favorite products for baby led weaning!

Baby led weaning is such a fun journey! Does it make a huge mess? Yes. Are there moments when I’m concerned about choking? Yes. Would I recommend it? Absolutely yes!

I love how my babies can choose for themselves what to eat. I offer a variety of foods that are healthy and safe for them, and they take what they want. We don’t force them to eat anything, but usually they try a little of everything!

However, infant choking is a hazard, and it’s best to be prepared by taking a CPR course. You also want to carefully check that any food that is offered to your baby is safe for infants. It should be soft enough to mush between your fingers, or cut in such a way that they will not be able to choke on it. I was so anxious about choking when we started our journey.

It turns out, my babies can handle a lot more variety than I thought they could! For the most part, they just spit out foods they cannot handle. They do gag on food fairly often, but that is good and healthy. It’s their bodies way of protecting them! We haven’t had a single choking episode. If you’re concerned about choking, I highly recommend doing some research before hand, following some good baby safety resources on instagram, and making sure you feel qualified to deal with any choking situations that may come up.

That said, we have loved our baby led weaning journey and I would do it again any day! Here are some of my favorite items that we’ve used along the way.

Simple & Safe Baby-Led Weaning

This book is so fantastic! It has nutritional information of the healthiest foods to feed your baby, guides for safely cutting and preparing foods, and a really helpful choking 101 section. I love having it around for reference. I actually cut the choking 101 guidelines out and put them on my fridge so that we can reference them quickly if need be! Simple & Safe Baby-Led Weaning has really helped ease my anxiety when it comes to feeding my babies solids.

Highchairs

These highchairs from Ikea are fantastic! They are comparatively easy to clean and so affordable! My babies started using them when they were about seven months old, or five and a half months adjusted. I’m planning to continue using them through toddlerhood!

Bibs

Silicone pocket bibs are such a lifesaver! They help keep our babies clothes moderately clean and catch a lot of crumbs that would otherwise end up on the floor. I love these bibs by mushi!

Spoons

Our babies don’t actually feed themselves with spoons yet, but they love chewing on them during their meal! I also often offer them a preloaded spoon of oatmeal, hummus, or yogurt. These cute baby spoons are adorable and have worked really well for us so far! The fat handles are easy for my babies to grip and the spoon part is just the right size for their mouths. And I’m obsessed with how cute they are!

Plates

I’d recommend trying suction baby plates and seeing if your child likes them. They really keep the high chair tray so much cleaner! Eli, my more mild baby, uses his for every meal without issues. Finn, my little mischief-maker, has figured out how to pop his off the tray. So it makes a bigger mess to let him have a plate, because his meal just ends up on the floor! If it works for your baby to use a plate, I’d definitely recommend it as it makes both serving food and clean-up so much easier.

Sippy Cups

It’s a good idea to start offering water once your babies start solids! Only offer water at meal times at first, as it’s important that they still take their breastmilk or formula. We started off with these sippy cups by dr. browns, but I am planning on switching to open cups soon.

Baby Silicone Feeders

Okay, so I’m not sure if these silicone mesh feeders are technically baby led weaning approved, my my little guys love them! We fill them with frozen mango, fresh melon, or chunks of apple. This was really how they first started experimenting with feeding themselves. We still use them often as teethers!