traditional method, which I feel like is kind of debatable, but , um, we did like purees and spoon feeding for the most part. But you didn't like, you did not mostly.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttNo, I did BLW - baby led weaning.
Mackenzie JohnsonBLW, oh, I haven't said that. I've read BLW, I haven't read that out loud . Like said those letters out loud .
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttI don't know if I've either, I don't know if I like it.
Mackenzie JohnsonLike, hmm, it doesn't sound right, but yeah. I've read that acronym, BLW, Baby led weaning.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYeah, we did baby led weaning, for better or for worse. We did it.
Mackenzie JohnsonYeah. Well, and I think, you know, there's a few things, as we think about this topic, there's some research, the research is still kind of new. That's important to understand as we dig into this research and reality on the topic , um, there's some research on it. Some promising research, some that's still like, well, we just aren't really sure on this yet. Um, but an important thing to know is that when we're talking about complimentary feeding, so that's a term we're gonna be using kind of throughout , uh, because whether you're baby led weaning or spoon feeding, we know that this, the food that our children are getting is in compliment to the milk. Right? So whether that's breast milk or formula, whether you're doing a feeding tube, whatever way that we are feeding our babies , uh, that it's complimentary because the milk is the main component, and then whatever, non-milk food, as one of - I was like, I don't know why that was like, yeah. Non milk food. That's what it is!
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYeah!
Mackenzie JohnsonI liked, I was like, that term is accurate! U m , but whatever else we're feeding our babies, again, complimentary, and it's during a transition. And I like that, they're basically talking about this, like, we're talking about how we wean, how we transition our kids from milk as their main source, and then after one year, when food becomes a bigger source. Um, but we're really talking about like a transition period from milk is the main to non-milk is the main.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYes, yes. Yeah .
Mackenzie JohnsonI just liked that.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttI kind of , I mean, this is gonna be a sweet spot for some parents, right? If you're listening to this, it's A) because you have a child who's entering or you are , will have a child between six and 12 months of age, maybe you're interested cuz you did have a child between six and 12 months of age, but yeah, this is, again, just that, that compliment . It is - this food is a compliment to the milk that you are providing for your child.
Mackenzie JohnsonMm-hmm, and that's where they're gonna get most of their calories and vitamins and all of those things. And we love that.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYes. Yeah . And such an important little kind of asterisk on this too. It's like, yes, this is complimentary . So what you shouldn't be worried if your child is, this is an opportunity for you not to be as worried if your child, you feel like your child is not getting enough food or getting too much food, like this is a calm time to experiment. So let's talk about how we can use baby led weaning as a way to experiment with food with our babies.
Mackenzie JohnsonAbsolutely. It's a , like it's an opportunity period, right? An opportunity to build their feeding habits, an opportunity to let them experiment and explore and all those things. We love that.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYes, yes.
Mackenzie JohnsonWe love that. And so let's talk about how we actually like, especially in the research, how it's defined, right? So like listeners, you know, we use this research and reality approach. So let's look at how is this term, BLW, how is baby led weaning defined? So Rapley and colleagues in 2015 kind of broadly defined baby led weaning as the inclusion of the infant in family meal times where food that is suitable for baby to eat is made available to all. So essentially this idea of what we serve to our family and to the adults and to the other children is also served to baby. Um, and I kind of liked that broad definition. Um, but I also like this, a different study by Brown and Lee , they talked about , um, they kind of applied this cutoff of, if you're using less than 10% of pureed food , um, like, so AKA less than 10% of the time you're doing spoon feeding , it could still be considered baby led weaning. And I liked that idea that like, it doesn't have to be exclusive, right. We don't need to be like, "I am all this or all that." You can be. And you can do some kind of combination too , um, that you can get the benefits of maybe both worlds by doing some kind of combination. So I liked that they were like, "Yeah, we're open minded ." Baby led weaning can be more than one thing.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYeah. And, certain times it needs to be more than one thing. And I think we'll talk about that as we move through this episode.
Mackenzie JohnsonYeah. Yeah . Well, and so I guess I'm curious, so not having been someone who really used this method with feeding my babies, like, would you define it that way? Would you add anything to that definition of like, well, what, when people are like, "Well, what's baby led weaning?" When you're like teaching other people about it, how would you explain it?
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttWell, I think they described it very well. Another way that I like to think about it is , um, really adhering or furthering the principles of something called division of responsibility, which is a terminology that I know we're gonna talk about in the upcoming season of Science of Parenting, but division of responsibility was coined by a woman named Ellyn Satter , who's a feeding nutrition expert. And the way that it's talked about is as a parent, we have the responsibility to choose when, where , and what we are providing to our child to potentially eat. And then it's our child's choice to choose whether to eat that food or how much of that food to eat. So baby led weaning is a great way of thinking about putting this division of responsibility into practice.
Mackenzie JohnsonYeah. And I think that, yeah, that's a great way to think about it is kind of separate, and I love the division of responsibility. Woohoo . I love that concept because it really did like free up my brain, as I thought about like, for me it was like really when my toddlers, right? Like when my daughter was a toddler was when I really learned that term. But yeah, that idea of like, I can choose what to offer and when to offer and where it's offered and you can choose whether or not you're gonna eat it. How much of it you're gonna eat, if you're gonna sniff it, if you're gonna lick it.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYeah!
