How to choose a feeding method - the Chipea philosophy

Over the past decade, our food culture has been changing. The world has become smaller, it has become easier to explore new foods, new tastes and we’ve not only come to love them, we expect them in our daily diets.

However, when it comes to our baby’s food, there is still a tendency to serve the same things over and over. Generally we go for the classics in baby food and we sometimes steer clear of “new” ingredients because “the kids probably won’t like it” or we do want to switch things up but we simply don’t know what we can safely give to our children.

Chipea wants to assist parents in making choices when it comes to feeding their babies and young children and hopefully in that way help them raise good eaters.

One of the first decisions in that process is choosing which feeding method you want to go for. There are many strong opinions about feeding methods but we’re here to tell you, they are almost all based on personal preference. What works for one family, or one child does not necessarily work for another. So take all this well intended advice with a grain of salt, inform yourself and choose the method you think will work best for your family. That doesn’t mean you can’t switch later on, if you see that your child isn’t responding as well.

What are the main weaning methods?

There are different feeding methods, which are mainly divided between the traditional approach of spoon-feeding purees and baby-led weaning, where babies feed themselves completely with pieces of food, rather than pureed food.

Baby-led weaning

With baby-led weaning, babies completely feed themselves. You, as a caregiver, don’t feed your child but you provide pieces of food that are suitable for his age and let your child feed himself. There has been research on the impact of this method on food acceptance but nothing conclusive has come out of it yet. What is true, is that you’re giving all the control to your child, letting them decide how much they want to eat and when they want to stop. This is definitely a good thing. Babies need to learn to know when they are hungry and when they are full. If you decide to go for this approach, we strongly advise you to read more into it. There are a number of good books written on the topic, informing you on how to safely go about it.

Spoon-fed or puree method

With this method, you feed your child yourself, with a spoon. You go from smooth purees to more chunky ones, to actual pieces of food. In this way, you are in control. You’re holding the spoon and bringing the food to your baby’s mouth. That doesn’t mean your baby has no control at all. It’s up to the caregivers to learn to recognise signs of hunger and satiation and to stop feeding whenever you notice your child has had enough.

How to choose the weaning method that’s right for you

Both approaches have pros and cons. Depending on your situation, you might be leaning more towards one method or the other. Even though it might seem like you need to make this extremely important decision between the two methods, you don’t. You can try to take the best of both, and find a method that works for you, your child and your family. And that will most likely be the best method!

What we want to do is give you the tools to find the method that works best for you. At Chipea we do serve our babies purees, but we are conscious of the benefits of introducing finger foods soon enough in the process. Don’t expect the same speed in learning how to eat independently as when you’re exclusively offering finger food. But there is nothing wrong with combining methods and finding out what works best. As long as you keep mindful of letting your child practice all those skills they need to become a great eater!