Out with the goo, in with the new.
Millennial parents are forgoing spoon-fed purees for their infants, instead letting them chow down on chunks of steak, whole heads of broccoli and adult-sized slices of cheese — to the horror of nervous caretakers and social media commenters.
The increasingly popular feeding technique, known as baby-led weaning, allows babies to add larger foods to their diet to expose them to to diverse flavors and develop motor skills such as chewing and hand-eye coordination.
Images of the shocking new feeding style have taken over social media: The TikTok tag #babyledweaning has more than 956 million views. And businesses are cashing in on the trend, too. Tiny Organics, a child nutrition company, announced a new line of finger foods for baby-led weaning this week, starting at $5.99 a cup.
“They have to learn how to eat normal foods and not purees at some point, right?” 24-year-old parent Abbie Flake told The Post. The Arizona-based mom, who has a 6-month-old son, said that “baby led weaning just seemed to make more sense because I was able to introduce him to those textures and all that variety early on.”
But the unconventional feeding method hasn’t been embraced by everyone. One mom recently bore the brunt of its criticism on TikTok after she shared a clip of her little one gnawing on a piece of steak. In response, some commenters cried “child abuse” while others contended that it was at least going to make the baby sick.
But for Katie Ferraro, a California dietician who posts as @BabyLedWeanTeam on Instagram to an audience of more than 300,000, it was the key to feeding her quadruplets and, later, twins.
“It was a downright battleground at meal time and I felt like an absolute failure,” said the mother of seven, who is also a nutrition lecturer at San Diego State University.
When she found out she was having quadruplets, she needed to find an alternative to buying caseloads of purees in order to manage feeding that many hungry mouths.
“We went whole hog in baby-led weaning and it was absolutely the godsend I hoped it would be,” said Ferraro, who later developed the 100 First Foods approach to baby-led weaning, helping parents give a little more credit to their babies’ eating abilities.
Baby-led weaning may strike fear in caretakers who worry their babies will choke, but studies show otherwise.
“Choking is a rare but real risk,” Ferraro said, emphasizing that education on food preparation safety. “Having CPR skills can save your baby’s life.”
In 2016, the American Academy of Pediatrics published a study in which they found that infants on baby-led weaning “do not appear more likely to choke” than those who followed traditional practices, such as spoon-feeding.
(But parents should avoid giving their babies food that could directly cause choking, such as raw apples, grapes, nuts, popcorn and foods with pits.)
When Flake’s 6-month-old son gagged, she immediately panicked, thinking he was choking — until she realized that gagging, in fact, is part of the process.
“At first, I was terrified when he would just gag,” said Flake, who’s amassed more than 45,000 followers on Instagram sharing motherhood-related content. “But then I learned the different between the two.”
“Having babies more in control of what they are eating and how much they are eating develops the concept of learning satiety,” Sara Siddiqui, MD, a pediatrician at Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital at NYU Langone, told the Post. “Baby-led weaning also allows for more diversity in the offerings.”
This method of feeding also makes it easier on the parents at mealtimes, since the babies can feed themselves and can eat what the parents are eating, Siddiqui said.
“Being able to feed Ella the exact same food as what myself and my husband, Liam, are eating was a huge benefit,” said UK resident Katie Shelton, 32, whose daughter is 3 years old. “We can sit together and I do not have to spoon feed her. She would feed herself so I had my hands free to eat whilst she was eating.”
But parents adhering to baby-led weaning nonetheless attract plenty of criticism in the comments section.
Flake said many people attack her parenting, arguing that her son will choke or that it’s not healthy. “In reality, store-bought purees also have additives and preservatives and all these sorts of things, and I’d rather feed my baby something that I know exactly what it’s made of.”
Shelton, the owner of baby-led weaning business Scrummy Tummies, said most of the criticism toward her methods come from the grandparents.
“I believe this comes out of fear, it’s a totally different way to how they would have weaned their children 30 years or so ago and they’re really worried about choking,” she said.
But Flake doesn’t let the naysayers get her down.
“I’m a firm believer in trusting your mom gut,” she said. “I think there are so many loud opinions in the world about how to parent a child, but in reality, it’s your child, and you need to do what you feel is best for your baby.”
