Classic weaning or self-weaning?

Which approach should you choose: traditional weaning, based on baby food made specifically for the baby, or self-weaning, which involves offering the baby food from mom and dad?

Up to the sixth month of life, approximately, the baby is fed exclusively on breast milk or formula (artificial milk). In fact, for the first few months, milk is the main source of nourishment. From the sixth month onwards, pediatric guidelines provide for the possibility of introducing other semi-solid and solid foods into the newborn's diet.

Traditional weaning is based on a diet literally tailored to the child. Normally, it starts with the classic vegetable broth (strictly potato, carrot and courgette) that will replace a feeding, usually lunch. Only as the days go by will the meal become richer and other ingredients can be added, according to a precise order and timetable: first freeze-dried or homogenised meat, then cooked and pureed vegetables, legumes and finally fish.

The reason for such rigor was the concern that certain foods could promote the onset of food allergies if given too early.

According to the latest studies, however, this concern is unfounded. Unlike weaning, which usually begins at the sixth month, self-weaning is a process that follows the child's psychophysical maturation: it is only the child who, by showing interest in food, decides when to start. In other words, self-weaning recognizes and follows the differences of each child, without any pre-established timing.

If you do baby-led weaning, you do not replace any feeding a priori as the child approaches food gradually, starting with small tastes during all meals throughout the day.

Self-weaning is freedom for the child and for the parent because with self-weaning the child will eat at the table with the rest of the family, at the same times, and above all the same dishes.

At the table with the parents it should be placed no earlier than 6 months. But in any case it is the child himself who, curious about what mom and dad do at the table, will show us clear signs of interest in food making us understand that it is time to chop something from our plate and put it "within reach" there on the high chair!

Parenting choices, especially if they concern such delicate and “natural” aspects as nutrition, must be made by “listening to ourselves”, recognizing our own emotions and anxieties in this regard, and choosing with common sense and instinct the path that we feel is most ours.