Moving past purees can sometimes be trickier and oftentimes it’s the parents who are more nervous about this than the child. I welcome Katie Ferraro, registered dietician specializing in baby led weaning, mom of seven, and founder of Baby Led Wean Team to discuss moving past purees to more textured foods. We discuss:

• Why parents are sometimes nervous to move past purees
• Recognizing gagging versus choking
• Misconceptions surrounding BLW and textures
• How to encourage trickier textures in a safe way

Grab a copy of Katie’s 100 FIRST FOODS list on her free weekly BABY-LED WEANING FOR BEGINNERS workshop. You can sign up for this week’s workshop times here: www.babyledweaning.co

00;00;01;01 – 00;00;25;24

Katie Ferraro

I want to help clarify. A lot of parents mistakenly think that baby led weaning just means skipping or avoiding purees, and that’s certainly not the case. Purees are a very important texture for babies to master. It’s just not the only texture that your baby can eat. And so we can honor the self-feeding principles of baby led weaning and still have baby learn how to eat naturally pureed foods like, well, that whole milk, yogurt and unsweetened applesauce and oatmeal.

 

00;00;26;00 – 00;00;29;26

Katie Ferraro

But we do that using what’s called the preloaded spoon technique.

 

00;00;29;29 – 00;00;49;16

Dr. Mona

Hello everyone. Welcome back to the show. I get so excited to talk to the most amazing guests on this podcast to have conversations about parenthood, child health, development, feeding and so much more. Thank you so much for tuning in for all of your reviews and for all of the Love You show this podcast. This is how it continues to grow.

 

00;00;49;16 – 00;01;09;28

Dr. Mona

And I’m just so excited to welcome our next guest, which is Katie Ferraro, who is a registered dietitian specializing in one of my favorite things baby led weaning mom of seven and founder of babyledweanteam and podcast host, by the way. And she is joining me today to talk about trickier textures pushing your baby’s palate, past purees.

 

00;01;09;28 – 00;01;13;05

Dr. Mona

That’s a tongue twister. Thank you so much for joining me today, Katie.

 

00;01;13;07 – 00;01;14;29

Katie Ferraro

Hi, Mona. Thanks so much for having me.

 

00;01;15;05 – 00;01;34;11

Dr. Mona

Well, I’m so excited to have you on my podcast. I have been on yours, and I love the information you’re putting out there, not only on your podcast, but also on your social media and your courses. So I know you, and I’m pretty sure a lot of my followers know who you are too. But if they don’t tell us more about yourself and why you do what you do in baby weaning.

 

00;01;34;14 – 00;01;56;17

Katie Ferraro

Well, first off, I want to say thank you as a pediatrician for being an advocate for baby led weaning. You were actually on my podcast, baby led. Weaning Made Easy a long time ago, talking about how to talk to your doctor about baby led weaning. And I know that’s such a sticky point for parents for me. I struggled a lot with spoon feeding with my oldest, like a lot of parents do, and the height of my feeding frustration like my daughter hated food.

 

00;01;56;17 – 00;02;15;01

Katie Ferraro

I thought she hated me like mealtimes were downright battleground. My husband and I then found out we were pregnant with quadruplets, and I remember thinking like, how am I going to feed four babies at one time when I can’t even be the one baby that I have at home? So fast forward, I actually ended up giving birth to four healthy little babies at 34 weeks, three boys and a girl.

 

00;02;15;01 – 00;02;35;03

Katie Ferraro

And when it came time for them to start solid Foods, I was like, we are not re creating this hellacious experience of force feeding by spoon that I had had with my older daughter. And a colleague told me about baby led weaning, and I was like, baby linguini. Like what are you talking about? Never heard of it. And I was I’m a college nutrition professor at the time because of my other feeding professor, colleagues were like, no, you really need to look into this.

 

00;02;35;03 – 00;02;51;29

Katie Ferraro

There’s a real incredible body of research that supports this notion that a baby can learn to feed themselves the safe, wholesome foods that their parents or caregivers provide. Starting at six months of age. There’s no force feeding. There’s no picky eating. There’s no short order cooking. And I was like, oh my gosh, this sounds like the answer to my prayers.

 

00;02;51;29 – 00;03;06;03

Katie Ferraro

So we we went all in on baby led weaning. It was not easy at first because at that time there were really like no resources on how to do it. Like lots of stuff about what baby led weaning is as an alternative to traditional spoon feeding, but nothing about how to do it. So we kind of like eked it out.

 

00;03;06;03 – 00;03;26;25

Katie Ferraro

I put my dietitian training to work. Lots of trial and error, lots of tears. But I realized that by the time the quads turned one, they had tried 100 different foods. And so this whole idea of my 101st foods program was born. This notion that babies can safely learn to eat 100 foods prior to turning one. And if you look at traditional spoon feeding, those babies have had maybe 10 or 12 foods before they turn one.

 

00;03;26;27 – 00;03;45;29

Katie Ferraro

And as we know, most children will experience some degree of picky eating starting in the second year of life. So if your child only has 10 or 12 foods under their belt, and then you lose those to picky eating, that becomes a very challenging child to feed. But if your baby’s eating 100 different foods and you lose 10 or 12 of those to picky eating, then you still have like 85 or 90 foods that the baby can eat, right?

 

00;03;45;29 – 00;04;01;04

Katie Ferraro

So kind of the underpinning, this whole 101st foods approach, it’s really taken off as a global phenomenon in the last five years. And it’s been so fun to seeing families all around the world really push their babies palates beyond purees, which I know is what we’re going to talk about today.

 

00;04;01;06 – 00;04;19;05

Dr. Mona

Yes. And so important. And we’ll talk about the fear parents have about advancing them past cures, because there is a fear of choking and gag reflex, all of that, and also not knowing how to do it. There’s just so much information out there. And I agree with you. You know, I left residency in well, I have to remember 2015.

 

00;04;19;05 – 00;04;43;08

Dr. Mona

So it’s been like seven, eight years. And in residency we didn’t learn about baby led weaning. It was still relatively kind of new, but it was when I started my first job as a pediatrician, I was working in Tribeca, Manhattan, which was the intersection of a lot of different cultural families people from Europe, people from America. A lot of international people were my patients, and a lot of my European patients, like from England, would be like, hey, what about baby?

 

00;04;43;08 – 00;05;01;28

Dr. Mona

Like weaning? And I’m like, exactly what you said. I’m like, what? And I looked into it and I was like, this seems okay. But because I was trained with you go to purees and then you advance to stage two and stage three, I was like, I’m not sure. And as I learned from them, you know, I learned a lot from my patients and their parents about baby led weaning.

