Feeding your baby isn’t just about nutrition—it’s also about values, routines, and the kind of relationship with food you hope to foster. BLW gets a lot of attention because it encourages autonomy and engagement. But like all parenting approaches, it’s not one-size-fits-all. Knowing where it shines (and where it stumbles) helps you make informed, confident choices.
As a mom of three, a nutrition expert, and someone who practiced BLW both by choice and by necessity, I’m here to break it down: what baby-led weaning gets right, where it may fall short, and how to find a balanced path forward.
One of the biggest strengths of BLW is that it lets babies control what—and how much—they eat. This supports their ability to listen to hunger and fullness cues, a skill many adults are still working to recover.
Getting your started on self-feeding from the moment you introduce solids can help them maintain this key skill.
“I didn’t want to be making separate meals or coaxing one more bite—I wanted my kids to know when they were full and to trust that.”
Many traditional feeding approaches lean heavily on smooth textures, which can limit sensory development and lead to picky eating. BLW encourages early exposure to a wide range of food forms, which can be critical for acceptance.
“Intentional exposure to texture is one of the most important aspects of BLW, in my opinion.”
One of my motivations for BLW? Sanity. With multiple kids, serving one meal that everyone can eat makes life so much easier. BLW encourages babies to eat what the family eats, which can help build routines and reduce stress.
Self-feeding often reduces the push-pull dynamics that happen when parents try to get kids to eat “just one more bite.” (If you're been reading/listening to me for a while, you know I push on this issue a lot ... bribing and coercing does not work!)
Less pressure usually means a more positive experience—for everyone.
Handling whole foods gives babies the chance to practice fine motor skills, chewing, and hand-eye coordination. But these skills don’t always come naturally. That’s where intentional teaching matters.
“Helping my daughter learn to feed herself—and seeing what was missing—actually inspired me to start Kizingo.”
After six months, babies need more iron—and finger foods like soft meat or legumes may not be consumed in large enough amounts. Without planning, BLW can leave nutrient gaps.
There’s a difference between safe gagging and dangerous choking. But not all caregivers feel confident navigating that line. And some BLW advice—like giving whole apples or bones—can feel unrealistic or unsafe.
“I wasn’t handing my baby a drumstick and hoping for the best. I wanted exposure, not panic.”
Some babies benefit from occasional spoon-feeding or being taught how to use a utensil. A strict BLW approach can delay these skills or create challenges when different foods (like soups or yogurt) are introduced.
“Yes, I spoon-fed my baby sometimes—and no, I don’t think that makes me a failure at BLW.”
This is a big one. In many online communities, if you’re not doing 100% BLW, you’re doing it wrong. That kind of rigidity is unhelpful and unrealistic.
“There’s a difference between being intentional and being inflexible. Parenting isn’t a competition in purity.”
BLW supports exploration, but it often skips over one of the biggest predictors of food acceptance: repetition. Babies may need to see, touch, or taste a food many times before they actually eat it.
“Just because they spit it out once doesn’t mean they won’t love it the tenth time. (Or the 20th. Keep trying!)”
The best approach is one that works for your baby, your family, and your values. For me, that meant a blend of BLW principles and traditional feeding. I prioritized autonomy and structure, exposure and intentional teaching.
You don’t have to pick a side. You can mix finger foods and purees. You can follow your baby’s lead and still plan for nutrient needs. You can prioritize what matters most—and let go of the rest.
“Feeding your child should not be a performance. It should be responsive, supportive, and rooted in trust—both in your child and yourself.”
Baby-led weaning is a helpful tool—not a rulebook. Use what works. Leave what doesn’t. And remember, your goal isn’t perfection. It’s connection, confidence, and helping your child grow into a joyful, curious eater.
Reach out! Send me an email or fill out this form and let's connect. I love helping families determine what's right for them given all the complicated factors that make up their unique situation.
(00:01):
"You are not doing baby led weaning? Good luck explaining purees to your pediatrician. When your kid is three and she can't chew!"
"I'm literally over here scraping avocado off the ceiling and basically throwing my entire grocery budget in the trash with all the food waste. Meanwhile, all I can think about is her choking on a softened carrot stick."
