Once your baby can sit upright with minimal support, hold its head steady, put things in its mouth, and is starting to show interest in food - it may be time to introduce them to solids. Back in the day, many parents would only feed their toothless little ones pureed food and baby-friendly rice cereal and oatmeal as their first foods. But over the last 15-ish years, parents have explored baby-led Weaning as an alternative way to nourish their little ones.

If you're unfamiliar with the method, it essentially ditches spoon-fed meals and gives your little one more autonomy when it comes to choosing what they want to eat and when. Ahead, learn more about baby-led weaning and the best baby-led weaning foods to give your little one.

What Is Baby-Led Weaning?

"Baby-led weaning is a method of starting babies on complementary foods using finger foods of an appropriate size and texture from the family table, as opposed to starting with the parent-led spoon-feeding of purees," says Malina Malkani, MS, RDN, CDN, creator of the online course for parents, Safe & Simple Baby-Led Feeding and author of the best-selling book, "Simple & Safe Baby-Led Weaning". While there is no formal definition of baby-led weaning, many versions do not include any spoon-feeding. Instead, the child puts food in its own mouth.

When following baby-led weaning, although parents offer food, the child controls the weaning process. In other words, the infant decides what, how much, and how quickly they eat instead of being at the mercy of the puree-filled spoon that caregivers may "airplane" into a child's mouth. When practicing baby-led weaning, the infant is an active partner in the feeding process, and not a passive recipient.

Malkani explained that some of the potential benefits of baby-led weaning for infants "include earlier involvement in family meals, lots of exposure to different flavors, colors, shapes, and textures, more opportunities to practice fine motor skills during self-feeding, greater dietary variety early on, and more freedom and autonomy to follow internal cues for hunger and fullness." For caregivers, the benefits of baby-led weaning are pretty vast, too and include spending less time, money, and energy on preparing food since babies eat what the family eats, and there is no need to make separate meals, aside from a few minor modifications.

Some data also suggests that baby-led mothers experience lower anxiety than traditional weaning mothers. However, baby-led weaning doesn't come without any risks. Hampton Vernon, MD, a Georgia-based pediatrician, cautioned that "there is an unknown choking risk" when following baby-led weaning practices. And Malkani addressed that "for babies with severe eczema who are at high risk for food allergies, there is a greater risk of allergen exposure through broken skin if the baby is self-feeding during the early introduction of allergenic foods". She advised that caregivers can help reduce this risk by applying a layer of protective ointment to the skin before meals and/or by choosing to responsively spoon-feed top allergens for at least the first few exposures.

Who Should Try Baby-Led Weaning?

Baby-led weaning can be appropriate for most babies that are developmentally ready to eat solid foods, typically around the 6-month mark of a baby's life.

Babies who may tolerate purees better than finger foods (at least, at first) include "those with developmental delays or specific medical issues, some premature babies, and babies who require sensory or oral evaluations before table foods can be considered safe," per Malkani. "For babies who are at high risk for food allergies, allergists may recommend very early introduction of top allergenic foods like peanut and egg between four and six months to help reduce the risk of peanut and egg allergy. In these cases, purees are necessary, as most babies are not developmentally ready to start eating finger foods until closer to six months of age," she added.

What To Know Before Starting Baby-Led Weaning

First, it is important to understand that while many families are adopting this way of feeding, some data suggests babies who are fed with the baby-led weaning approach may be more underweight than those who are spoon-fed. Baby-led weaning infants may be at risk of low iron intake, because many foods offered to these infants are generally low in this mineral.

The good news is that "when caregivers are educated on safe food sizing and texture as well as how to offer balanced meals that provide key nutrients for babies such as iron and zinc, baby-led weaning does not increase the risk of choking or nutrient deficiencies," Malkani shared. So, if you are sold on the baby-led weaning approach, it is important to have a good understanding of how to build nutritious and balanced meals to avoid nutritional deficiencies. To do this, speaking with a registered dietitian and/or pediatrician with expertise on this topic may be valuable to keep your baby as safe as possible.

To be clear, even if you don't choose to follow baby-led weaning, "you can create great eaters with a variety of pureed foods", Dr. Vernon says. And combining principles of baby-led weaning with some spoon-fed purees can also be an acceptable feeding plan. "There is no evidence that using a combination of feeding methods (i.e., baby-led weaning plus the spoon-feeding of purees) is detrimental or confusing to babies as long as caregivers are using responsive feeding techniques (i.e., recognizing and responding to the baby's cues for hunger and fullness and creating mealtime environments that allow the baby to focus on eating)," Malkani shared.

Ultimately, as long as your baby is fed adequate nutrients safely, you are doing what you have to be doing as a caregiver. If you are ready to include some baby-led weaning foods in your baby's repertoire, keep reading for 10 of the best baby-led weaning first foods to nourish and satisfy your baby's needs safely.