 

00;05;01;28 – 00;05;24;22

Dr. Mona

I was like, this seems okay as long as it’s safe. And then obviously when I became a parent, resources like you, all these researchers about baby led weaning were so helpful. And I always kind of think about it, you know, from an evolutionary perspective, like, I’m pretty sure back in like the caveman era, they didn’t have a blender to blend up food, so they had to breastfeed their babies, and then they had to give them food that they were eating.

 

00;05;24;22 – 00;05;31;18

Dr. Mona

So it’s possible, right? Like they had to kind of give what they were eating. And that’s kind of what we’re doing and that we’re giving the baby what we’re eating.

 

00;05;31;19 – 00;05;33;03

Katie Ferraro

We just call it something different.

 

00;05;33;03 – 00;05;33;23

Dr. Mona

Now.

 

00;05;33;26 – 00;05;49;19

Katie Ferraro

It’s funny because my mom’s a dietitian and I’m an older sister, and she’s like, I think it’s insane that you have an entire movement around baby led weaning when it’s like, exactly what most parents end up doing with their second babies anyway. You just call it something different and you bring up a couple interesting points. First of all, it has a pediatrician and a physician.

 

00;05;49;19 – 00;06;08;05

Katie Ferraro

In the United States, more than 90% of physicians in this country have never had a dedicated nutrition class. And so parents will go to their pediatrician and ask questions about nutrition. And while pediatricians are certainly well versed in many areas, a lot of times they’re not necessarily up to speed on the most recent evidence based practices regarding infant feeding.

 

00;06;08;05 – 00;06;25;14

Katie Ferraro

And I routinely have questions from parents who say things like, oh, well, my pediatrician said, don’t offer the baby egg. Wait until age one. Are you kidding me? Like, that’s more than 20 year old data at this point. And I know there’s a lot to keep up on, but I do think it’s so important that we are getting our food and feeding information from credentialed experts.

 

00;06;25;14 – 00;06;42;05

Katie Ferraro

And I love that so many more pediatricians are really looking into baby led weaning. And you mentioned the UK. So Jill Rapley is the founder of the baby led weaning movement. She’s the pioneer of baby led weaning, the original author of the first baby led weaning book. And that book in its first edition, was only published in 2008.

 

00;06;42;05 – 00;07;06;03

Katie Ferraro

So it’s about 15 years old at this point. It’s been republished, and now there’s tons of research that support this again, as a real and credible alternative to traditional spoon feeding. So it’s safe, it’s evidence based. It helps our babies meet their needs. It’s such a wonderful experience for families to be able to feed their babies. Modified versions of the same foods the rest of the family eats, which as you mentioned, is exactly probably what Kate Mama did back in the day.

 

00;07;06;03 – 00;07;29;01

Katie Ferraro

Before, there was like an entire aisle of baby food pouches at the store with processed applesauce in them. That were literally made and packaged before your baby was even born. Like this whole notion of commercial baby food, it’s really only been since the earlier part of the 20th century, where that’s even been an option for millennia and generations prior to that, babies eight modified versions of the same foods the rest of their family eats.

 

00;07;29;08 – 00;07;34;12

Katie Ferraro

We’re just kind of codifying it now and really looking at the research behind it with baby led reading.

 

00;07;34;14 – 00;07;51;24

Dr. Mona

I love this. And, you know, my personal story is I have a three year old now, but we started with purees with allergenic food exposure, and then we switched to baby led weaning once he was sitting more, you know, independently grabbing for the foods and kind of what you said at six and a half months, he did not want a spoon in his mouth.

 

00;07;51;24 – 00;08;16;10

Dr. Mona

So it was actually him showing me also that, hey, I actually am not a puree fed kind of baby. I want to do this on my own. And it was a bridge of, you know, moving towards pastas, puree, textures, getting more of that textured foods which we’ll talk about. And so for some parents listening, they may say, well, my baby at six and a half months is showing signs of readiness, but it’s just staring at the food, not really interested, just looking at me like, what are you trying to do?

 

00;08;16;12 – 00;08;33;08

Dr. Mona

But it’s for some kids. It could be that they’re showing you. Like you said, your daughter was not a puree fed type of kid. But I do believe knowing that some babies may be more hesitant to it, it’s still possible if they’re showing signs of readiness. I know this was unplanned, but tell our listeners again the signs of readiness for baby led weaning.

 

00;08;33;08 – 00;08;37;29

Dr. Mona

Like, what are some things that we’re looking out for from a developmental milestone perspective?

 

00;08;38;01 – 00;08;55;22

Katie Ferraro

Well, we talked about readiness to eat, not necessarily readiness to feed, because with baby led weaning, the baby is going to be the one who’s driving the entire eating experience. And you mentioned periods. We’re here today to talk about textures. And I want to help clarify for a lot of parents mistakenly think that baby led weaning just means skipping or avoiding purees.

 

00;08;55;26 – 00;09;14;03

Katie Ferraro

And that’s certainly not the case. Purees are a very important texture for babies to master. It’s just not the only texture that your baby can eat. And so we can honor the self-feeding principles of baby led weaning and still have baby learn how to eat naturally period foods like full fat, whole milk, yogurt, and unsweetened applesauce and oatmeal.

 

00;09;14;08 – 00;09;38;14

Katie Ferraro

But we do that using what’s called the preloaded spoon technique. So this is a technique and a term coined by Dawn Winkelman. She’s a speech language pathologist and baby led weaning expert. She’s the product designer for the company. Easy peasy. That makes the silicone suction mats and bowls. And so the preloaded spoon technique is where you put the food on the spoon, put the spoon in the baby’s hand, and then at the very beginning, gently have to guide the baby’s hand to the mouth.

 

00;09;38;14 – 00;09;56;10

Katie Ferraro

Usually put your hand under their hand just so that they can get the notion of where it’s going. We’re not forcing them. They’ll actually take a little taste. Sometimes they’ll eat the wrong end of the spoon, sometimes they’ll put their hand in the puree and something that’ll do absolutely nothing. And so when we talk about being ready to eat, we have to acknowledge that this is a continuum, this whole weaning process.

 

00;09;56;10 – 00;10;17;21

Katie Ferraro

Right. We start at six months of age where most or all of baby’s nutrition is coming from infant milk. That’s breast milk or formula. And we’re progressing towards a goal at 12 months of age, where we want most of baby’s nutrition to be coming from food. So between 6 and 12 months of age, weaning is your gradually or your baby will gradually be eating more of their nutrition from food and less from milk.

 

00;10;17;21 – 00;10;34;21

Katie Ferraro

But it doesn’t happen overnight. And I think that’s the biggest place where parents get stuck. Is that in the first few days and weeks of baby led weaning, they don’t see much actual food being eaten. Or as my dietitian friends get concerned, they’re not getting enough calories or they’re not getting enough iron. Or, if you like, I need to finish them off with a pouch so they quote unquote get enough.

