BABY LED WEANING: HOW TO PREPARE FOODS + PROGRESSION TIPS

hey guys my name is Ashley and I'm a mom of two little girls I have a two and a half year old toddler named Kylie and I have a six-month-old baby named Mia so welcome to the third installment of our series on baby led weaning today I'm going to be showing you how to prepare a couple of very common foods for baby led weaning as well as giving you some ideas for kind of the general progression for how you want to introduce these foods between the ages of 6 and 12 months there is something that I want to get out of the way before we start this video and that is the fact that there is no one single right way on how to introduce different foods to your baby it honestly really depends on your family's culture around eating you might also have special circumstances if your family follows a very specific type of diet like vegetarian or vegan and of course there's always a risk for food allergies which are more prevalent in some families than others so that is something that you need to take into consideration when kind of figuring out what path you want to take in introducing food to your baby and when it comes to food allergies there is something that you should know for a very long time doctors warn parents to avoid giving their children anything that could potentially pose an allergic reaction especially things like peanuts and eggs and even though that's how things were done for a really long time there's actually a lot of new research out that shows that introducing these potentially allergenic foods much earlier on actually prevents the development of those allergies and if you are interested in reading a little bit more about these studies I will leave them linked down below for you however there still is a risk for food allergies and your best course of action for this is to introduce a couple of no risk solid foods first before you introduce anything that could potentially be an allergen and of course if there is a family history of a severe allergic reaction to a certain type of food you will want to consult your pediatrician first before you ever even consider giving it to your baby just to be on the safe side now Before we jump into how to prepare some of the types of foods that you're going to want to give to your baby when they first start baby led weaning I just want to touch very briefly on some of the things that you want to make sure that you avoid and these are pretty common no-brainer type things you don't want to give your baby anything with an excessive amount of salt anything with added show anything with artificial preservatives or flavors or sweeteners in it you also want to avoid giving your baby any type of junk food for obvious reasons it's not good for us so it's definitely not good for your baby and also frozen foods because they do tend to be highly processed and they have a lot of added salts and sugars and preservatives in them even something that is marketed as healthy probably really isn't at least when it comes to your baby and then there are a couple of things that you definitely want to avoid giving to your baby because it could pose a serious health risk to your baby and those things are honey cow's milk as well as other types of animal milk like sheep's milk and goats milk undercooked eggs because of the risk of salmonella as well as any type of high mercury fish like swordfish and raw shellfish I finally please be sure to avoid giving your baby any type of choking hazard food I will actually put a link down below for you guys to check out that has a list of some of the most common choking hazards and how to better prepare the foods so that they do not pose a choking risk and now let's go ahead and jump into how to prepare what I would consider the top ten most common foods for baby led weaning so the most common first food that a baby receives in baby led weaning is usually something squishy like avocado and with good reason because avocado is a superfood it is incredibly healthy for your baby but aside from that the taste tends to be pretty bland which most babies find agreeable especially when it's their first exposure to a flavor other than milk and again that texture is nice and soft and squishy so it's really easy for a baby to gnaw on when choosing an avocado make sure that you pick one that has a little bit of give when you squeeze the skin this way you know that it's nice and ripe to prepare an avocado the first thing you want to do is slice it in half lengthwise next you'll remove the pit and then depending on the size of your avocado for each half of it you can slice it lengthwise into either three or four Spears or wedges I would recommend leaving the skin on because it's actually easier for your baby to pick up this very slippery slice of avocado and hold on to it as they begin to bring it toward their mouth if you find that your baby is kind of chewing on the skin side as opposed to the avocado side something else that you can do is remove just a little bit of the skin at the top this way there is skin on the bottom for the baby to hold on to but the top is completely exposed and they're able to get to the avocado a lot easier next up on our list of one of the most common baby led weaning foods to first introduced is bananas simply slice the banana in half and then on the side that has the stem still attached you're going to present that side to your baby because the stem forms a really convenient handle for your baby to hold on to you can actually cut off the skin just around the top part of the banana leaving the inside exposed much like we did with the avocado and then just give it to your baby that way you may have to help your baby and kind of show them how to hold it the first time but once they get the hang of it it's pretty smooth sailing from there next up on our list is one of my personal favorites and that is