Mackenzie JohnsonAre you only gonna do those things? And so, yeah, I love that division of responsibility and yeah, even though I didn't use baby led weaning myself, I do see how that's reflective of, I put food, whether it's on the highchair , on your plate, on whatever you're eating , and you choose whether or not to eat it. Like I see how that aligns for sure. Yeah. And I think one of the things, before we dive into like the "research and the articles , tell us lots of this.' I wanna talk a little bit, like, why did you choose, why did you choose what you chose? Why did I choose? So let's talk a little bit, like what, what was it for you that kind of helped informed your decision on baby led weaning?
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttWell , I, because of my area of profession, I obviously live in the world of nutrition. I'm a dietician. So I had been to a number of different conferences, presentations in the 2017, 2018 period, where everybody was talking about baby led weaning. And so when I had my own opportunity to think about how I was gonna feed my child, I was like, okay, well, I, I learned a little bit about what was the emerging research behind it at that time and also the advantages and disadvantages. And to me, it seemed like, I was like, okay, I'm on board to try it. Some of the advantages for me were again, the idea of division of responsibility. I was excited about putting food in front of my child and seeing if they, if they would eat it, if they wouldn't eat it , that kind of thing. And then it was also the convenience of it. So making food for my entire family. So I wouldn't have to necessarily buy a different thing for my child that I was gonna make versus what I was gonna make. So it was, for me, it was gonna be easier.
Mackenzie JohnsonYeah. And that makes a ton of sense. And it's funny because you're like, yeah, the convenience and I actually say the same thing. And the literature also said that like, regardless of how you feed, like whether you do baby led weaning or spoon feeding or some kind of combination, people tend to say, "Well, I chose it because it's convenient for me." Both sides see the convenience in either way, which I think is great. We love choices. Because yeah, I would say that purees was convenient for me because part of it, the timing of our kids, both of our kids are like summer babies. So towards the end of summer, I was still on maternity leave and we were harvesting our garden. So I was going to be doing all this stuff to preserve this food, right? We were going to freeze it, we were going to... we don't c an, I think I should, but I don't. We w ere going to do all this stuff with our garden food and I was like, I can just turn this into baby food. I'm going to be, I have to do something with it either way. And so it did make sense for me. That was a part of our decision. Part of it for me is like, I love to like, today is the day I'm doing this big project and then I knock it out and purees fit that for me. It was like, I, I cooked stuff. I put it in the blender, I put it in ice cubes. Right. I have all these ice cube trays in our freezer of baby food. And that was exciting to me. But I know a lot of people also talk about the convenience of being able to buy things like rice cereal, being able to buy jars of baby food. So there was a lot of convenience in that for us and, and I'l l, I 'll be really honest. I never considered bab y le d weaning. To me that was like, I mean, not that I was like, oh baby, led weaning, I would never... I didn't have feelings about it. I was kind of just unaware of it.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYeah, yeah. Which is again, it was something that was very upfront and in my face. And it was presented to me in that way. And then I should also say , I do, I liked the fact that , I was gonna be able to control. I knew exactly - and you can do this for spoon feeding too. You talked about this, you made your own purees for your kids, but I was gonna be able to control exactly how much of, how much salt was going on to my child's food. How much, you know, sugar was going on. So yeah, I think, but again, that can come either way, I think.
Mackenzie JohnsonYeah. But there was like a level of transparency that was appealing to you, which makes sense.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYes.
Mackenzie JohnsonAnd I do know, like I have really close friends that I was like, yeah, I did purees, I made it all. And I , and I enjoyed it. Like that was a choice that made sense for me. I had the time available, we had the resources, right. We had the vegetables.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYes, yeah.
Mackenzie JohnsonAnd I have friends who like exclusively, like pre-made baby food. And that was a great option for them and a great option for their baby who is now a great, healthy, independent eater. And so there's like a whole realm of choice that doesn't have to be just one thing. That can be the case. And it can be the case that we can look at the research to help inform your own decision as you think about if you're coming up into baby led weaning, if you've done it with, maybe you've done part of it or some of it or opted out of it , or you're just curious, there's... We're going to tell you about it. Essentially is what I'm getting at. We will tell you some of the things.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYes. We will tell you what research there is to date, which I will say again, this is, we've already said this multiple times, but this is really an emerging trend, right. This is a very kind of a trendy thing. So the research is coming along as this is being done more and more as it's kind of saturating into our culture, right? So, one, there are a couple decent reviews of the overall literature or the overall research that has been done on baby led . weaning, so one of those that was done in 2017 by Brown, Jones, and Rowan shared a couple of the positive benefits that they found from the research on baby led weaning. So first one of those is kids who do baby or babies who do baby led weaning - I feel like I'm gonna , babies is the word for this episode, right ?
Mackenzie JohnsonBaby, baby , baby ,
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttBaby , baby . So babies who do use baby led weaning do tend to get more protein and fat. It's a good thing. It's not necessarily a better thing that they're getting more protein in fat. It's a , it's a thing.
Mackenzie JohnsonIt just is.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttAt the end of the day, the research also shows that there's no difference in terms of actual overall caloric intake or intake of nutrients between spoon fed babies and baby led weaning. So there's maybe a difference in terms of macronutrient intake, but that isn't a bad or good thing.