 

00;10;34;23 – 00;11;01;26

Katie Ferraro

But we need to remember that in the earliest stages of baby led weaning, when your baby at six months of age or six months of adjusted age, and sitting up on their own and starting to show interest in food, that the majority of the nutrition is still coming from infant milk. And so we need to stop being concerned about how much the baby is eating, and rather back off and give the baby a lot of time and space and grace to learn how to eat and how to start using food to start supplying more of their nutrition needs.

 

00;11;02;00 – 00;11;24;08

Katie Ferraro

It doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a gradual progression. Can take some babies up to eight weeks before it really clicks for them, and they’re actually picking the food up and bringing it to their mouth. And to be honest, I see that most parents give up before that part because they don’t understand. Gosh, this takes a long time. I see babies on social media, that baby seven months of age, and they’re reading this food and compare and despair.

 

00;11;24;08 – 00;11;41;25

Katie Ferraro

And so I had courage you not to compare your baby to anyone else’s baby. Practice makes progress at 6 to 7 months of age. If you can do 1 to 2 times a day with solid food, great 8 to 9 months of age, we love to see you bump it up to 2 to 3 times and then by ten months of age, we like to see babies eating around three times a day.

 

00;11;41;28 – 00;11;57;02

Katie Ferraro

If that reflects how the family eats with their family meals. And we’re moving to that goal of hopefully by 12 months of age, we’re getting your baby off that bottle. You want to continue breastfeeding? Great. Do so. But we want most of baby’s nutrition coming from food. But you like a six month practice period is how I like.

 

00;11;57;02 – 00;11;57;10

Dr. Mona

To.

 

00;11;57;11 – 00;12;13;06

Katie Ferraro

Describe it. I kind of like the pre-season. My husband hates when I do sports analogies, but I like, you know, the pre-season. Like, let’s say you have season tickets, like they make you buy the pre-season tickets. And that’s where it’s like kind of ugly. And the team’s warming up and like, you got to watch stuff you don’t really like and you’re like, this doesn’t really look like insert name of sport.

 

00;12;13;11 – 00;12;31;23

Katie Ferraro

Like this doesn’t really look like eating in the first few weeks, but your baby is learning so many important skills. They’re having so many sensory experiences that will all kind of click usually around the eight month mark. But again, that doesn’t happen overnight. We’ve got to be practicing, so don’t give up if you’re feeling frustrated is my encouragement to parents.

 

00;12;31;26 – 00;12;56;26

Dr. Mona

Oh, I love this. I love this encouragement already. This is so important because yeah, especially with anything with parenting, that patience and that persistence is so important and kind of checking in on, you know, do you have the resources, like if you’re unsure of how to do what we’re talking about, getting the resources you need, whether it’s watching social media videos, getting courses like the baby doing team has, all of this is so important to get, you know, to help your family and help your child figure out how to eat these textured foods.

 

00;12;56;26 – 00;13;16;07

Dr. Mona

And I love that you already talked about some misconceptions. One I love the one about obviously, that you can still eat purees and baby load weaning, which is obviously, I think one of the biggest misconceptions you also talk about, you know, some of the misconception that they should be eating so much right away, which I really appreciate because like you said, yes, it’s predominantly breast milk and or formula or both.

 

00;13;16;14 – 00;13;33;18

Dr. Mona

And then food is something that’s important to be introduced. But right away they’re not going to be downing like four slices of pizza. That’s okay. What other misconceptions do parents have about more textured foods? You know, maybe they’ve been told by grandma Peri Peri Peri. But what about any misconceptions you’ve heard around textured foods?

 

00;13;33;21 – 00;13;55;05

Katie Ferraro

Well, I think the elephant in the baby led weaning space is the fear of choking. So all parents, no matter what approach to starting solid food you take, have apprehensions and concerns about their baby choking, right? Your baby has only had thick liquids in their mouth for six solid months. Right? Breast milk or formula. And now you’re expecting me to offer avocado and sweet potato in strips of soft, spreadable meat like, is my baby going to be choking?

 

00;13;55;05 – 00;14;11;16

Katie Ferraro

Like, I’m so scared of this? And I want to remind parents that choking is a very rare but real risk. I always recommend that parents take a refresher infant CPR course prior to starting Solid Foods. I know you all took CPR before your baby was born, but that was like six months ago. I don’t know about you, but I can’t remember what I had for breakfast today, let alone like particular.

 

00;14;11;21 – 00;14;34;28

Katie Ferraro

Yeah, of course I took six months ago. So knowing what to do in the event of choking is important, but also educating yourself about reducing choking risk. And this is where I really like to lean into the research. And we have research that shows us that babies who start solid foods with a baby led approach are at no higher risk of choking than are babies who start with traditional spoon feeding, provided that the parents are educated about reducing choking risk.

 

00;14;35;04 – 00;14;51;22

Katie Ferraro

So I encourage parents to educate themselves about how to prepare the food safely and proper highchair seating, and then also knowing CPR. In the rare event if your baby does have a choking incident. But when we talk about textures, sometimes parents, I’m just so scared Katie to move past purees. I’m so scared about the gagging. I’m so scared they’re going to choke.

 

00;14;51;25 – 00;15;16;08

Katie Ferraro

And I would remind parents of another body of research that’s showing us that the babies who have had the least experience with finger foods are actually at elevated risk for choking. And so while yes, it’s okay to incorporate purees, and I recommend doing so with the preloaded spoon approach, I teach a purees for a few days approach, kind of a bridge for our very, very anxious parents who are really making that transition from liquid diet to solid night.

 

00;15;16;08 – 00;15;42;00

Katie Ferraro

They’re like, I need that puree bridge. We do it for two, sometimes three days, and then we move right onto soft, solid strips of food. And knowing that that finger food practice is developmentally appropriate at that age and it’s going to, with practice, actually reduce your baby’s risk of choking. Plus, allow your baby to eat such a wider variety of nutrients to get all those allergenic foods on in, and then to have experience with trickier textures beyond purees.

 

00;15;42;06 – 00;15;49;22

Katie Ferraro

And that’s completely appropriate to do beginning at six months of age or six months adjusted age. If your baby was born prematurely.

 

00;15;49;24 – 00;16;11;18

Dr. Mona

Oh, really? Great advice because there is a lot of fear around that gag reflex and that choking. And so in terms of you also mentioned educating yourself on proper sitting in the highchair, how to prepare the food. One thing I know you also agree with is also, I know you have done this on your social media, which is so helpful is educating yourself on the difference between what a gag looks like and what choking looks like.

