An exploration of experiences of mothers following a baby‐led weaning style: developmental readiness for complementary foods

Abstract

Current UK Department of Health guidelines recommend that infants are introduced to complementary foods at around 6 months of age. Intake of complementary foods should be gradual, should incorporate a range of tastes and should be based around family foods. The infant should be 'developmentally ready', able to sit up, grasp objects and chew. Introduction to complementary foods in the UK is typically via purée and spoon-feeding although an alternative approach is growing in popularity. The baby-led weaning approach advocates bypassing purées and allowing infants to self-feed foods in their solid form from the start of weaning. Research surrounding this method is sparse, and it is not advocated in Department of Health literature but understanding, if not advocacy of the method, is needed for health professionals faced with questions from parents. Here, 36 mothers of an infant aged 12-18 months who followed baby-led weaning completed a semi-structured interview examining their attitudes, beliefs and behaviours towards the approach. Key themes included following infant cues of readiness, hunger and satiety, exposure to textures and tastes and experiences, both positive and negative of following the method. The findings are considered in relation to Department of Health weaning guidelines and literature pertaining to the development of eating styles and weight gain in young children. Overall, the study offers an insight into this emerging method for child health practitioners raising questions as to the use or potential adaptation of key principles of the methods.

Parent-led or baby-led? Associations between complementary feeding practices and health-related behaviours in a survey of New Zealand families

“…Our results showed that the ‘adherent BLW’ parents were sharing a greater number of meals with their infant, and were likely to be doing this within 1 month of the initiation of complementary feeding. Brown and Lee6 reported similar results in their qualitative study. The results from the pilot study (n=10) of Rowan and Harris11 also showed that BLW families were sharing most meals (average of 3 of the 3.5 meals/day) with their child by 9 months of age.…”

Healthcare professionals’ and mothers’ knowledge of, attitudes to and experiences with, Baby-Led Weaning: a content analysis study

“…Others have reported similar findings with mothers following BLW initially being concerned about choking but over time becoming less nervous and more able to distinguish between the action of gagging to move food and actual choking. 27 Furthermore, 93.5% of the BLW group in the recent study by Townsend and Pitchford 9 reported never having experienced a choking incident. It is of concern, however, that in the current study, 30% of mothers reported at least one choking incident, most with raw apple.…”

A Qualitative Study of Mothers Perceptions of Weaning and the Use of Commercial Infant Food in the United Kingdom

“…The facilitators of the focus groups were not health professionals, thus reducing a social desirability bias and were independent of baby food manufacturers. In considering possible bias introduced by the sample and recruitment strategy, it must be highlighted that many other published studies investigating mothers' opinions on complementary feeding have used either a self-selected or convenience sample, often recruited via online mother and baby discussion forums and often also limited to those who are using a specific weaning style [24][25][26][27].…”