Hi! My baby is now 3mths old..I'm beginning to read up on the options when it comes to introducing solids..what are the pros and cons in giving purees? Or should I opt for baby led weaning? How do I get started with either one? Thanks!

Depends on how comfortable and how much time you have with either. I like the ease and convenience of purees, whether bottled or home made. It's just so easy to pop a jar and introduce it to your LO and with an array of flavours to choose from too. Steaming and making your own puree is not that hard as well. Sometimes, I make a big batch of puree and freeze them in an ice cube tray and take out and heat up the amount that I need. Easy peasy. Baby lead weaning is great too as this will teach independence and train their fine motor skills and test their hand eye coordination. And with this method, they will only take in what they want. As compared to puree, caregivers tend to overfeed or underfeed. But I have to prepare a fresh batch of food everytime for the baby and has to stay with the baby all the time to watch out for choking. As one poster mentioned, how about combining the two? When you are strapped for time, try purees and if you are not, then do the baby lead weaning. But of course before you start on either one, observe if your baby is ready for solids: "1. They can stay in a sitting position and hold their head steady. 2. They can co-ordinate their eyes, hands and mouth so they can look at the food, pick it up and put it in their mouth, all by themselves. 3. They can swallow food. Babies who are not ready will push their food back out with their tongue, so they get more round their face than they do in their mouths." (NHS) And remember, at this stage, you are only introducing them to the concept of food so start with small amounts first and continue to give them milk (bf or formula). Hope this helps.

Some of my friends tried baby-led weaning and found that it is not very tedious in terms of food preparation. Food preparation is fast and easy since it usually only involved cutting and steaming fruits or vegetables. While it can get messy, their babies appeared to be more interested in eating and having fun while at it. What they did was to cut fruits or vegetables into pieces that are big enough for their babies to hold onto. They started off with steamed carrots, banana, soft mangos, toast finger, broccoli and peeled cucumber. And to introduce the idea, they started the first session as “snack” in between feeds. Once their babies got the idea, they started eating together with them and as a family whenever possible. One thing is note is that do be prepared that baby-led weaning would definitely be a messy process (but mess can always be cleaned up!). One of my friends chose to do a mix of baby-led weaning and also spoon feeding. Her family eats out rather frequently and she wanted to be able to feed her baby while they are out. It worked quite well for her an her baby had no issue adapting to a mix of both methods. An added advantage (she feels) of using both is that she could also feed purees, cereal and porridge easily to her baby. When her baby was older, she would spoon these and encourage her baby to feed himself.

For my older kids, i gave them puree then semi solid and finally solid, usually around 1 y/o they could manage to eat by themselves (messy, though!). Currently i'm trying baby-led weaning. Have to be extra cautious to avoid choking hazard. I think either way is fine, as long as baby learns to eat. They'll observe the family too, so the parents have to be the best models for the child.

My friends who are working full-time found that it was easier to start with purees because they can prepare and freeze those wayyy in advance. What some of them have done is to mix-match the two. They start with purees on the weekdays and introduce soft solids like peaches, oranges etc for the weekends.

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