 

00;16;11;18 – 00;16;31;08

Dr. Mona

You know, I know you’ve done those warning videos like, hey, this is going to be a video of a child gagging or choking. But I think that really helps. And that can be really hard for a parent sometimes to look at those things. And not your baby, but obviously videos on people’s social media accounts or YouTube. But it really is important to understand that difference between what a gag looks like and what choking looks like.

 

00;16;31;14 – 00;16;48;03

Dr. Mona

Because with gagging, you want to give a little bit of patience. Let that child work it out. Obviously be monitoring them, choking. You got to intervene. But sometimes I see parents and I, my in-laws are notorious for this and my parents. Is that my son? Well, when he was an infant, especially learning how to handle these textures, he would start gagging.

 

00;16;48;03 – 00;17;05;25

Dr. Mona

And you know, I know what a gag looks like. But all of a sudden, somehow they see it and they come swooping in and they’re startling him, or they try to pat him on the back and I’m like, let’s all be calm. And it’s such a scary experience for the kid to right? They’re like, why are all my caregivers, like standing up and looking terrified when I’m just working this out?

 

00;17;05;25 – 00;17;13;09

Dr. Mona

So really, you don’t want to scare your child when they’re gagging? Because I can. Actually, I know this is hard to hear, but they can turn a.

 

00;17;13;09 – 00;17;14;20

Katie Ferraro

Harmless gag into.

 

00;17;14;21 – 00;17;15;03

Dr. Mona

Harmful.

 

00;17;15;04 – 00;17;31;24

Katie Ferraro

Choking. So really, you make an excellent point that knowing the difference between gagging and choking is one of the most important tenets of baby led weaning. And I’ll summarize it real quickly. Yeah, gagging is a good thing. With gagging, your baby is going to be coughing. They’re going to be sputtering. They’re going to be turning red or pink, but they’re making noise, right?

 

00;17;31;29 – 00;17;48;24

Katie Ferraro

And gagging is a natural, necessary part of learning how to eat. And the making noise part is important because it means that air is passing through. So your baby, who is six months of age and able to sit on their own, who is seated properly in a highchair with their feet resting flat on a solid footplate, being offered soft, solid strips of food about the size of your adult pinky finger.

 

00;17;48;24 – 00;18;05;17

Katie Ferraro

You put all those things together when that baby gags on food, that’s them learning how to eat. They’re going to move that food a little bit forward, a little bit rounded the side. The more practice they have, the frequency and the intensity of the gagging goes down. Now the other side of the spectrum is choking. Completely different from gagging with choking.

 

00;18;05;17 – 00;18;20;06

Katie Ferraro

Your baby is absolutely silent. There might be very, very silent noises or you see them struggling, but you’re not going to hear very much. And they turn blue or they turn purple. I’m not a pediatrician, but I do remember being in the NICU and the doctor would tell you blue is bad, okay? If your baby turns blue, that’s bad.

 

00;18;20;06 – 00;18;36;27

Katie Ferraro

No noise. No air is passing through. If your baby is choking on food, you do need to intervene and you do need to administer CPR. You do need to do those back blows. But with choking we do not intervene. And you mentioned like using that. Like I call it my fake baby voice. Like you’re okay baby, you’re just gagging on food.

 

00;18;37;00 – 00;18;51;09

Katie Ferraro

You got this. You can work it through. Talking to your child in a peaceful, calm voice but not touching them. You touch them if you wanted them. If I were to lunge at you when you were going through an experience that was really challenging, you had something food in your mouth. You’re trying to figure out what to do with.

 

00;18;51;13 – 00;19;13;10

Katie Ferraro

If I lunge at you and startle you, and you lean back and you suck in air, what happens? You could cause that potentially harmless gag to turn into a harmful choke. So we advise parents, I always say, sit on your hands and talk to your baby. Yeah, I’m not an animal person, but my friend a doll always said she’s like, hey, you don’t like animals, but like the best language to use when you’re scared about your baby.

 

00;19;13;10 – 00;19;28;12

Katie Ferraro

Gagging is like, remember when you’re pushing your baby around the stroller in the neighborhood, right? And the neighbor’s dog would come up and like, inside, I would be freaking out, but you’d be like, it’s okay, baby. It’s just a dog. They don’t hurt you. You got this. It’s okay, baby, this is just a gag. You got this. You can work it out.

 

00;19;28;15 – 00;19;48;27

Katie Ferraro

And I do think, and this is why we spend so much time working on our gagging videos on YouTube and TikTok, and Instagram is to show parents what it looks like when a baby gags on food, recovers on their own, and goes right back to eating. The parent does not need to be involved, right? We have our jobs in feeding Ellen Sanders division of responsibility and feeding.

 

00;19;48;27 – 00;20;08;22

Katie Ferraro

You got a job, mom. You are in charge of what the baby eats and where they eat and when they eat. But that baby ultimately decides how much or even whether they eat. So I like to tell parents, leave it on the table. That’s not your job. Once you’ve done your job of what and when and where the baby’s eating, you got to let the baby do all the how much or even whether they’re eating, and we don’t intervene at that part.

 

00;20;08;24 – 00;20;20;02

Katie Ferraro

So sometimes, parents, it feels like the pressure is lifted off their shoulders, like, oh my gosh, once I put the food out there, you have to sit there and observe your baby, right? Because if a baby’s going to choke on food, you’re not going to hear it. Sometimes the parents are like, cool, it’s no time. I’m just gonna get.

 

00;20;20;02 – 00;20;22;02

Dr. Mona

My the kitchen. Yeah.

 

00;20;22;02 – 00;20;43;04

Katie Ferraro

And like, if anything goes bad, I’ll hear it. No, you’re. Yeah. You’re not going to hear a choke. So we say there and we’re always directly observing the baby. But observe them gag on their food. Sometimes it’s a little painful for you to watch. It’s painful for them to experience. Not painful. It’s uncomfortable. But the more practice they have, the less frequent in the less intense those gags are, and you will get so much more confident in your baby’s ability to get over their gags.

 

00;20;43;04 – 00;20;58;29

Katie Ferraro

But sometimes watching those videos really, really helps cause you’re like, oh, that’s what it looks like. That’s what it sounds like. And look at that baby. They gagged and they went right back to eating on their own and they’re fine. And guess what? I didn’t have to do anything because that’s not my job. I don’t need to intervene during a gag.

 

00;20;59;02 – 00;21;18;16

Dr. Mona

Oh, and speaking of like, just personal experience, my husband is near our doctor and he could not handle the gag in his own time because he was so afraid of the choking. So for meals like inconvenient. But I actually had to be around for a lot of the meals because he would just get so scared and not want to do the more trickier textures because he was so scared of the choking.

