Baby Lead Weaning

I've been really interested in this and was wondering if I could get some advice from others who have done/tried this. When Kylie was 4 months old we had given her a little bit of baby food due to the interest she showed, but eventually decided to wait after a few tries and stopped. Now that she's 6 months old, (and showing tons more interest) I wanted to completely cut out baby foods and go to table foods. I'm not too sure about how the entire thing works, but the concept itself seems interesting and one I'd like to try. My questions are: Does it make a difference that she's had baby foods in the past, and also do they need the baby food? How does their digestive track handle the solids and is to too harsh on them?

I also do NOT want biased opinions, just facts so I can decide what would work best for my baby.

[tiredbuthappy]

Table food vs baby food will not effect her digestion. The only concern is whether or not she can swallow it. Some babies, like my first, gag on table food for many months. She couldn't eat much til after a year. Others, like my second, take right to it. She was eating steak by 7 or 8 months, despite being toothless til almost a year.
They don't need the baby food if they can handle table foods. Not that baby food would hurt her- it is a convenient way to introduce baby to flavors. It's all a matter of the individual baby's development. It seems, to me, that it's actually pretty easy to figure out if your little one is ready- either she can figure out how to chew/gum it and swallow or she can't. I would start with smaller bits of softer foods first, and work your way up. Avocado is great, as is bananas. Neither of my girls could handle peas with the shell on, but if I worked tediously to take the outside off, they could handle it. Once the dr says it's OK, cheese is a great soft food. And even my first who would gag almost everything could handle thinly sliced deli turkey ripped into pieces by 10 or 11 months.

I didn't know about baby-led weaning with my first. She had the baby foods. I was forced to do it with my second because she refused baby foods and cereals but took right to table foods :)  Both of them are fantastic eaters now- much better than their Momma is or ever was!

[AHP84]

Does your daughter have teeth yet, eat stage 3 baby foods, and/or use her jaw in a chewing motion when she eats food?
I ask because from my understanding and personal experience, babies haven't really developed the fine motor skills of chewing and swallowing whole, solid foods until they're around nine months old or more. The stage 3 baby foods are very "chunky" and allow a baby to practice chewing without having a higher risk of gagging and/or choking. Is she eating stage 3 foods at 6 months?
There's really not much of a difference nutritionally from baby food and table food--baby food is just mashed up or pureéd table foods. A lot of people make their own baby food. I made a few baby food meals for my son with basic table foods that I baked or boiled and then pureéd.
So as for solid foods being "too harsh" for them...I don't think that's the case so much for their digestive systems as it is just getting it down from the mouth to the stomach.
The main thing you need to be aware of with any food you feed your baby is the allergy risks involved. Certain foods should not be fed to babies under 12 months, others until 18 months.

[Heatherm4]

I'm not sure about what baby lead weaning is as I haven't read up on it but I've been looking into how and what to do to make my own baby food and I found a great website. On it, it has a chart of what foods are good and at what point to introduce them. I don't plan on introducing anything past cereal until he's at least 5 months but have just been preparing myself on what I need to do.

It's www.homemade-baby-food-recipes.com

[Clysta]

Well she knows how to chew--she eats her own tongue and chews on me--and she can move things from the table to her mouth (she loves to grab my food and try to eat it) I think I might try it and just start with chunks of things and see how she takes those. It seems to work best with breastfed babies only because the jaw motion is similar.

She's not had almost any stage of baby food at all. When we did give her her first baby food, it was stage 1 and then we stopped and decided to wait till 6 months or later. I just came across it today and was interested in trying it. She just doesn't seem to like the mush that baby food is, and seems to always want what we're having.

[tiredbuthappy]

neither of my kids were every able to handle stage 3 foods. Since it is a puree with chunks mixed in, they seemed to have trouble figuring out what to do with it. They'd go to swallow the puree portion, and choke on the chunks.

[nola0805]

I think that you are a really good judge of what Kylie (not sure how you spell it) wants and can do.  So I so try a few things and just watch her very closely.  You might want to try things that are really soft and that you can mash up a little bit - things like tiredbuthappy suggested like avocados or bananas or sweet potatoes.  I also suggest steaming veggies until they are really really soft (like almost falling apart soft) and letting her finger feed herself them - I used to do that for my niece.  

good luck!