Baby-led weaning has big opinions, but like most things in parenting, it is a little bit more complicated than black and white. Yes or no, do or don't. But these debates are so common they can leave any parent second guessing their decisions. So let's talk about what baby led weaning gets right and where it might be a little overhyped.
Hi, I'm Dr. Kiyah Duffey, a nutrition expert, entrepreneur, speaker, and mom of three. I help busy health conscious parents transform their family's relationship with food. So really let's talk about it - baby led weaning.
(00:53):
When my oldest was born, I knew that I wanted her to have the freedom to decide how much of what we made that she wanted to eat. And I did not want to get in the habit of making two separate meals, one for her and one for us. (One meal was enough, thank you very much!)
I also knew that I didn't want to have to force or, or coerce her to just have one more bite or to finish her plate. If you have been listening to me at all for the last year-ish or so, you know how I feel about coaxing and bribing.
So I really leaned into the philosophy behind baby-led weaning. Rather than buying special baby food, I simply gave Eleanor the foods that I was preparing for for my husband and me. It just made sense to me. And over time that approach evolved and shaped how I fed my second and third kids.
(01:48):
Not because I had time to read up on every new development behind baby led weaning ... new theory, new practices ... but because it felt easier to me and more in line with how I wanted our family to eat and, really honestly, how I wanted to be preparing food.
Over time I noticed that there were aspects of baby led weaning that really resonated, but there were also some places where I felt like it kind of missed the mark. Or I think more accurately where it left me personally feeling like I needed to find advice elsewhere, almost like it was incomplete, at least for my needs.
So today I thought I would share this perspective with you all. Um, and again, all of this is with an eye towards the goal of being able to raise healthy, confident and competent eaters. So one of the key principles of baby led weaning is allowing babies control to control what uh, of the foods that are being served and how much they eat.
(02:53):
So they control what and how much of what is being served that they choose to eat. And in this respect, it really puts them in the driver's seat. And this is important because it ultimately helps them stay connected to their internal cues of hunger and fullness. And in a world honestly, where so many of us have unlearned, this have unlearned how to listen to our bodies and to our internal signals of hunger and fullness, this early experience we can provide our kids matters a lot. It really can set the stage for a healthier and more positive relationship with food in the long run.
(03:31):
Okay, number two, and I think this might be one of the most important benefits, at least in my opinion for what baby-led weaning does, is that it encourages variety in texture. So traditional weaning, um, tends to rely on on purees or similar really smooth textures. I mean go down any baby food aisle and this is what you'll see smooth textures in a jar. And while there's nothing wrong with that in moderation, prolonged exposure to only smooth foods can cause problems down the road like texture aversions or even delayed in oral motor development. So I wanted my kids to be able to experience differences in textures, you know, from the very beginning. Um, and not only differences in textures but differences in flavors. You know, I didn't hand them a whole chicken drumstick, but I did want them to try food in different forms and with different flavors that felt real and interesting and more like what they would ultimately see.
(04:27):
Number three is also a driving force behind my decision for baby led weaning. And that is that it encourages everyone, your baby included, to eat the same meal at the same time. I had read lots of research on the importance of family meals and I had grown up largely eating the same time as my family until we were older and and you know, had complicated schedules and so did my husband. And we agreed that this was really an important value that we wanted to share with our kids. And especially as more kids joined our table as two and three came along, it was not realistic for me to prepare separate meals for a baby or a toddler while trying to manage the chaos of dinner for the rest of us. Baby led weaning just made it easier for me to serve one meal knowing everyone could participate because baby led weaning is focused on self-feeding.
(05:17):
There's also less room in there for that coaxing bribing requiring. And that means you can avoid power struggles, which am I right that is a win in anybody's book. Now that didn't mean that I never fed my kids myself or I never requested. Please, please, please just try it. Of course not. I mean there are times when you have to do that. Maybe you don't want a huge mess, um, or you need their clothes to stay clean or you don't have time for an extended and lengthy lunch or you are eating tomato soup at grandma's house over her white carpet. I mean whatever the reason, flexibility matters more than perfection as with anything in parenting. And that is the approach I tended to take. Responsive, not rigid. Alright, finally, this is where I think baby lead weaning also shines. And that is reason number five.
