weaning breastfeeding

hi everybody. welcome back to cloudmom. questionof the day: what do you do with a clingy baby? and part two of this question, which camein from 17 shower, what are your thoughts on baby led weaning? well first of all onthe clingy baby. with my babies, if i felt that they needed to be cuddled or hugged or,you know, spend some time with mommy or nursed or whatever, i just cuddled or hugged or nursedthem. i mean, i just tried to be as affectionate as possible with my babies and i loved havingthem and carrying them. and i had them in the carrier as much as i could and spendingas much time with them as i possibly could, which i loved to do. and it helped me nursing-wisetoo, because i found that with a lot of physical proximity, it helped my milk supply. so thatis that. however, with my babies from the

very beginning, i did try to establish whati would call some physical independence or autonomy. getting the baby used to sleepingin the crib, being in, you know, a in a play mat-type situation or in a bouncy seat, becausethat freed me up to do what i needed to do. and i felt like i could get a break. so interms of a clingy baby, i don’t know exactly what the circumstances are, but i would say,you know, give as much affection as you can. but try to establish that autonomy where andwhen you can. if your baby doesn’t want to leave you at all, you might try a bouncyseat with a lot of good and entertaining sort of things for the baby to look at. and thatmight help. you might also try having her be clingy with someone else, like your husbandor your mom. okay. second part of your question:

what are your thoughts on baby led weaning?i’m so glad you asked this question, because i actually had no idea what this was. i thoughtbaby led weaning meant allowing the baby to decide on his or her own that he or she isfinished breastfeeding. and it’s not something i believe in, because i think babies couldbreastfeed for as long as, you know, the mother is willing to try to make it work and ableto make it work. i don’t believe in letting the baby choose when they want to wean, butthat’s just my own personal experience. what baby led weaning means is actually somethingquite different. and i had to look this up. it means that it’s a way of introducingsolids to your baby where babies feed themselves from their very first mouthfuls of food ataround six months. so what you’ll do is

offer finger foods that are suitable for hisor her age, you know, very, very soft cooked broccoli is an example. and you’ll put itin front of your baby, and your baby might eat it or your baby might just play with it.um, it’s apparently something that’s very big in the uk. and, you know, here are someof the advantages that people talk about. your baby experiences a lot of textures withdifferent foods early on. um, some parents swear by this and say their kids will tryjust about anything that’s put in front of them. um, and here are some cons. you don’tstart with purees so it’s harder to rule out allergies. and you can really waste alot of food, because you’re putting a lot of food in front of that baby that you’renot sure whether he or she will eat at all.

and then they’ve touched it and everythingso it’s kind of hard to use it. and then some other pros again: independence, joy ineating and maturity, so a really interesting concept here. rather than doing what i recommendon my website and my shows on solids and what my doctor recommended to me (introducing anew food every few days starting with very, very soupy purees, moving to chunkier pureesand then moving to food that has a little bit of more substance and finger foods, stageone, stage two, stage three), just starting out with foods that can be ingested by babyon his or her own from day one. what do you guys think of this idea? do you think it wouldwork for you? i guess one option is to do this with certain foods but not all foods.i mean why couldn’t you combine baby led

weaning with the introduction of, um, soupypureed foods that are given out by mom or dad on a spoon? i don’t know. so guys weighin. what do you think about this concept? i’d love to hear it. please share your experienceswith introducing your baby to solids. and thank you so, so much for watching cloudmom.i really, really appreciate it.