sweet potato your first step will be to slice the potato in half crosswise then take one of the halves of the potatoes and quarter it with these quarters you're going to make small finger sized sticks of sweet potato that your baby can easily hold on to well you can certainly just go ahead and use a regular knife and straight cuts that generally works just fine I also find it very convenient to use a crinkle cutter once you have your sweet potato sticks or wedges prepared you're going to need to steam them for about 10 to 12 minutes depending on the thickness of each of your sticks or wedges as long as you can easily pierce it with a fork without it actually falling apart then it's the perfect texture what you're going for is a little wedge of potato that is hard enough so that your baby can pick it up without squishing it but also soft enough that they can easily chew it if they get a bite in their mouth having that extra added texture makes it just a little bit easier for your baby to pick up these little sticks or wedges next up on our list is a juicy ripe pear when picking out a pear you actually want to look for one that is almost yellow in color if the ones that you find at the grocery store are still green then you're going to need to leave it out on the counter for a little bit longer perhaps a couple days until it does turn yellow and ripen up a little bit otherwise the texture is just too hard it's very similar to an apple and I feel like it could actually pose a choking hazard cutting up a pear is really easy you're just going to slice off all four sides of it around the core and dispose of the core then simply turn your pear piece flat side down using either a straight knife or a crinkle cutter you're going to slice up each of those chunks into several finger sized wedges next let's dive into a couple of those first vegetables believe it or not one of the easier ones for baby to start with is broccoli or cauliflower and this is probably one of the easiest ones to prepare because all you have to do is break it down into little florets and then steam them for 10 minutes now you might think that smaller florets would actually be better for your baby but honestly I found that some of the bigger ones that we would normally eat as adults are much easier for your baby to hold on to and they're actually really good at getting the little bits off the top of the broccoli all by themselves and with gums alone no teeth required now when it comes to carrots you actually want to stray away from baby carrots when you go to the store what you're looking for is a nice big long normal-sized carrot with a regular-sized carrot you can better control the size of the pieces that you're making if you have a particularly thick carrot then I would even go so far as to cut the carrot in half lengthwise and any pieces toward the end that tend to be smaller than your finger especially in width I would just discard those or save those for another meal once you've got all your little carrot sticks prepared then you just need to steam them for roughly 15 to 20 minutes depending on the thickness of the wedges you've cut as with the sweet potato as long as you can easily pierce it with a fork without it completely falling apart then you've achieved the right texture now let's move on to some other categories of foods the first one we're going to talk about is scrambled eggs as I mentioned earlier in the video babies cannot have undercooked eggs because of the risk of salmonella poisoning so you want to make sure that whatever eggs you prepare for your baby are very well-done what I would actually recommend doing is when you've cracked your egg into the pan cook it over a much higher heat than you normally would this way your egg will cook very quickly and all you have to do is kind of move it around the pan just a couple of times enough to get everything seared off really fast and what you end up with is actually like this little scrambled egg pancake and that's really convenient because once it's all stuck together like that you can actually put it directly on the plate and then cut it into little sticks that are easy for your baby to pick up babies that have not developed a pincer grip yet are going to become very frustrated with the tiny little bits of egg sometimes crumble off especially if that's how you normally prepare it for yourself another really fun first food for babies is toast and you do want to make sure that it is toasted bread because the texture is actually a lot easier for a baby to pick up than regular soft squishy bread avoid giving them an entire piece of toast that's just a little bit too overwhelming for a small baby who is just learning you're better off making your slice of toast and then depending on how big the piece of bread is you can slice it into either three or four little sticks that they can pick up I would suggest sticking to a hundred percent whole wheat bread for your baby because it is a whole grain and it is much healthier and what you put on the toast is totally up to you you could simply give your baby the toast as is for the first time if you're more comfortable with that you can put a little bit of butter on it you can also spread a very thin layer of cream cheese onto the toast before you cut it up or you could even put a very thin layer of peanut butter on there for your baby to some people even thin it out with a little bit of water first because globs of peanut butter are just too sticky for babies and it poses a choking risk and as for some of those foods that your baby might be learning to feed him or herself with a spoon one of the first ones that I like to start off with is whole grain oatmeal you want to avoid the little packets of a highly processed oatmeal that come with all the sugar added that oatmeal tends to not be very healthy as most of the oats have been stripped of their nutritional