The difference between Baby Led Weaning and Finger Foods

I read a forum post where someone was venting their frustration about when people say they are baby led weaning when really they have just introduced finger foods.  It was an interesting thread and it made me think.  I suspect I have used the words interchangeably on occasions, but I think they were right.

Baby led weaning in it's purest form is a philosophy.  It is an overall approach to how you are going to start giving your baby solid food.

Finger foods are a type of food: food that is easy for babies (or anyone) to pick up with their fingers.

In "traditional" weaning you start feeding your baby purees, move on to thicker mush and also offer finger foods. With the purée and mush the adult feeds the child. When they are offered finger food they feed themselves, but parents will normally still spoon feed them as part of some or all meal times.

With BLW the baby is offered food. It is up to the baby if they eat it or not and how much they have. There is a confidence that before 1 "food is for fun" and that the baby will get used to food in their own time. It is a very laid back approach that doesn't worry about quantities eaten because milk continues to be the main source of nutrition.

The forum post also said that you can't move from "traditional weaning" to baby led weaning. They argue that if you started weaning by spoon feeding and then go on to letting them feed themselves (with finger foods) that is just the normal progression of weaning. In the purest form of BLW this is right, but I would argue that you could move from one approach to the other. If you started feeding your baby with a spoon that is always how you will have started the weaning process; how you introduced them to solid food, but it should be possible to stop this approach and start again with baby led weaning.

From what I have witnessed in friends it is very hard to change to the BLW approach. When spoon feeding parents control what goes into the babies mouth and quite a large amount of food can be consumed early on. To move to baby led weaning requires acceptance that in the short term very little food will be consumed. While i'm sure some parents can go from spoon feeding to just sitting back at EVERY meal most mum's I have seen have moved to a combined approach of spoon feeding at some meals and self feeding at others. This is not baby led weaning.

I have never spoon fed my baby any thing other than calpol. Yes there are times I find it frustrating how slowly she's eating, how much she's dropping on the floor and how much she's smearing over everything. Yes at times it would be faster and cleaner to put her food in her mouth for her. But Baby Led Weaning lets the baby lead. All the time.

There is nothing wrong with using both spoon feeding and finger foods. I would encourage all parents to allow their child to feed themselves as often as possible as soon as they are able to, but that is "traditional"or "normal" weaning. Baby led weaning is an all or nothing approach.

Through out this post I put the term "traditional" in inverted commas because while spoon fooding is the most commonly used weaning approach currently, and it has been for some time I would argue that it isn't traditional  and was introduced in the 20th century.  I have used the term to help distinguish between the 2 approaches to weaning.