Mackenzie JohnsonYeah. Makes sense.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttSo, another thing they found from the overall research that had been done to date, is that kids who do baby led weaning are less likely to be fussy eaters at 18 to 24 months of age and that's as reported by their parents. So that is a very positive thing. If you are trying to avoid picky eaters, which I mean, who is not?
Mackenzie JohnsonYeah, right? We're like, well, preferably it would make life simpler, if not.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYes , yes. Yeah. Then , some other studies also suggest that children who do baby led weaning are a little bit better able to respond to their hunger cues. So then rather if, you know, as opposed to babies who are spoonfed, but this data is not conclusive that again, emerging new evidence on this , there's no difference between spoonfed children and baby led weaning on terms of how much fruit, vegetables or carbohydrates they ate. It's great thing.
Speaker 1Yep, balanced out either way.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttBalanced out, and baby led weaning babies tended to be more likely to eat with their family, as opposed to at separate times, I will say for my family, this was about 50% of the time still is , like 50% of the time we always eat with my son 50 % of the time we're feeding him because we need to get him to bed, because he has a very strict 7:00 PM bedtime.
Mackenzie JohnsonYeah.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttSo that's something to consider too, if family meals are important to you. And then I guess one of the last things I'll talk about is it does tend to be messier than spoon feeding . So you have to be okay with it being messy or you have to get a dog and it's going to clean up after you.
Mackenzie JohnsonSome kind of pet that will address the mess that is.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYes.
Mackenzie JohnsonOh , and I, like, you know, I like the idea of family meals and that's something I feel like as our kids are older, we really focus on as a family , like sitting down together, having that quality time that we're not distracted by other things like projects or some of us are doing this and that. And it works well for the stage of life we're in , with like two young kids and yeah, the idea of feeding a baby, which I , I don't know that I'll have anymore of those in our, in our family, but like the idea of feeding our baby at the same time does like, yeah, that does feel, you know , natural. And I could see how baby led weaning could lend itself to that more naturally than purees did because, yeah, I would often, one of us would be like my parent , like my co-partner and I, my co-parent partner, whichever of those, all of 'em. One of us would maybe be preparing supper while the other one was feeding the baby.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYeah .
Mackenzie JohnsonSo yeah, that they weren't necessarily, baby wasn't eating at the same time of us because we would spend energy feeding the baby. And I would try to be kind of, I mean like responsive, right? I'm not just like shoving bite after bite or you must finish this little container of food. I tried to be a little bit like, are you reaching for more? Are you opening your mouth for more? And so I didn't feel like I could eat my food, pay attention to my hunger cues and spoon feed my baby in a responsive way. So we rarely, when we were especially if we were like exclusively spoon feeding , rarely was baby kind of eating at the same time as us. So I see how it lends itself naturally to that.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttIt does. And it is nice to be able to eat at the same time as your child. I will say though, in that first month when we did baby led weaning, that we did not spend a lot of time eating at the same time as our child, because we were strictly staring at him, making sure that everything was okay. Cause it , it is a little, we're gonna talk a little bit about choking, but it is that, that is a fear, a common fear with baby led weaning and we were scared about it. So we were closely observing.
Mackenzie JohnsonYeah. And so you weren't eating at the same time. That makes sense too .
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYeah.
Mackenzie JohnsonWell and yeah, thinking about those concerns, a lot of parents, part of the literature also looks at like why people do or don't , why they do or don't use baby led weaning and for parents who don't , they often talk about concerns related to risk of choking, concerns that their babies aren't getting enough food , concern if the child is coordinated enough to feed themselves. So a lot of parents in particular, when we talk about age, right, like a really young baby , that would , we would give purees kind of early, maybe like four or five months, that baby maybe can't do baby led weaning yet.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYes, yep .
Mackenzie JohnsonNot coordinated enough for it. and then yeah, this kind of idea of spoon feeding being the default people talked about, like, why would I change something that's not broken? Spoon feeding worked for my parents, works for me, worked for my sibling who fed my nieces and nephew, that way or whatever. That was like, oh, well, why would I do anything different? It kind of never occurred to them. And so , those were some of the common concerns and we've talked a little bit about some of them, right? The whole "Is my infant eating enough?" And like, "Are they coordinated enough?" We've talked, we heard some of the research on like no difference really in their fruits and vegetables, no difference in their calories. And so let's look at that 'getting enough' idea a little bit more, and really it talked about that idea, the concern of kids being underweight and these studies, there was one study in particular that was really interesting because they did find a correlation, again, not a cause. Not that baby l ed w eaning caused a baby to be underweight, but they found when comparing a group of baby l ed weaning babies to babies that were spoonfed, they did find a correlation that that baby l ed weaning group may have been underweight. But again, they didn't know for certain, did baby l ed weaning do that? But the other interesting part was alongside that finding, they also found, but even if that baby was considered underweight, they were still getting appropriate calories and nutrients. Right. They were not nutrient deficient, even if they were maybe considered like underweight in their body size.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYeah.