benefits what you actually want to look for is either rolled whole grain oats or even steel-cut oats as far as preparing it it's pretty straightforward to just follow the directions on the package the one thing that you want to do is just make sure that you cook it a little bit longer than it suggests is that the oatmeal comes out nice and thick the thicker it is the easier it's going to be for your baby to actually successfully get a scoop onto the spoon and into their mouth before it falls off and while you can serve the oatmeal completely plain I feel like that's not a very good first introduction it doesn't taste very good so something simple that you can do to kind of jazz up your baby's first experience with oatmeal is to add just a little bit of apple sauce or apple puree and a little dash of cinnamon the flavor is not too overwhelming and it's just enough to make it interesting and finally unless you are a vegetarian or a vegan at some point you're probably going to introduce your baby to meat and there are a couple of ways is to offer meat to your baby the easiest thing that you can do hands down is to actually offer your baby an entire chicken drumstick believe it or not they can manage that just fine and it's actually really easy for them to hold if you are not interested in going that route then you can also simply cook the meat that you're offering to your child it can be chicken it can be steak it can be pork whatever you would like and you'll use the same rule of thumb as you did for all of the other foods and that is to cut it or even just tear it into a little strip of meat that you can offer to your baby that's again about the size of your finger the one thing that you do want to make sure of is that you cut or tear the meat along the grain as opposed to across the grain this way it's a lot more difficult for your baby to actually bite a chunk off which could potentially pose a choking hazard especially if they're very new at chewing still for a much older baby or for meats that have been stewed or slow-cooked for several hours to the point that they're basically falling apart you don't have to worry about that quite as much but I would err on the side of caution in the beginning and definitely make sure that it's going along the grain and one final way that you can introduce me to your baby that I actually prefer the most is to create soft little baby meat balls that your baby can just pick right up off of the trailer to the table and suck on or take small bites out so those are just the top ten most common foods obviously you have the entire assortment of foods in the world at your fingertips to offer to your baby I like to focus on introducing foods to my babies that we know our family eats regularly this way baby becomes accustomed to those flavors and they're more likely to eat it if your baby does not seem to like something the first couple of times that you've offered it to them don't fret usually that is a very common occurrence and just keep offering it to your baby and one day you'll notice that it almost seems like they've changed their mind and they actually do kind of like it now I would offer each of these first foods and whatever other ones you plan to incorporate generally one at a time for roughly two to three days at a time this way you can give your baby's digestive system a chance to kind of adjust and it also gives you an opportunity to look out for potential allergenic foods for your baby if you're offering your baby a lot of foods at one throughout the day then it's gonna be a lot harder for you to figure out exactly which food it was that caused the allergic reaction now once your baby has gotten through the majority of their first foods and you kind of feel like they're ready for the next step there are all kinds of really fun recipes that you can experiment with and little finger foods that you can make for your baby I'm going to put links down below for you guys to some of my baby's favorite recipes that I made for her that she went back to time and again and she is still eating to this day they are all super healthy things that you can make for your baby you right in your own kitchen with very minimal ingredients and they include things like apple cinnamon and spinach muffins pesto chicken and veggie meatballs ham cheese and spinach corn muffins no sugar breakfast pancakes green smoothie baby veggie fritters homemade mac and cheese and a few others so check the description box when you're done watching this video to get some really good ideas on things that you can make for your baby at home so the other part of this video that I wanted to talk about today is the general progression of how you're going to prepare the foods from the time that you start all the way up through baby's first birthday and what you will notice is that the way that you're preparing their foods is going to match their general progress in fine motor development so between the ages of 6 & 8 months your baby is still going to be using something called a palmar grasp basically they're using their entire hand to pick up the food that's in front of them and bring it to their mouth once babies grab on to something they keep a really tight grip they tend to squish it and whatever is inside their fist it's almost like they themselves can't get to it so that's why it's suggested that you cut their foods into roughly finger sized sticks or wedges or even tiny little balls of food something that is slightly bigger than their fist because a little edge needs to be able to poke out of it that they can once they grab on to it actually gnaw on and take bites of from about 8 months onward your baby will start to learn how to use their fingers in concert with their Palmer grasp so you'll see them actually getting much better at reaching out and using their fingers to pick up clumps of food and once they bring it to