The very nature of baby led weaning (BLW) is that the baby is in control.

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The baby leads weaning in the following ways:

• They decide when weaning begins (by sitting upright, with or without support, holding their head up, being able to pick up food and move it to their mouth and being interested in eating solids).

• They decide what to eat (by offering a range of different foods and allowing the baby to choose what they eat and what they don’t).

• They decide how much to eat (by allowing the baby to follow their own satiety cues – to stop eating when they are no longer hungry, or to eat more if they are).

• They pick up all of the food and put it in their mouths themselves (this allows the baby to control what they eat and how much they eat, it also allows them to explore the sensory properties of the food, which is just as important – if not more so – than what they actually swallow).

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BLW doesn’t mean never using a spoon or eating mushy food, however the baby will preferably load (selecting what they want and how much) and always hold the spoon and put it in their own mouth – thus controlling how much and when they eat. This requires a good degree of manual dexterity that most babies are not capable of until somewhere between 10 and 12 months of age.

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