Mackenzie JohnsonSo I thought that was interesting.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttI think it , this also kind of gets back to what you talked about. This is complimentary feeding too, right? Like this isn't our main source of nutrition, this isn't our main source of calories, of our nutrients. This is a complimentary way of feeding , especially during that kind of six to nine month period. But it is a concern, right? Because as someone who has watched my child do baby led weaning and watched him throw a significant amount of food out of his high chair , it's like, oh my gosh, did he get enough at this meal? Do I need to give him anything to give him more? Yeah. It's it is a concern about getting enough, but then you kind of look at the flip side of this. So one of the things that , one of the interests in baby led weaning across, at least my profession, like the nutrition world has been, how does it, what does it do to support obesity prevention in the long term ? Is it helping your kid again, be aware of those hunger cues? And so the evidence to date again, which is fairly limited, does show some weak evidence to support the idea that baby led weaning can help reduce a likelihood of later obesity. But again , there, I'm strongly saying this, there is not enough evidence right now to say that this is in fact true. It's just some promising evidence that we need to do some more research on, but again, this is one of those things it's like, well, is it, what is it about baby led weaning that could potentially be linked to obesity prevention? And maybe, you know, hypothesis or the idea could be okay, well I'm helping them really figure out their own hunger cues and that kind of thing.
Mackenzie JohnsonMm-hmm, and yeah, we can see, even just through my conversations with you , I can see how that would be the case, but the research doesn't show us that's definitively the case yet.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYes.
Mackenzie JohnsonAnd again, it's emerging and actually, as I say, it's emerging, I do wanna like, okay. Sidetrack for a second. As I think about, and I feel like this happens, like, anytime I talk with you about food stuff, I'm like, wait, there's more! This idea of like spoon feeding being the traditional method, actually, it's really interesting to me, I'm reading something else, like reading a different book for something, but it kind of talked about actually, when you think like way back, people were not like getting out a blender to puree up food for babies, right? Like colonists and think back several generations before electricity was around. We weren't formally pureeing foods into liquid for our babies. And so actually for a long time, baby led weaning was like the natural way to feed babies.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYes.
Mackenzie JohnsonRight?
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYes. Yeah. I mean, it was the way we, well, it's the way we eat. Right. So it's the way we're going to show our babies to eat. But I mean, it's, this very much to me is similar to what we think about with the emergence of when formula came into the, became a part of our society. It became part of the norm in the sixties and seventies, everyone thought, okay, well formula, right? Like I , I should switch to formula because that's what's available.
Mackenzie JohnsonAnd I'm hearing a lot of good things about it.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYes . And their manufacturing specifically for my baby to have all these nutrients that they need. But as the , you know, what we found out and the science has showed us and continues to show us is that, you know, there are, you know, maybe, you know what we know that breastfeeding, if you're able to do it, that you should do it at least for the first year. I think American Academy of Pediatrics now just says two years of life. And maybe the same, not necessarily there isn't, again, enough research out there yet, but you know, we took the idea of, okay, well maybe we can can baby food and sell it to parents. And so that's something that we're going to make it easier for them, you know, it's maybe easier for parents to spoon feed their children, so we're gonna do that. So, yeah, you're definitely right. Like it's, food has like this push-pull with innovation that makes it easier for us to do certain things, but then it pushes us away from doing it a different way. So sometimes we, I don't wanna over correct people and say that you have to do it this way. Cuz there's no "have to's" with this.
Mackenzie JohnsonYes, no "have to's."
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttNone with this at all, but you know, like yes. Do watch for those kind of overcorrecting, I guess.
Mackenzie JohnsonYeah. Well, and the understanding the things that influence our decisions right? So like my mom versus my husband's mom, even though my husband and I are around the same age, I was like a youngest. So my mom had like all the time for my siblings before that informed her parenting decisions because she'd been learning all about it and my husband's an oldest. And so she like, that was the first time she was learning about a lot of it. And just that time period, formula was like, well, yeah, everybody just does formula, and she's like, that's what we knew. And that was the default. And not that formula's bad or that breastfeeding is bad or that one is good and right. We're not doing any of that , but understanding that how that emerged and was marketed and came out. Okay. We can understand that as a part of how we make our decision. Research tells us there's also benefits of breastfeeding and you know, what? We can tell from reality, there's also benefits of formula, right? Like when I couldn't breastfeed, formula is great because I needed to feed that hungry baby, which is, I always say, that's what we do. We feed hungry babies.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYes, mm-hmm.
Mackenzie JohnsonIt applies here too, right?
Lyndi Buckingham-Schuttoh yeah . Yes.
Mackenzie JohnsonWhether baby led weaning or purees, we feed hungry babies.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttWe feed hungry babies and also kind of big thing on this too, is the nutrition science is evolving and changing all the time. So stick with us and we , when we do another one of these in 10 years...
Mackenzie JohnsonYeah. We will tell you all the good research in 10 years , when we know even more than we know now. So that was a full side track, that whole idea of "it's emerging!" , But I'm like, but it's also not though kind of , but we haven't been studying it is the difference.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYes, yes.
Mackenzie JohnsonThe studying it is kind of a newer...
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYeah. We haven't studied it to look at those long term effects of the way that we're feeding versus, you know, spoon feeding , those kind of things . Yes .