(06:07):
It aligns with how babies learn. Feeding themselves helps babies practice with coordination, chewing and fine motor skills. These are all things that they want to do themselves and they want to be mimicking what you do at the dinner table. You know how your baby is always reaching for the spoon when you're trying to spoonfeed them. That's because they want to do what you are doing. They want to have a spoon to hold. They learn by doing. And that insight actually watching my oldest learn to feed herself and realizing what tools we had and what was missing from that process is actually what led me to create Kizingo and our curved ergonomic spoons.
Okay. But there are also some places where I think baby led weaning, like I said, may miss the mark just a little bit or for me again more accurately. I think it was that it left me feeling like I needed to find more information and I needed to go elsewhere to find that.
(07:03):
So first, um, baby led weaning can, not that it will, but it can leave nutritional gaps. Iron here is a big one. Babies iron needs jump significantly around six months of age. And if you're not intentional about how you are offering foods, you're not intentionally offering iron-rich foods. Things like cooked lentils, beef strips, mashed beans, babies can end up falling short. Baby-led weaning of course can provide these things, but it takes planning.
okay, number two, not all of the foods I see as suggested as appropriate for baby-led weaning necessarily felt appropriate to me. I have seen advice suggesting that baby's not on chicken bones or raw carrot sticks. And that just really wasn't, it wasn't my style, it wasn't something I felt completely comfortable with. You know, safety does matter of course, and I think that sometimes advocates of baby led weaning can downplay that people's needs for that gagging is normal even if your baby is eating nothing but purees.
(08:09):
But choking is a legitimate concern that parents shouldn't feel shame about feeling. So helping parents really understand the difference between these two gagging and choking and making sure that parents are trained to help in the case of actual choking are really important and could go a long way in adding to baby led weaning.
Okay, number three. Um, where baby led weaning may miss the mark is that it doesn't necessarily provide guidance on how to teach some key skills. So those early months in baby led weaning focuses a lot on using hands and some parents may want more guidance on things like how to introduce utensils. I personally did use purees and I did use spoons to feed. It was never a one size fits all kind of way of feeding and I don't think it should be. Learning how to eat is a skill and like any skill, kids benefit from teaching from support and from modeling.
(09:09):
Alright, number four, where could baby led weaning Maybe miss the mark? And this is one of my personal biggest issues with the baby led weaning community at large sometimes can feel like if you're not doing it all the way, you're doing it wrong. I certainly felt this kind of pressure, uh, reading certain sites, but feeding your child, you know, it can't be this like purity contest. Uh, I think that how we feed our kids is just as important as what we feed them. And that can include flexibility. It can include finding compassion with ourselves, with our kids, with our friends, with strangers, and being responsive both to your child's needs and to your family's needs. It cannot be a one size fits all. There is no right or wrong.
Alright. Lastly, while baby-led weaning is great at encouraging autonomy, it's not always clear on what to do when your baby refuses a food or when they spit it out or throw it on the floor for the 20th time.
(10:11):
This is where repeated exposure is critical and it is important. It takes time, multiple tries for babies to accept new foods, as you know. And, um, baby led weaning really can do more to incorporate this piece of the puzzle explicitly for parents. Okay, what does it all mean? Where do I land? Here's where I land baby led weaning. I think it gets a lot of things right? It empowers kids, it makes meals simpler for families. It introduces variety, especially in texture and it helps build long-term skills. But like anything, it is not a silver bullet. It can fall short in areas like ensuring adequate nutrient intake if you're not really careful in your planning, in skill development perhaps. And in flexibility, especially if we consider it, it is either all or nothing, which it is not. For me, it was never about following baby led weaning to the letter, whatever that meant.
(11:08):
It was about helping my kids develop a positive, confident relationship with food to be mindful eaters and to make sure that I could show up as a calm parent at meal times because that really was just as important.
So if you're starting solid foods and you're wondering, did I do this right? I want you to hear this: There is no right, there is no one right way.
There are some ways where there is more evidence to it and likely to help your kids develop a more positive relationship with food. Yes, absolutely. And that can include finger foods, it can include, uh, being a messy eater. It can include occasionally needing to use an airplane to get your kid to eat whatever it is you're offering. All of that can be a part of helping your kids become confident, healthy, conscientious, mindful eaters, whatever it is you're doing, you are here because you want to learn and you're doing great.
