Whether you choose to start baby off with purees or dive right in with Baby Led Weaning, it’s important to remain responsive to your baby’s cues of hunger and fullness.
Hunger:
- happy and excited to be placed in high chair
- opens mouth when food is offered
- leans towards or reaches for food
Fullness:
- turns head away
- playing with food more than eating
- frowns when food is offered
- closes lips when food is offered
- cries to get out of the highchair
To be able to communicate with your baby before they are able to express themselves with vocal words, you can start to use some hand signs with baby. As you are feeding baby, you can give a sign for more. SInce you are developing a language that’s just between you and your baby you can really use any sign you want. But the typical one used for “more” is to to pinch your fingers and thumb and clap them together with both hands. They typical sign for “all done” is to wave both hands back and forth. The main thing is to be consistent, sign often, and say the words as well so that your baby can speak them once she starts to talk.
For a real life example, Jennifer House, RD demonstrates responsive feeding with her baby.
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