Mackenzie JohnsonOkay. Now back on track, to our regular scheduled programing. We were talking about the concerns that parents sometimes have related to baby led weaning and a really big one , for actually parents and healthcare professionals, many healthcare professionals too, is this idea of choking. And there was kind of this mixed bag of findings that I felt like we saw , I was reading in particular, Lyndi sent me some great literature reviews and some articles on baby led weaning , and so Boswell and some colleagues in 2021 , they were talked about some studies that maybe showed they're like, well kind of higher rates of choking if they were doing baby led weaning , but they also offered, because yeah, it wasn't a study that was like, "this caused this." It was kind of like, "Well, we found a relationship between these things, but we also found a relationship that these parents may have been more likely to offer high choking foods." And so, yeah. Was it unique to this group? Was it...? There's all of these questions we don't know about that yet . So they talked about, yeah, they might be more likely to offer high choking foods. Other studies, a lot of studies have found no difference in rates of choking between spoonfed or baby led weaning. And then another study, I thought this was interesting too. Another study found that baby led weaning babies actually gagged more but earlier. So they were gagging, like doing more gagging around like six months while children that were doing like lumpy, like lumpy purees into solids, they would do gagging, but it was later in life, like closer to like 7, 8, 9 months, , and so I thought that was interesting to think about gagging versus choking and those are different things, right?
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYes.
Mackenzie JohnsonAnd I feel like you, in particular, you explain this well, like the difference,
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYeah. Yeah. So I think it's very important if you do go into baby led weaning, I think first of all, there is some education and awareness that has to happen about baby led weaning, particularly like the appropriate serving sizes to provide the food to your baby.
Mackenzie JohnsonLyndi and are both fighting flies today. If you are watching this or if you're listening, you're missing out on Lyndi and I trying to like subtly keep these bugs out of our faces. I'm so sorry, Lynde. I just totally interrupted in the m iddle.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttIt is , it is a mean and angry fly.
Mackenzie JohnsonIn your face.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttIn my face. Sorry, not distracting me from choking versus gagging.
Mackenzie JohnsonNever.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttNo, but yeah. Yeah . So I think the first thing about the fear of choking and gagging is to educate yourself. If you do baby led weaning to do the appropriate sizes, because that will help, you know, help you overcome some of those fears. Not all of them because it's there . But then to be aware of the difference between gagging and choking . So gagging is a totally appropriate, totally normal, what we want our babies to participate in when they're eating for the first time to learn that this is when you gag, you spit the food back out. So you don't choke, right? So gagging is, if your baby i s still able to, you can see your baby able to breathe, you hear your baby still making noises, they're coughing. Those are all signs of g agging. Choking is when you can no longer, you see they're no longer breathing, you don't hear them breathing. You don't hear them making noises. That is choking. So there are different things. And s o there has been, this is leaning more into kind of speech language experts area, a nd less of m ine. But there is some research around that baby l ed weaning helps, could potentially help avoid choking because your b aby, better able to teach your baby early on how to g ag and to appropriately respond to that g agging. So when anybody, when humans feed themselves with their hands, because, yeah.
Mackenzie JohnsonOur utensils.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttW hen they participate in the action of bringing the food to their mouth, that is a , it's like a cu e i n their brain. Obviously they're making that association that something's going in their mouth an d t hey know that that's that's there. So t hat's another sign of, okay, this food's there and you might be more likely to gag an d s pit it back out. Whereas, yo u k now, potentially if you're spoonfeeding or you put food in a baby's mouth, which, this is why, if you do give baby solid food, maybe don't put it directly in their mouth, is they might not be able to make that connection or do that, participate in that activity.
Mackenzie JohnsonI've never, yeah, I'd never thought of gagging as like gagging prevents choking. And you know, again, we're not, it's not absolutely definitive, but it does make sense how it could. Like that, because I know like when food's back there or something doesn't feel right to spit it out, right? For my gag reflex to push it out instead of push it down and be stuck. That makes sense too.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYeah. And that is one of the hard parts about baby led weaning is watching your child gag and being comfortable saying, "okay, spit it back out," and not going in and fishing it out of their mouth, which is hard. My husband, especially had a very hard time with this, but it's like, don't touch him, let him spit it out himself and figure it out...
Mackenzie JohnsonWe're gonna let him figure this out. And keep him safe! It's not like, "Oh, figure it out. Best of luck?!"
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYes.
Mackenzie JohnsonYou know, you're there, you're supervising, you're keeping him safe as he eats.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYes. Step one is giving the appropriate serving and the appropriate manner in which you serve , like provide the food. And second to that is observing and then teaching them how to appropriately respond if they do gag .
Mackenzie JohnsonYes. Yes. One of the things that I also thought was - I feel like everything, I'm just like this episode. Oh! This was interesting! Oh , this is interesting! I thought it was all interesting. But one of the, several of the studies that talked about choking , the authors, I thought did a really nice job in this literature review. They pointed out that some of these studies were for babies at like nine months and reports show that at by nine months, 90% of kids are eating at least some solid foods. So when you're looking like, was this a baby led weaning baby? Or was this a baby that's spoonfed? Even if they're still doing some spoon feeding , most kids are getting some solids at that point. So when you're talking about choking, right? And so it's just , there's so many things and this is why we keep saying like, "The literature's emerging, we don't know yet!" Because there's a lot of things that like, how it was studied, who were they studying? Who was included? Where did they get these people? Right. Did like, was it like some dietician conference where they're like, "Hey, all you dieticians, did you do baby led weaning? We wanna ask you about it!" Right. And so there's lots of questions about how research is done to make sure that we can feel really confident in our knowledge about it. So there's just a lot of stuff. So you know, what kind of mixed on some things, but it's not really definitive either way, but being prepared for those things is an important part of how you make that decision.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYes.
