A parent asks about baby led weaning for a 6 month old. Which statement best describes this practice?

A parent asks about baby led weaning for a 6 month old. Which statement best describes this practice?

• A. Foods given for this purpose do not meet all the child's nutritional needs
• B. Giving infants control of the feeding process will help prevent obesity
• C. Infants are given soft, mashable table foods when able to self-feed
• D. Infants must be able to grasp and feed themselves from a spoon to do this

Answer: (C)

Baby-led weaning focuses on letting the baby self-feed with age-appropriate finger foods, starting around six months when they can sit with support and show readiness. Parents offer soft, easily mashable pieces of regular foods that the infant can pick up and chew, allowing the baby to control the pace and amount of eating. This approach emphasizes self-feeding, autonomy, and developing oral-motor skills, with close supervision to manage choking risk. The statement that best describes this practice is that infants are given soft, mashable table foods when able to self-feed. The other options don’t capture this self-feeding, finger-food approach and rather describe spoon feeding or broad nutritional/safety assumptions.

Baby-led weaning focuses on letting the baby self-feed with age-appropriate finger foods, starting around six months when they can sit with support and show readiness. Parents offer soft, easily mashable pieces of regular foods that the infant can pick up and chew, allowing the baby to control the pace and amount of eating. This approach emphasizes self-feeding, autonomy, and developing oral-motor skills, with close supervision to manage choking risk. The statement that best describes this practice is that infants are given soft, mashable table foods when able to self-feed. The other options don’t capture this self-feeding, finger-food approach and rather describe spoon feeding or broad nutritional/safety assumptions.