

Make friends with other parents-to-be and new parents in your local area for support and friendship by seeing what NCT activities are happening nearby.īoswell N. You might find attending one of our Early Days groups helpful as they give you the opportunity to explore different approaches to important parenting issues with a qualified group leader and other new parents in your area. Our support line offers practical and emotional support with feeding your baby and general enquiries for parents, members and volunteers: 03. This page was last reviewed in February 2022 Further information Some parents find it helpful to attend an NCT baby first aid course to help build up their confidence. Make sure you know what to do if your baby is choking. But if they are choking, their face will go pale or bluish and they will be silent. When your baby gags, their eyes may water, they might cough, retch or make a noise in their throat and go red in the face. The NHS says there is no more risk of choking when a baby feeds themselves than when they are fed with a spoon (NHS, 2019).Īll babies have a strong gag reflex, and there's a clear difference between gagging and choking.

There is no evidence to suggest babies are more likely to choke with baby-led weaning, compared to spoon-feeding (Boswell, 2021). And at this stage, milk feeds are still your baby's main source of nutrients and first foods are a way of exploring tastes and textures. However, numerous studies have now shown that babies take in enough energy with a baby-led weaning approach (Cameron et al, 2015 Taylor et al, 2017 Morison et al, 2018). One concern is whether baby led-weaning provides a varied and nutritious enough diet.But whether you’re spoon-feeding or baby-led weaning, you’re bound to have some mess at this age. Baby-led weaning can be messier than spoon-feeding.Emerging evidence suggests that baby-led weaning may result in more gagging as babies get used to swallowing but no increased likelihood of choking (Brown, 2018). Some parents worry that baby-led weaning is more likely to cause their baby to choke than spoon-feeding.What are the negatives of baby-led weaning? (Townsend and Pitchford, 2012, Brown and Lee 2015 Rapley, 2015 Brown et al, 2017 Lakshman et al, 2017 Boswell, 2021) Other research suggests that’s not the case, so we don’t yet know for sure. Some research suggests babies who feed themselves are more likely to control their appetite, perhaps reducing their risk of being overweight later in life.The evidence is mixed about whether baby-led weaning could stop babies from becoming fussy eaters (Boswell, 2021).


Baby-led weaning is all about offering your baby a selection of foods to choose from and letting them feed themselves.