Mackenzie JohnsonOkay, and speaking of being prepared, you brought up the like grasp thing. Well , you explain that, so you're talking about the size of food we offer to our babies. This is not related to concern. We're moving on to another side tangent , because I love them . I want Lyndi to tell me everything she knows about everything.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYes, yes.
Mackenzie JohnsonSo you were talking about grasp, but that there's more than one kind and that relates to the size of the food and that kind of stuff?
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYeah. So again, when we're thinking about preparing our, the food for our baby to eat, when they're doing baby led weaning t he serving the actual, not necessarily serving size, but the actual size of the food that we're providing to the child needs to be appropriate for their actual physical, what they're physically capable of doing. So there's two different kinds of grasps that emerge in that six to 1 2 m onth period. The first grasp is what we call a Palmer grasp. And that is th e p alm in the name of it is w h en a b a by g rasp something with their full palm.
Mackenzie JohnsonLike the center part of their hand.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttMm-hmm, yep.
Mackenzie JohnsonGot it.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYeah. And so you need to make food that's large enough for them to have that grasped because they can't, they don't have the fine motor skills to do what the next grasp is. The more specific g rasp, i t's called a Pincer g rasp, which is between y our thumb and your pointer finger. A nd so that's picking up, like, I can pick up a blueberry, obviously, with a pincer grasp. I can't do that with my Palmer grasp. So a common food introduction food for a lot of baby led weaning might be a banana because it's mushy, it's e asier for a baby to mush. It's not as much of a fear about choking and you can also, you can serve it in a larger, actual shape.
Mackenzie JohnsonYeah, it just is larger than blueberry.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttIt's just larger than a blueberry! Yeah. So that's a really a great way to start and even keeping it, we would cut around, cut the peel so that the peel was almost like a handle for him. And he could grab onto that and then very cute pictures of him with like a full , full banana in his mouth and the peel, or, or if you wanna take the peel off , for a lot of foods that size , if it's kind of a slippery food, like avocado's another common food you give right away to a baby , coat it in something that's gonna make it less sticky. So we have, like flax seed is just something we have at our house, so we would cat it with flaxseed that would make it easier for him to grasp and pick up and eat.
Mackenzie JohnsonAbsolutely. And that idea, yeah, I've heard of like the pincer grasp. I think of like, we would eat the little puffs, right? Like little things that they're picking up and yeah. But think about the size and yeah, if we were, when we were spoon feeding , there wasn't really that much of a difference because by the time we were ready to offer solids our kids, it was later, and so they usually had that more finite type of grasp. All this interesting stuff that goes into making this decision process. And so we do want to talk a little bit about that. So we've been talking about the research , some things that were like, "yeah, this is promising," some things that we're like , "we just don't know yet." But that's what the research is currently telling us. And we always know, as we make these decisions, there's also kind of this dose of reality related to your own life, the type of support, you have the people around you, what your parents did before you, who your child is, their temperament, right? Everybody, if we mixed and match how everybody would answer each of those questions, it's going to be different. And so we want to just talk about some kind of general considerations for you to think about in your own life as you consider baby led weaning.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttMm-hmm, yes.
Mackenzie JohnsonSo I'll say the first one, I feel like is all, has your name all over it.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYes. Yeah. Yeah. So one of the reasons that people think baby led weaning , this idea that it could potentially lead to obesity prevention long term is because research does show us that children are less likely to become obese if their parents have a responsive feeding style. So basically this means that we let our children determine how much they eat and when they are done eating. That kind of division of responsibility, and we don't, as parents say to them, like, "Half your plate is still full of food. You need to finish that." So in general, for whether you're going to try baby led weaning, spoon feeding , whatever's going to work for your family, try to do this responsive feeding style into the future.
Mackenzie JohnsonYes. Where we're listening to our child and paying attention so that we're kind of following their lead, whether you're baby led weaning, like I'm like, what would the alternative be like baby led weaning or child led feeding? I don't know. I wanted to be cute. I don't know if it was cute. But either way we can kind of try to be responsive in our feeding .
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYes.
Mackenzie JohnsonAnother thing to think about is the support of the people around you that they would offer you, if you would make this decision for baby led weaning. We know that it's starting to get more kind of like news media, online attention, this feeding style of baby weaning, but a lot of healthcare professionals are not necessarily on board or informed , on this kind of strategy for feeding. In fact, one of the studies, you know, there's across a couple different samples, a lot of parents, when they ask , "Where did you get information about this?" Less than 20% of parents or around 20% of parents said they heard anything at all about baby led weaning from like their family doctor or healthcare professional. So Boswell, you know, that was that 2021 literature review. They're like, not very many parents heard about it from their doctor, and some pediatricians are actively against it or just don't support it. You know, they have those same concerns that a lot of parents have talked about having concerns. And so, as you think about making this decision, think about how important to you that support will be, right? Would it be difficult for you if you, like? I even think of like, if one of your parents offers child , is your childcare for your child? And they're like, no, I would never, I'm not comfortable with that. Right. That's going to inform your decision.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYes.
Mackenzie JohnsonIf you're really dependent on your family doctor to give you trustworthy information, and they're a huge point of support for you, and it'd be hard for you to go against what they think, that's okay. You get to make that decision. So just consider how important your support of like your pediatrician or your family around you would be.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttOr use it as an opportunity to educate them about the potential benefits.
