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Here kid, chew on this steak.

I like to think I’m a reasonably intelligent, middle-of-the road parent. I try to keep them safe, but I don’t freak out when Zoe gives herself yet another bloody lip. I encourage a healthy diet but sometimes there is chocolate ice cream for dessert. I prefer for them not to eat sticks and dirt, but hey, sometimes it happens. Do you get what I mean?

But when I first started solids for the girls, I was determined to do it “the right way.” So, true to American pediatric training, we started rice cereal. And three days later added some applesauce. And three days after that some peaches. And three days after that I realized that, at this pace, Eva would be 12 before we got to guava. Plus none of the baby food in the UK is simple. It’s all blueberry-pear-spinach-turnip combinations and crazy things like that. So I loosened the reigns and started introducing simple proteins, combined with various “new” vegetables and she seemed fine.

Then one day I handed her a rice cake and she screamed in protest until I traded her dumb plain cake for my spicy flatbread with hummus. She was done with baby food.

Poor Zoe, following in Eva’s footsteps but just a couple months behind entirely missed my attempt at “perfect” solid introductions. I was already over it by then. She got cereal for about 3 days, some applesauce and then straight on to whatever Eva was eating. Which was often what I was eating.

You may have heard of this “baby-led weaning” phenomenon. I always thought it meant allowing an infant to explore solids with a little more freedom than the old Gina Ford “pears for 2 weeks” regimen. Like you could let a baby look at your plate and reach for something and then you could cut it up or mush it and let her taste it. And I thought that sounded kind of reasonable. I sort of thought that was what I was doing.

But no! Turns out “baby-led weaning” is actually just handing adult food to an infant! I didn’t know this but my friend Amy forwarded me an article describing the whole movement. Apparently purees and mush are for losers. Trendy babies start sucking on a chicken wing at 5 months of age. You just hand a 4 month old an apple or a slice of cherry pie and let him have at it.

And that I do think is nuts. They don’t have teeth, people. Or very big brains. Should I also hand my toddlers scissors and ask them to cut their own hair as they see fit? Or maybe give them some vegetables and a large knife and have them help me make a salad? Maybe Eva and Zoe could decide which household chemicals are dangerous and which ones are perfectly fine to play with?

So let’s go back to middle-of-the-road. Do I think there is any one perfect way to feed a baby? No. Did my kids start eating off my plate at a pretty early age? Absolutely. And are they happy, healthy and adventurous eaters now? Yes they are. But come on. I pull the chicken off the drumstick and cut it into bites. I don’t hand them and entire wing and expect them to neatly suck the meat off the bones before laying them in a little pile on their plates. That’s absurd. And dangerous. And dumb.

Or am I just way off base here?

Dr. Lara Zibners, Jun 07, 2011

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