their mouth then they'll open their fingers and kind of shove everything into their mouths so it's at this point that it's a lot easier for you to again offering things that are clumpy like sticky rice all kind of by itself as opposed to in a ball or mashed potatoes you can also even try piles of green peas at this point they might get a little bit smushed on the way in but they might find a little bit of success with it from about nine months on that is when babies start to develop their pincer grasp they're able to pick things up between their fingers that are very small you will know right away when your baby has kind of entered this territory because you'll see them picking at little bits of their food on their tray that have broken off from the larger chunks once you notice your baby is doing this it's time to start offering them smaller foods so that they can get practice with that so not only cutting things into smaller bite-sized pieces now but also offering foods that are smaller in nature like little green peas or are crushed blueberries or the little baby puffs or Cheerios and things like that and from basically then on any shape or texture of food is basically fair game for your baby one thing I would also like to point out is around the nine-month mark when you notice your baby is starting to actually consume a majority of the food that you're getting to them not just playing with it and spitting it out and throwing it all over the place you may also notice that at this point baby is starting to naturally reduce his or her milk intake this is a good sign that your baby is starting to gain more and more of their nutrients from the food that they're eating so it's going to become very important that you offer food from a variety of all the food groups throughout the baby's day your general guideline is just to make sure that your baby is getting fruits or vegetables a protein source a whole grain carbohydrates orse and somewhere in there also some calcium and healthy fats again this doesn't need to be all in one meal every single time as long as you've kind of hit all those food groups throughout the day then you should be good now in next week's video I am going to be going over how to introduce cutlery to your baby and what the progression kind of looks like for them being able to use a spoon and a fork independently starting as soon as six months so stay tuned for that and finally if you have made it this far in the video first thank you so much for watching and second I have something exciting to share with you I am doing a secret giveaway I have not announced it on Instagram I have not announced it on my youtube channel anywhere except right now in this video so if you are watching then you are in on the secret it's not a huge giveaway but I figured if you are watching this entire video then you're probably pretty invested in baby led weaning so this is something that you will certainly be interested in possibly winning for yourself if you don't already own it and that is a copy of the baby led weaning cookbook by Gil Radley I bought this book back when my first daughter was first beginning her baby led weaning journey and I found this book to be absolutely indispensable I went back to it time and again for just general guidance on how to approach the different stages that she was going through as well as for some really tasty recipes so the beginning of this book is kind of a how-to guide on baby led weaning and a lot of the information that you're getting in this video series is also contained in this book at length the other half of this book is strictly recipes and ideas for how to create different sauces and stocks and condiments and things that would be healthy for your baby to consume but that are also good for the entire family to have this way you're not cooking extra food for your baby I cannot reiterate again to you guys how much I love this book so I am super stoked to be able to offer one of you guys a chance to win a brand-new copy of it for yourself so this giveaway will be open to residents of the US Canada and the UK I am hoping to ship this book directly to you brand new from Amazon however if I run into any issues with that then I will ship it to you from my local post office so here's how to enter the secret giveaway for the baby led weaning cookbook all you need to do is comment down below on this video with two things number one share with me what your baby's first food was for baby led weaning or what you plan for your baby's first food to be and number two share with me your Instagram handle this way I have a way to directly message you to let you know if you are the winner if you are not already following me on Instagram then you can find me at happy family vlog and if you don't yet have an Instagram account for yourself then it's free to sign up this video was officially posted on Friday October 4th 2009 and the giveaway is going to be open for two days so it's going to close on Sunday October 6th at 8 p.m. mountain time which is my local time so I think that is all I have for you in this week's baby led weaning video if you have any questions and please feel free to leave me a comment down below and otherwise I will see you in next week's video thanks for watching bye [Music]

Channel: Hapa Family

Views: 674,547

Keywords: baby led weaning how to prepare foods, baby led weaning 6 months recipes, baby led weaning avocado size, baby led weaning banana, baby led weaning toast size, baby led weaning meatballs, baby led weaning carrots how to cook, baby led weaning sweet potato recipes, baby led weaning oatmeal, baby led weaning eggs, baby led weaning broccoli, baby-led weaning, baby led weaning, baby food, baby led weaning preparation, baby led weaning 6 months, baby led weaning tips

Id: juQuyjV2J1o

Length: 20min 6sec (1206 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 03 2019