Mackenzie JohnsonAbsolutely!
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYou know , and bring this podcast to them.
Mackenzie JohnsonYou're like, okay . Science of Parenting, bonus episode, baby led weaning, go listen.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYes, yes.
Mackenzie JohnsonNo bias. I have no bias there.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYes. Yeah. Okay. So another thing kind of to consider is , so again , just going back to this idea of choking, gagging , understand that this is going to be a part of baby led weaning. I think it's gonna be a part probably of complimentary feeding, anyways, but you do need to know your comfort level with it when you get started. So , you know, if this is the right method for you to choose or not, because it is something, and like I said, we spent the first month staring at our son like, is everything okay ?
Mackenzie JohnsonYes. Yeah, you gotta think about that. Another thing to think about is kind of the general timing of things. And so , the things, there's kind of some criteria that should be met before kids are regularly offered solid food. Now, whether you're offering that solid food as a part of baby led weaning, or as a part of purees into solid food, these are some of the check marks we wanna look for. For a child to eat solid food, they should be able to sit up unsupported. They should be able to bring food to their own mouth. They should express , they should show a general interest in food, right? So like they see you eating. They're like, oh, what's that? Or they reach for it or things like that. Showing a general interest in food, and they should be able to chew and swallow before they are regularly offered. Now you can't be like, they will chew and swallow before I give them food. Right. That's how you find out if they can chew and swallow , but before it's like an all the time regular occurrence , you want to make sure that is a motor skill that their mouth is physically capable of bringing that food to the back of their mouth and things. So the World Health Organization currently recommends in order to do all these things, a typically developing baby would be around six months. That's when they could meet these markers and therefore be ready to have some solid food. And, and we know that kids develop at different rates, right? So some kids are, right? I think of our spirited babies who tend to have early milestones and all of these things, they might be doing all of that at five months at five and a half months, there will also be kids.... I had a spirited baby and a late bloomer. One of each. And yeah, my late bloomer, wasn't doing those things at six months. So I didn't feel ready to offer solid food. Another component is that a lot of people, especially like my parents, like the generation, that would be kind of my parents , remember when that recommendation to start offering baby food, that was in addition to their milk, right, i'ts called complimentary, to start offering a non milk food, it used to be at four months. And so people remember that.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYeah, oh yeah.
Mackenzie JohnsonAnd that's part, right, we talked about like the industry and pureed food and being able to sell that and make money being a component. But another component was when that recommendation was four months, a four month old , isn't typically sitting up by themselves. They aren't typically able to bring food to their mouth with that coordination. And so purees became, and purees and spoon feeding became more popular because we, okay. If I feed my baby at four months , that has since been moved, right?
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYes.
Mackenzie JohnsonAnd sometimes people are like, well, they move it all the time. We never know. And I'm like, no, wait! Part of the reason we know is because they've moved it. Right. They've moved it. Maybe they moved it up to four months and found out, okay, this isn't going that well, we're not seeing good outcomes for people, a recommendation. It's an informed recommendation.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYes.
Mackenzie JohnsonIs what I like to say. It's not that it's perfect. It's an informed recommendation. And you can take that information and make your own decision. Ultimately we know that this food, right. we're talking about like the six to kind of 12 month period, you know, maybe it's a little earlier, for some reason, like a specific situation with your child and your family, but in general, that time period is complimentary food. Right . Milk is still our main source, but when we want, whether we start offering solids or purees, we want to start thinking about when can my child do these things so that I can help keep them safe. Yeah. And the other thing I should say is there, is we were talking about obesity prevention with baby lead weaning, and it's like, this is promising. Something we do know is there's literature to show us that introducing food like foods, whether that's purees a non milk food, to kids before they're four months old, is recognized as being a risk factor for later obesity and being overweight. And even, you know, there's some, not a great , kind of a weak correlation with doing it even before six months. So again, there's a weak correlation there. There is evidence to show that before four months is kind of too soon , based on obesity research. But again, all kinds of factors. Timing is an important part of this.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttTiming. Yes. Timing is very important when you are meeting those milestones and this would be, again, a conversation with your pediatrician. Whether they're onboard baby led weaning or not, they're going to help support you and guide you in what is the right thing to do at the right time for your baby as well.