 

00;21;18;21 – 00;21;38;11

Dr. Mona

And, you know, I know there’s a lot of grandparents probably involved or nannies kind of understanding and educate those people too, right? Not just you, but if you’re interested, anyone who’s going to be feeding that baby, into what? We’re just what we’re talking about, it’s really important that they’re aware and know what to do. Like you said, everything that you just mentioned is important for all caregivers, and I appreciate that.

 

00;21;38;13 – 00;21;59;18

Dr. Mona

So you mentioned something about puree bridging. How else or maybe even diving into that a little bit. How can we encourage those trickier textures. So using the example of maybe a family who is puree feeding a child and wants to start doing more of that trickier textures that, you know, even whether it’s self-feeding or whatnot. How can we encourage that in a child who may be more hesitant?

 

00;21;59;21 – 00;22;15;19

Katie Ferraro

Well, I love that you’re mentioning grandparents. I love like in your stories, I always see your in-laws there, and also that your husband’s an E.R. doctor and still scared of this. Like if you actually look at the data on pediatric admission for non-fatal choking incidents, it’s so crazy that all the foods that are high risk foods are like foods we don’t serve our baby like.

 

00;22;15;19 – 00;22;30;13

Katie Ferraro

We like raw apples, right? Like no hard, crunchy, raw or crispy foods for babies. So we always keep the foods nice and soft. So we like to say that has to pass the squish test with you. Squeeze the piece of food between your forefinger and your thumb. There should be a little bit of give there. So let’s say you’re cooking carrots okay.

 

00;22;30;13 – 00;22;44;19

Katie Ferraro

You can cut them into strips about the size of your pinky finger when they’re cooked. If you bend them in half and they snap, that’s not done enough. You need to cook them a little bit more. So they would pass that squish test. So the texture there, you do have a little bit of education as the parent to do that yourself.

 

00;22;44;21 – 00;23;02;04

Katie Ferraro

But babies can start to handle that at six months of age. And so I think for parents we do in the first three days of baby led weaning, I’ll usually start with avocado, banana and sweet potato. Those are the easiest, most simple starter foods. I have my 101st foods list, but we have, over the course of the years, started with all 100 foods on the list.

 

00;23;02;04 – 00;23;19;18

Katie Ferraro

In the first week. Just to prove to parents that there is no right or wrong foods to start with. Same thing with the allergenic foods. Yes, peanut and egg and milk are the three most common pediatric food out it, but I’ve done shrimp as the first allergenic food for shellfish or peanut. So I just want parents to know that there’s no right or wrong foods to start with.

 

00;23;19;20 – 00;23;38;04

Katie Ferraro

And we do introduce one new food per day. So I have a five step feeding framework where we do a new fruit on Monday, a new vegetable on Tuesday, a new starchy food on Wednesday, a new protein food on Thursday, and a new allergenic food on Friday starting in week one of baby led weaning. And so what that helps parents do is to set up, okay, these are the five new foods we’re going to choose this week.

 

00;23;38;04 – 00;23;59;18

Katie Ferraro

And you do not need to wait 3 to 5 days between foods. A lot of fortunately perpetuate that myth. There is absolutely no research to support this idea of waiting 3 to 5 days between foods. The reason why that gets recommended is parents say, oh, I need to observe for an allergic reaction. If your baby is going to have an allergic reaction to food, it will occur within minutes and up to no more than two hours following ingestion.

 

00;23;59;24 – 00;24;22;02

Katie Ferraro

It’s not like you offer your baby a strawberry, and three days later the diaper is weird and you’re like, oh my God. They’re like, it’s like, that’s not how allergic reactions work, the vast majority of them. So we need to encourage parents to be offering foods more frequently. All this great emerging data showing us that diet diversity, the greater the number of foods and flavors and tastes and textures that BBC early and often during the flavor window, which is that short period of time.

 

00;24;22;02 – 00;24;36;19

Katie Ferraro

Anyone who’s had children knows it closes pretty quickly, but that’s when your baby will like and accept a wide variety of those foods and flavors and tastes and textures. Take advantage of that. From week one. Five new foods a week in those foods. The first three days, I’ll do a thin puree of the food. So let’s say avocado.

 

00;24;36;19 – 00;24;52;28

Katie Ferraro

Nice ripe avocado, thin puree with breast milk or formula. Offer that off of a preloaded spoon. I’ll do that for five minutes. Then I’ll bring a chunkier puree, which is just the smashed avocado. Same thing off of a preloaded spoon. By that point, they’re usually going to reach for it with their hands. If they’re babies. I like to touch food, and then I do that for five minutes.

 

00;24;52;28 – 00;25;11;24

Katie Ferraro

And then for the last ten minutes of the meal, I offer soft, solid strips of avocado, and a lot of times this is more for the parents and the caregivers than it is for the baby, because the baby proved to you with a thin puree that they can handle something besides breast milk or formula. And then with the chunkier puree they picked up and they might put it on their mouth, they might move it around, spit it out, drop it on the floor, and then the soft, solid strips.

 

00;25;11;24 – 00;25;27;06

Katie Ferraro

Many times they’ll pick that food up and they’ll start to figure out what to do with it. They might smash it in their ears or their hair, but that’s just day one, right? You’ve got a hundred days essentially to practice this, to help your baby get proficient, because some babies aren’t going to touch the food at all. But you come right back on day two with banana.

 

00;25;27;07 – 00;25;46;27

Katie Ferraro

Same thing. Then puree chunkier, puree some soft, solid strips of banana, and then you can bring back some of the avocado from the previous day. And then on day three we’ll do the same thing. First ten minutes of the meal, we’ll explore with sweet potato. And then the second ten minutes I bring in a plate with that new food of the day, sweet potato, and then the familiar foods from the previous day’s avocado and banana.

 

00;25;46;29 – 00;26;04;17

Katie Ferraro

So in that way, your baby is moving forward by trying one new food a day, and yet you’re continuing to offer familiar foods from the previous days because you know that data out there that shows, gosh, some babies need to see a food 10 or 15 times before they’re like or accept it. And so we don’t just offer a food once and be like, oh, cute, my baby struggling.

 

00;26;04;21 – 00;26;07;12

Katie Ferraro

So now I got to pour like nacho cheese all over to get them to eat broccoli.

 

00;26;07;17 – 00;26;09;08

Dr. Mona

No way. No, you gotta try it.

 

00;26;09;08 – 00;26;26;22

Katie Ferraro

10 or 15 different ways. You don’t need to bend over backwards and make like 15 different recipes, but it’s not a one and done thing. We need to continually be exposing our babies to these foods so that they can become familiar with them, learn what to do with them, learn how to eat them, and start being able to get the nutrition and the flavor benefits from all these different foods that are trying.

