What is Baby- Led Weaning and Benefits

What is Baby- Led Weaning?

It exposes babies to a variety of foods and textures

Baby-led weaning also allows babies to explore the taste, texture, aroma, and colour of a variety of foods. There's certainly a chance that exposing your child to wide variety of foods might lead to less picky eating in the future, although keep in mind that there few scientific studies have been conducted on the subject, experts see the potential for baby-led weaning to have a lasting effect on a child's food preferences, eating habits, and palates.

It saves time and money

Another benefit of baby-led weaning: You won't have to buy little jars of baby food or spend time cooking, blending, freezing, and defrosting homemade baby food. And you won't have to directly feed your baby solids, which might save you time, allow you to eat your own meals while baby eats, start cleaning up, or help your other children finish their own meals.

It involves babies in family meals

Another great thing about baby-led weaning is that babies don't need separate food items at mealtime; they can eat little bits of appropriate foods that the family is already eating. And experts agree that family meals are important for children.

According to the University of Florida, family meals allow families to communicate, provide a sense of security and togetherness, and encourage healthy eating habits. So, starting this habit when your child is a baby is a benefit that can last a lifetime.

It makes dining out easier

Dining out is much simpler with baby-led weaning. As with family meals at the table, you don't have to pack a special meal for your baby; you can simply choose from appropriate menu items or offer foods from your plate.

The Benefits of Baby-Led Weaning

There are many benefits of this method can of baby feeding. If you're considering trying it out, keep reading.

It helps develop fine motor skills

For starters, baby-led weaning helps babies learn to self-feed, and it fine-tunes their motor development.

Baby-led weaning supports the development of hand-eye coordination, chewing skills, and dexterity.

Since babies need repeated practice to develop motor skills, researchers hypothesize that the baby-led weaning approach offers lots of consistent opportunities to work on these skills.

It helps babies learn self-regulation

Baby-led weaning also offers an early—and crucial—step for babies in learning self-regulation.

Babies who self-feed cannot realistically be made to eat more than they need since they are feeding independently. Parents usually feed more when they give spoonfuls even the baby is full.

Consistently being given those extra bites can teach the baby to routinely eat more than they need and to stop regulating their intake efficiently. As a result, your child may help them to learn when they're hungry and full. It may also help to prevent overeating and obesity later on in life.