As the title suggests, this is just my opinion, and I’ve never found any studies on this. However, I HAVE done baby-led weaning with all three of my kids and have been able to compare them to what’s considered “normal” for babies their age to come to my own conclusions in this post.

If you haven’t already, you can read my blog post with all sorts of baby-led weaning tips.

It’s important to know the signs of gagging vs. choking, along with how to perform CPR. Gagging is a NORMAL part of learning to eat! Your baby will be using their tongue to move food around, and learning to swallow will typically come with some gagging. It’s also important to train yourself to be prepared (and confident) in case your baby starts choking. I have a bunch of helpful BLW information and choking/CPR videos saved to my Instagram highlights if you’d like to check those out too.

Here’s why I think baby-led weaning reduces the chance of your baby choking.

EXPLORING MINIMIZES ACCIDENTS

First, baby-led weaning allows your baby to explore the size, shape, and texture of foods that they *can* safely eat, so they’re less likely to put non-food items that could be choking hazards into their mouth (think: rocks, magnets, legos, earrings).

NATURAL PROTECTIVE MECHANISMS

Babies are born with natural protective mechanisms against choking. They have a tongue thrust that disappears around 6 months of age, and a gag reflex that is at its peak around 4-6 months, so slowly introducing solids (or foods they can just gnaw on, see my post on teething remedies for a list of foods to try) around this age would be the safest window, since they’ll just try to push the food out of their mouth anyway.

LEARNING TO CHEW FIRST

Since baby-led weaning offers your baby larger pieces of food, they will intuitively learn that they cannot swallow something without chewing it to break it down first, as opposed to purees that deliver food directly to the back of their mouth or tiny pieces of food that they can immediately swallow. The latter two would pose a greater risk of choking, in my opinion.

UNDERSTANDING PROVIDES SAFETY

Offering big pieces of food also teaches your baby to bite off appropriately sized pieces and “map their mouth” by maneuvering the food around with their tongue, smushing or spitting out as needed, which gives them more control and understanding of what they can and cannot swallow.

INTENTIONALLY CORRECT FROM DAY ONE

Proverbs 22:6 says that we, as parents, are to “train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” Taking that literally  —  babies will have to learn to bite and chew their food eventually, so it’s better to intentionally teach them to do so the correct way from the beginning.

Not to mention the peace of mind this gives me when taking my kids to playgrounds surrounded by small rocks or mulch. I don’t have to worry about my baby putting something in his mouth that he’s not supposed to.

Have you done baby-led weaning with your kids? I’d love to hear your experience!

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