 

00;26;26;25 – 00;26;44;15

Dr. Mona

All such important tips. And when you say it, it doesn’t sound so difficult. But like you said, I think a lot of the hesitation comes from parental fear, right? Like we talked about parental fear of gag reflex and choking and all of that. I think that is a huge driver. When I see parents in my office that have not advanced textures.

 

00;26;44;15 – 00;27;02;00

Dr. Mona

And then the second part is lack of knowledge of understanding that a child can be exposed to these more trickier textures earlier, you know, at six months when they’re showing the signs of wanting to feed all these things. So it’s really important to kind of educate, you know, parents to be educated. And that’s why I’m so grateful that you could come on this podcast and talk about this.

 

00;27;02;02 – 00;27;20;29

Dr. Mona

Is there an age for you where you get concerned where they’re not eating anything but raise? I mean, I have my own answer, but I’m curious from your perspective because I sometimes see families who are starting out with purees, okay, they’re going the old school way, which is fine as long as they know they have to start exposing more textured foods.

 

00;27;21;07 – 00;27;27;17

Dr. Mona

But is there a certain month that you’re like, ooh, we have to start introducing this, and then there’s more of a concern there. If not.

 

00;27;27;19 – 00;27;42;03

Katie Ferraro

Well, all babies are different. We know this. And all babies get ready to eat at different times and show the signs of readiness to eat at different times, but it’s somewhere around the six month mark. And to be honest, most babies aren’t really sitting up on their own until six months, plus one week or six months, plus two weeks or even six months plus three weeks.

 

00;27;42;08 – 00;28;02;01

Katie Ferraro

Most neurotypical healthy babies are going to be sitting up relatively unassisted by seven months of age. I was just interviewing an occupational therapist, Emma Hubbard. I don’t know if you know her from YouTube. Right is beginning. She’s amazing, she’s Australian and she came on doing. We did a whole episode on postural support and she was saying as a feeding therapist, so a registered dietitian cannot be a feeding therapist.

 

00;28;02;01 – 00;28;17;07

Katie Ferraro

But I have many colleagues who are occupational therapists and SLPs who are and they’re very good at identifying. Listen, this is a baby who may potentially benefit from feeding therapy. And so I was asking about the question about sitting up. And she said, you know, in our world generally around nine months, if a baby’s not sitting on their own, that’s when we red flag it.

 

00;28;17;14 – 00;28;32;03

Katie Ferraro

But the vast majority of babies would be sitting on their own by seven months. But there’s some babies between 7 and 9 months that might not be in. There might be lots of other things going on. So there’s no really like hard and fast rules. About eight when we start or be when babies should be getting X amount of nutrition from food.

 

00;28;32;09 – 00;28;49;14

Katie Ferraro

And actually there are there are no hard and fast guidelines about portion sizes for infants in the 6 to 9 months. And even the data we have about, like the recommended dietary allowances for infants in the second half of infancy, those are all based on scientific assumptions. So there’s not even enough really good data to set NDAs for that age group.

 

00;28;49;14 – 00;29;11;20

Katie Ferraro

So again, what I’m saying is, like a lot of this is like, you kind of gotta go with your mom gut. But I think a good rule of thumb for parents is think about the 6 to 12 month continuum when you start at six months of age, babies getting 100% of nutrition from infant milk, and by the time you get to 12 months of age, we like to see baby getting most of their nutrition from food because you still have milk in their right, infant milk up until age one, and then after one.

 

00;29;11;20 – 00;29;28;08

Katie Ferraro

If you decide to go cow’s milk, you still get a little bit of nutrition from there. So generally around the nine month mark, you can surmise that most babies are going to be getting about half of their nutrition from food and half from infant milk. So when I see a nine month old who’s only having like very tiny spoonfuls of purees.

 

00;29;28;10 – 00;29;41;21

Katie Ferraro

I don’t want to judge them, but I want to learn more about what’s going on. Yes baby. This baby is nine months chronological age. But my quadruplets, they were born six weeks premature. So from an adjusted standpoint they’re really only like seven and a half month old, which means probably hasn’t clicked for them. And then that’s fine.

 

00;29;41;24 – 00;30;02;28

Katie Ferraro

And then there’s other babies. Maybe they do have a tongue tie, or they’ve had cleft palate, or they’ve had some other surgeries, like we’ve seen success with baby led weaning in all of these populations, including down syndrome. But they might be on slightly different time frames. So I think it is always best to trust your mom gut. If you’re concerned about your baby’s progress, ask your pediatrician for a referral to a feeding therapist.

 

00;30;03;04 – 00;30;22;04

Katie Ferraro

So an occupational therapist or a speech language pathologist who specializes in infant feeding. Sometimes parents get scared when they hear about a feeding therapy. It’s not a lifelong diagnosis. You sometimes go to a few sessions with a therapist who helps you identify whether or not there’s a problem, and then we’ll help you with exercises or things you can do to help your baby get over that problem if there really is a diagnosis.

 

00;30;22;07 – 00;30;41;18

Katie Ferraro

So I would say trust your mom gut and then bring in the professionals if you think it is appropriate. And then educate yourself and learn about infant feeding from credentialed feeding experts, because something that makes this problem so much worse is there’s so much misinformation out there. We have bloggers teaching about baby led weaning and recipes that I see it all the time, day in and day out.

 

00;30;41;25 – 00;31;07;05

Katie Ferraro

And it’s so hard to just bite your tongue, but very unsafe feeding practices, which certainly increase the risk of choking baby has a choking incident and now all of a sudden they have negative associations with food and feeding. And that’s because of something you saw on a blog about how to make food. So we do have some control on this as far as educating ourselves about certain things, like the difference between gagging and choking and what to do if our baby chokes, and how to safely prepare foods and introduce allergenic foods.

 

00;31;07;07 – 00;31;28;03

Katie Ferraro

But one thing I love about your content is you’re always talking about the family dynamic. And so when you mentioned grandparents and spouses and partners, that complicates things. And so one thing I encourage parents to do, I know, like your audience is like mine, we say parents and caregivers, but it’s like 99.9% moms who are listening and who are the primary feeders is you be the one to get comfortable offering the new foods to your baby.

 

00;31;28;06 – 00;31;45;07

Katie Ferraro

We never expect daycare or nannies or grandparents to introduce new foods that’s on the shoulders of the primary caregiver, but once you do that new food and your baby’s done it a few times and they get comfortable with it, you get to put it in the list of familiar foods. And then familiar foods are foods that your baby is comfortable with, and that other people can be involved in helping your baby.

 

00;31;45;09 – 00;31;55;01

Katie Ferraro

So you can send those foods to daycare. You can show grandma oh my gosh. Oh, look at little baby picking up these sardines and eating beets. I remember my own mom being so skeptical. Baby.

