My first son adored purees. Within a few days of introducing them, he was gobbling down entire containers of fruits and veggies and whining for more. Frankly, I liked spoon-feeding. It was fairly easy to limit the mess, I knew my kiddo was getting a nutritious introduction to solids, and purees made feeding on the go easy.

Cue my second son, founding member of Spoon Haters Anonymous. He tolerated being spoon-fed for all of two days. After that, trying to feed him the traditional way became a messy wrestling match that I never won.

Begrudgingly tolerating his first spoon-fed puree

Some of you are probably already going, “DUH, mama, how about baby-led weaning? Let him set his pace! Food before one is just for fun!” (You kind of sang that last line, didn’t you? Admit it.) And yes, baby-led weaning can be a great way to introduce solids. Your baby eats whatever you’re eating, you don’t worry about how much actually makes it into his mouth, and everyone’s happy.

The thing is, while I was happy to use some BLW, I didn’t want to give up on purees. A purely BLW approach had some drawbacks for me:

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  • First, the mess. I know some moms are totally cool with their babies bathing in spaghetti sauce, but with a toddler to deal with (not to mention chronic sleep deprivation) I didn’t have the patience for messier offerings. If I had a free hour, scraping dried avocado off the floor was not what I wanted to do with it.
  • Second, I wanted to make sure my son could eat a decent amount if he so desired. Again — I know! — food before onnneee is just for fuuuuuun! But my spoon-hating baby was also a bottle-hating baby. So a decent meal of solids could be my ticket out of the house for more than a couple of hours.
  • Third, it’s as simple as this: Sometimes I was just too lazy to scrounge for something I felt good about my baby eating.

So I knew I still wanted to keep purees in the mix. After all, my spoon-hating baby didn’t hate the purees — he just wanted to control the delivery. And I didn’t want to give up on BLW, either — I just wanted to keep the mess to a minimum until his fine motor skills were a little more developed (or I was a little more rested). Here’s how it shook out:

  • Pouches became an essential. I could shout my love of pouches from the rooftops. They weren’t on my radar with my first son, but they are a must for us now. After about a week, my son could pretty much feed himself a whole pouch.
  • I also used silicone self-feeders. Yeah, those mesh ones are cheaper, but they are absolutely horrendous to clean. This self-feeder is good for purees; this one is awesome for feeding table food but minimizing the mess.
  • I found which table foods were a little less messy and easy for my son to self-feed from a young age. Our go-to foods included scrambled eggs, pasta, small chunks of cheese, chunks of fruit (messier ones in a feeder at first), steamed veggies, naan, toast, small pieces of chicken and the ever-popular puffs and Mum-mums.

In control and happy about it

At eight months, we are still happily using a mix of purees and BLW. My kiddo is getting better and better at feeding himself a variety of table foods — and as he gets better at eating, I also get better at offering.

Did you stick to purees or baby-led weaning, or did you mix both approaches? What worked best for you and your child?