Mackenzie JohnsonI also think about like, okay, timing wise , like my child's markers, but I also think I was in grad school. Right. Maybe somebody's starting a new job. Maybe you're in the middle of moving your home. There's all of these things, right. Maybe you have a spouse on deployment. Right. That all of these things can happen that can also impact timing.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttOh yeah , yeah . Maybe food's super expensive right now, which it is ,
Mackenzie JohnsonOh, it is.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttThere are a lot of factors that go into how we feed our children. Yes. And so kind of the last thing I think we want , well, one of the , one of the last things, there a few more we wanna talk about in this section is , another thing that's important with baby led weaning is one of the benefits of it, the advantages, Is it's convenient in the fact that you get to, right away feed your child, what you're eating. But something important to consider is, you know, what are you eating and is it appropriate for the baby? So that means keeping your eye out for things like high foods that are high in sodium. Babies really don't need any added salt , don't need any added sugar. So, really being aware of, if I'm preparing something that I want my baby to eat and I'm going to eat , how much, what's the sodium content? What's the sugar content of it. Because that's something I think in general, we should be aware of for kids, but something particular, if you're gonna be feeding your kids, what you're preparing as well. And then also on the flip side of that, if you are doing baby led weaning, and you aren't doing a lot of the fortified cereals and things like that, you do wanna be paying, maybe pay more attention, especially if your child's breastfed, to how much iron they're getting. Because a lot of babies at this point, even though it is complimentary at six months, if you're breastfeeding, the irons, the mother's iron stores are depleted to the point where baby needs to start getting iron from something else. If they're on formula, they're probably getting it from their formula, but if they're being breasted, they need to start getting it from food. So that's looking to make sure that you're giving your baby foods that are high in iron. So some of those foods , an easy one is meats. Meats in general are high in iron, and they have what we call heme iron , which is a little bit easier for your body to absorb. And so that's a great source of iron. There's non-heme iron sources, which is largely plant sources. So those are things like beans and lentils, legumes , leafy, green vegetables, nuts seeds, those types of things. So those for my household in particular, we eat a lot of plant-based foods. We don't eat a lot of meat, and so I would had to be very particular and I also breastfed, so I had to be very particular about what I was giving my child in terms of making sure I was meeting this increased iron need during this period of time. So we did a lot of like lentils and quinoa patties . And then in addition to that , I would also say to add some vitamin D in because that's going to help with iron absorption. So like I put some like lemon juice on it, or some yogurt with some lemon juice or something like that. Some broccoli to help with that absorption of iron. Ugh . Okay . Dietician hacks. The things, you know! Yeah .
Mackenzie JohnsonI love it.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttSorry if anyone just like glazed, like e yes glazed over, that to me is the most fascinating thing. And I think some people a re like, what? I do not want to hear about this.
Mackenzie JohnsonNo, but it's good to know though, that as we talk about iron, that there's one kind like meat, heme iron tends to be easier to absorb, but there's things we can do to make other sources of iron more absorbable. I like that. Dietician hack.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttAnd it works for you too, if you feel like you're having a hard time getting enough iron, add some vitamin C to it, if it's a plant based source, and you're going to increase your absorption.
Mackenzie JohnsonYeah . Well, and I even think, like I gave blood a little while ago and I'm always like, Ooh , is my iron gonna be high enough ? Okay. Lentils, vitamin C. I'm coming for you. Awesome. Okay . And then one more factor for you to consider. There are times when baby led weaning is not the appropriate approach for children. So some of those times could be if a child, a child that was born premature , if a child has certain developmental delays or disorders or things that relate to feeding , even like oral development, right? Oral skills, motor skills related to that. And then also if you have a child that has specific types of food intolerance or food allergies, when you might need to control, you know, what they eat or how much of something they eat, that baby led weaning might not be the best approach for those things. And so what a , I honestly feel like what a glorious time that we have some choice , you know, that we have an opportunity to choose between, I can make purees, I can buy purees, I can cook my own food and give my child the same thing. Right? We have options on how we feed our baby and we can do some kind of combination of all of them if we want, or you can choose one exclusively and there's benefits of, you know, pros and cons to each thing. And we're allowed to make that decision for our family.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYes you are. And again, at the end of the day, fed is best for your baby . So feed your baby in the best way that you know how.
Mackenzie JohnsonYes, we feed babies. We feed every baby. So, yes, this is what the research currently shows right now. It is the summer of 2022 , and this is what we know from the literature. We were able to get access to about this baby led weaning as a complimentary feeding method. We know that there's still research to be done, still things to learn about it. There is some evidence, but we will, I mean, yeah, like we said in 10 years, we'll tell you more. Okay.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttOh yeah .
Speaker 1But at the end of the day at The Science of Parenting, we are not focused on advocating for one method or the other, like we said, there's so many things to consider that are related to you, that you are the expert on that. We could never tell you, well, because this, we must this , so we're not advocating for either, but our job and our kind of hope is that this episode provided you with some facts, some information and some questions maybe , so that you can make your own decision for your family and for your child. So that's kind of what we have today , thinking about baby led weaning versus spoon feeding and how you can make that decision. Is there anything you kind of want to add? Anything we didn't say, Lyndi, that we wanna pop in at the last second?
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttI don't think, I think we got it all and if we didn't someone please tell us, and I would be happy to come back and talk more.
Mackenzie JohnsonWell, Lyndi and I can hang out all day, so.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYes. Yeah.
Mackenzie JohnsonSo honestly, thank you for joining me. I'm so glad to have your perspective. I mean, your personal perspective and your professional expertise as we share this information with parents on baby led weaning, so thank you for being here.
Lyndi Buckingham-SchuttYeah. Thank you for having me.
Mackenzie JohnsonAnd thank you, listeners, and viewers, if you got to watch us fight these flies , but thank you for joining us today on The Science of Parenting podcast. Our next season is releasing in October of 2022. And I will say, you're not gonna want to miss that. So , come along with us as we tackle the ups and downs, the ins and outs and the research and reality all around The Science of Parenting.
Anthony SantiagoThe Science of Parenting is hosted by Lori Korthals and Mackenzie Johnson, produced by Mackenzie DeJong, with research and writing by Barbara Dunn Swanson. Send in questions and comments to parenting@iastate.edu and connect with us on Facebook and Twitter. This institution is an equal opportunity provider. For the full non-discrimination statement or accommodation inquiries, go to www.extension.iastate.edu/diversity/ext.