 

00;31;55;01 – 00;31;56;06

Dr. Mona

Like be like, this.

 

00;31;56;06 – 00;32;14;02

Katie Ferraro

Is this is like fine. But like, they’re eventually going to learn how to use utensils. Like what we’re practicing with the spoon. Yes. No fork utensil until 12 months of age. So we don’t even bring forks into the picture until then. And she was like, kind of Pooh poohing, baby, like weaning. And then one time she was over helping me with the quads, and she went out to take a phone call, and I caught her talking to her other dietitian friend.

 

00;32;14;02 – 00;32;39;17

Katie Ferraro

She was like, oh my God, you should see Claire. She’s like eating sardines. And then we go to the beach and it’s so cute. I’m like, even the biggest baby led weaning doubters will become believers. Seeing really is believing. But don’t invite those people who are not supporting you into the feeding environment, especially early on. Just wait until you get some good, comfortable foods under your belt and then bring them in and they’re going to be blown away by all the food your baby can safely self feed.

 

00;32;39;19 – 00;32;44;05

Dr. Mona

Oh, I have been there for sure. The doubters becoming believers and still even so then.

 

00;32;44;05 – 00;32;56;15

Katie Ferraro

Bragging about it like it was their idea. I’m like heck yeah, you take all the credit, I don’t care. At the end of the day, the baby’s eating real food. And by the way, grandma, it’s way less work for you. Would you go over if they eat the same food that you’re making? Get out of the short order cook.

 

00;32;56;15 – 00;33;01;12

Katie Ferraro

You don’t have to buy expensive baby foods. It’s easier, cheaper, and so much better for your sanity.

 

00;33;01;14 – 00;33;15;22

Dr. Mona

Yeah, when they’re bragging. It’s so funny because you’re like, where did all that commentary go? That commentary, like, they can’t do that. They can’t do that. It’s not going to happen. And I’m like, just be patient. I promise you, just watch it. And that’s like so much of a parenting, by the way. Like with relatives and in-laws, it’s like, hey, look, I know what’s best for my kid.

 

00;33;15;22 – 00;33;30;19

Dr. Mona

I really want you to just watch it in the works. And if you don’t believe it, that’s fine. But we’re going to continue doing this. It’s something that’s really important to our family and you know, that’s a whole other conversation about boundary setting and just kind of learning to accept what you really want to do for your child, which for many families could be baby led weaning.

 

00;33;30;19 – 00;33;53;02

Dr. Mona

So this was an amazing conversation. And going back to your comment about the nine month mark, I agree. You know, at the nine month mark, traditionally a lot of families who went the traditional period route and then went to more chunkier foods like who don’t know anything about more textured self-feeding at the start of six months. They tend to start to introduce some more textured foods around like eight months, nine or earlier.

 

00;33;53;02 – 00;34;11;12

Dr. Mona

Nine months, definitely. If a family in my office is only doing trays, it’s a conversation. It’s, hey, are you not wanting to do more textured foods? Is your child not tolerating it like you said, like are they premature and maybe they’re just not ready for it? Are they gagging a lot and that’s scaring you? Or are they just spitting it out?

 

00;34;11;12 – 00;34;42;01

Dr. Mona

And so it is a conversation. So if you’re listening to this, remember going to those visits is really important, not just for weight and height. I think people think that the pediatricians only for illness visits and weight and height. But it’s conversations. And like Katie said, talking to the pediatrician and you’re hearing this, if the pediatrician says, hey, you know, just give it some time, did it, and doesn’t give you more guidance, I want you to feel supported and get the guidance, whether that is through a referral, whether that is through reputable online resources that know what they’re talking about.

 

00;34;42;04 – 00;34;59;06

Dr. Mona

Because I don’t want you to feel like you’re not getting that support for that three months, that you’re waiting until the next checkup. So that is my pediatrician commentary, because you said it multiple times that, you know, pediatricians do get nutrition training. We do actually in do school and residency. Not nearly as much as nutritionists, but that’s like everything, right?

 

00;34;59;06 – 00;35;20;26

Dr. Mona

We’re general pediatricians. We can’t know everything about everything. And a lot of the pediatricians nowadays, a lot of the younger pediatricians, like the ones like myself, are actually really into staying up to date on all these modern parenting things, especially us who have younger children. I do feel like a lot of the older pediatricians tend to get stuck in their ways of what they know, and they just aren’t as open, not all of them.

 

00;35;20;26 – 00;35;36;28

Dr. Mona

Okay, I don’t want to generalize, but you may find a pediatrician that really does support you. And if they don’t like Katie said, get the referrals, get a community online to kind of support you, but really using it as a big picture of, hey, my pediatrician may be an expert in this, but they don’t know much about baby led weaning.

 

00;35;37;04 – 00;35;49;04

Dr. Mona

Maybe that’s okay. Make sure you listen to our episode on her podcast, because we talk more about how to advocate for yourself at the pediatrician’s office with baby led weaning so you feel supported, which I think is an important conversation.

 

00;35;49;07 – 00;36;03;22

Katie Ferraro

And I like that you point out that so many parents think the doctor is where you go when you’re sick. I’m like, dude, they’re called freaking well checks for a reason. Like, your baby’s fine. And when you go there you can feel so good. Be walking like, I am doing a good job here. And I would also encourage you to do is to bring up the topic of screening for iron deficiency.

 

00;36;03;22 – 00;36;20;08

Katie Ferraro

And so the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends screening for iron deficiency prior to 12 months of age. And I am blown away every time we do surveys or we talk about this on social media. How many parents like, do my doctor never ask about iron? They never checked the hemoglobin levels. And I encourage parents to ask your doctor, what’s the protocol here?

 

00;36;20;08 – 00;36;41;05

Katie Ferraro

What do you do in your office? Do you do finger sticks or heel sticks? Or how are we checking if the baby has adequate iron stores, as you know, shown by their hemoglobin levels? And if that’s problematic, then what are we going to follow up? What sort of testing are you going to do? Because nine times out of ten or more than that, your baby is going to come back with perfect hemoglobin levels and you’re like, yes, my baby is getting enough iron from these different foods that I’m feeding, plus the breast milk or the formula.

 

00;36;41;05 – 00;36;58;13

Katie Ferraro

And so, you know, having these discussions with your pediatrician and educating yourself about questions to ask when you get in there because like, you get in there and they’re like the height and the weight and then they’re like, you know, sometimes they plot it wrong. Oh my God, my baby’s falling off the growth curve. And there’s like all this anxiety and sometimes we forget to just even ask the questions that can prove that we’re doing a good job as parents.

