If you had a vacation, hope it was a good one! And if you need a vacation from your vacation, we feel you 😉 

We’re back this week with Jenny Best, founder of Solid Starts, with more on her groundbreaking approach to feeding babies, and why she says babies are “born to eat.” 

ASK AN EXPERT: Starting your baby on solids

We’re back with Jenny Best, the Founder of Solid Starts, A Baby Food Revolution. The Solid Starts team consists of parents, feeding therapists, swallowing specialists, pediatricians, an allergist, pediatric dietitians, lactation consultants, and a nutritionist. 

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Most parents start their kids on some type of puree. But you say this is actually a really tough consistency for babies. How so? 

We often think food should be cut into really small pieces or mashed to a puree, but the most challenging texture for an infant in terms of swallowing is really liquid or puree. Think about if you opened your mouth and someone spooned applesauce into your mouth. What would that feel like? Your tongue almost doesn’t know what to do with it when it’s been placed into your mouth. 

So it’s really a difficult consistency for babies because it doesn’t trigger the chewing reflex, which is what makes your baby’s mouth goes up and down… we want to see chewable food or distance sticks of food that act like tethers, these help advance oral motor skills in a safe and rapid way. 

I was one of those parents who put the puree on the spoon and did some version of “here comes the airplane,” mostly because I always saw my parents doing that. I’m guessing this isn’t what you recommend? 

Society is moving away from really controlled feeding and parenting experiences. There’s a way to do spoon feeding in a way that’s responsive to the child’s needs, but most people don’t do it well. If you want to start with purees to ease yourself in, I recommend you preload the spoon and hand over that spoon to the baby, instead of putting it in their mouth… just stop before you get to the baby’s mouth. Don’t dump it on the baby’s tongue. The brain is not ready for eating when you do that… and it’s something that not many professionals even understand. 

The brain will be more ready to accept that food and figure out what to do with that food. It’s safer. And you won’t have those “here come the airplane” battles, which are essentially a form of pressured eating. If the child is turning away or pursing their lips, they’re done. 

Is that why you like finger foods for babies? 

When a human, at any age, cognitively decides, ‘I see that food, I’m going to pick up that food and bring that food to my mouth,’ the brain is more ready to start the chew reflex and swallowing motion and coordination of all those more than 50 muscles involved in a safe swallow than it is if it’s put on the tongue. 

I feel like a lot of parents underestimate our kids? 

Kids are born to eat, knowing when they’re hungry and when they’re full. And they explore the world through their mouths. A 5, 6-month-old baby, they’re reaching for everything and putting it in their mouth. Why is that? The body and the brain are gearing up for eating. They’re born to eat.