 

00;36;58;13 – 00;37;28;20

Katie Ferraro

Your baby’s staying on the growth chart. Great job. Look, your baby’s head circumference, that means your brain is growing. Those high fat foods you’re offering or doing their job or their iron levels are great. So good job. Keep it up with the plant and animal sources of iron. A lot of times, having these kind of touch points at the doctor’s office can make us kind of reinforce the parenting things that we’re doing and make us feel better about ourselves as parents, because I feel like so many forces out there that are trying to make us feel bad and guilty and anxious as parents like, use your pediatrician as an advocate for, you know, your parenting

 

00;37;28;20 – 00;37;42;09

Katie Ferraro

journey, and you made a good point for piecing together stuff. Here’s some doctors like I love. My pediatrician passed away this year. We were so close with him. He was not pro baby led weaning. He’s like, I got every mom in here asking me about this baby led weaning thing. And I was like, and doctors are coming us all the time.

 

00;37;42;11 – 00;37;57;12

Katie Ferraro

Can I take a CME course? Like, how can I learn more about this? Because you know why parents are asking about it. So if you’re interested in research and ask your doctor about it, and many of them are certainly much more open to baby led weaning. Even then when I started my parenting, compared to that like eight years ago, I feel like it’s so much more in the forefront.

 

00;37;57;12 – 00;37;59;25

Katie Ferraro

These days, which is good because there is research to support.

 

00;37;59;26 – 00;38;16;21

Dr. Mona

Yes, and because it’s happening so often. I think the medical community, because we are the front line, it’s so important that I hope people who are listening are in the medical field. Pediatricians, maybe, if just newly out of residency. It’s such a passion of mine to teach my residents about baby led weaning, because I didn’t get that right.

 

00;38;16;28 – 00;38;18;10

Dr. Mona

So yeah, I love this conversation.

 

00;38;18;11 – 00;38;34;28

Katie Ferraro

They all pay attention more when that happens. We have so many SLPs, dietitians, OTS who are like, okay, I wasn’t really on board with this. Then I have my own baby, and I know you and I both really harness the positive side of social media, which I would argue is it’s definitely an art these days. Because seeing really is believing.

 

00;38;34;28 – 00;38;56;07

Katie Ferraro

And with baby led weaning, like, I love my podcast, I love podcast, it’s I was literally I didn’t wasn’t bedridden when I was pregnant with my quads, but I basically gave myself bedrest and I just listen to podcasts forever. I’m a podcast person. Yeah. And there’s so much you can teach over podcast, but the visual of how you prep the foods and seeing the baby eat and watching what a gag looks like, like the power of video and seeing that really is believing.

 

00;38;56;07 – 00;39;19;01

Katie Ferraro

And I would argue that the power of video and social media has been really important in elevating baby led weaning to the forefront of parenting. This is not some woowoo flash in the pan parenting thing, or some made up thing from the internet. There is that real incredible body of evidence that supports this. Thank God the researchers are doing the research and thank all the parents are out there implementing safe feeding practices and showing that babies can do this.

 

00;39;19;01 – 00;39;34;07

Katie Ferraro

Because don’t tell me a six month old can’t eat soft, solid strips of lamb because I show it every day. I see it every day. But I need to show you how to make it safe because there’s so much misinformation out there. But we see accounts giving, you know, feed your baby steak and pork chops to, you know, you with a three year old.

 

00;39;34;07 – 00;39;50;22

Katie Ferraro

I bet Ryan has trouble eating steak and pork chops. Oh, yeah. He’s so chewy with me. Yeah. I always say, if you can shred the meat between your finger and your thumb, then it’s safe for your baby to eat with their gums. I will do roast leg of lamb in week one, a baby led weaning. But I would never, ever, ever give a baby a solid piece of lamb chop because, well, lamb’s lamb.

 

00;39;50;22 – 00;40;07;13

Katie Ferraro

No it’s not. It’s the nuance of what cut you make or you’re buying how you’re preparing it, and then how you’re offering it to your baby lamb can be incredibly unsafe or incredibly safe for a baby to eat. And so I think sometimes we need to, like, look at those nuances and say, gosh, I’ll have to do is learn a little bit about this, and then my baby can do that as well.

 

00;40;07;18 – 00;40;10;04

Katie Ferraro

And that’s the point of what we’re doing at the baby led weaning.

 

00;40;10;06 – 00;40;27;13

Dr. Mona

I love it. Oh, Katie, this was such an awesome conversation. I, like I said, have enjoyed coming on your podcast. Having you come on mine has been such a pleasure today, so I’m sure my guests are just wondering where they can find more about your resources. So if you can, please share where you’re located, resources, all of that.

 

00;40;27;13 – 00;40;30;00

Dr. Mona

And I’m going to be attaching that to my show notes as well.

 

00;40;30;02 – 00;40;49;05

Katie Ferraro

Well, if you guys want to get started pushing your baby’s palate beyond purees, I recommend grabbing a copy of my 101st foods list. This is a free list of 100 foods your baby can eat before turning one. Because when you learn about baby led weaning, the next thing is like, okay, well, what foods do I feed? So you can grab a copy of my 101st Foods list on my free one hour video training.

 

00;40;49;10 – 00;41;17;20

Katie Ferraro

It’s called baby led weaning for beginners. You can sign up for this week’s workshop Times at Baby LED Weaning AE. So you go to baby led weaning Coat. Sign up. You’ll get the 101st foods list on the workshop. I do a Q&A at the end of the workshop. We make a point to answer every single question, so I’d love for you guys to take the training so you can see what it looks like, what it doesn’t look like, what foods we feed, what we don’t offer, and then walk away with that 101st foods list and get started pushing your baby’s palate beyond purees as soon as you feel comfortable doing that.

 

00;41;17;22 – 00;41;21;29

Dr. Mona

Yes, I love it. Thank you again, Katie, for joining us today.

 

00;41;22;02 – 00;41;23;07

Katie Ferraro

Thank you, Mona.

 

00;41;23;09 – 00;41;41;10

Dr. Mona

And for everyone listening. I know you love this episode. Whether you are familiar with baby led weaning or you are just learning about it or wanted to learn more, this was an amazing conversation. I love talking to Katie, both on the show and off the show. She’s a wealth of information. If you loved it, make sure you leave a review and call her out.

 

00;41;41;10 – 00;42;02;07

Dr. Mona

Say how much you loved her conversation with me today, and I can’t wait to invite another guest next week to the show. Thank you for tuning in for this week’s episode. As always, please leave a review. Share this episode with a friend. Share it on your social media. Make sure to follow me at PedsDocTalk on Instagram and subscribe to my YouTube channel, PedsDocTalk TV.

 

00;42;02;09 – 00;42;03;10

Dr. Mona

We’ll talk to you soon.