I have a love/hate relationship with my pediatrician. I love him because he's blunt. I hate him because he's blunt. I hate him because he keeps me in check for being the overly hormone charged paranoia of a mom when I don’t need to be. But, overall I love him most of the times, until he tells me I'm an idiot (not verbatim, but I like to use my colorful interpretation for dramatic purposes). One of the things I loved was his encouragement to incorporate "baby led weaning" when our first child reached solid food stage. That was 4 years ago.

4 years later, I'm going through the same milestones with our second. It wasn’t until my first was in her toddler years that I realized I was doing a form of baby led weaning, and we loved the process. What I did with our first, I'm doing it again with our second.

What is baby led weaning? Simply put, it's the process of letting your child feed themselves from the get go.

I'm not a health professional, so I don't want to get into the technicalities. If you think that it might interest you, I would suggest that you discuss it with your pediatrician.

When I first heard about it from my pediatrician, he didn’t specifically use the term “baby led weaning”, what he had suggested was that when my daughter was showing signs that she was developing her pincer grasp, to offer her items such as cheerios that she could grab onto, and she’ll put into her mouth. When I asked him about whether that was safe, his answer was pretty much “Use your common sense”. What he meant was, don’t give her anything that would block her up, but if she coughs, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. What I was told was when my child coughs, she’s trying to “figure it out”, and that’s actually good, because she’s utilizing those muscles to help her become a better eater. Again, I don’t want to get too technical, best to speak with your health professional if you want to give it a go.

I remembered I liked the idea that my baby would be able to feed herself at such a young age. As soon as I noticed she’d started her pincer grasp, I’d given her cheerios. Once she got the hang of it, and it was very quick, I started giving her other items.

I don’t recall what I’d given her after cheerios, but I know that by the time she was 8 months old, I’d stopped making purees. She’d enjoyed feeding herself so much, that she’d fight me on the mush I tried giving her. She was more interested in what she could grab and eat than have anyone feed her. Before having our baby, I’d read up on the dreadfulness of making meat purees, and how awful they can taste. By incorporating baby led weaning, I did not have to make any meat purees. I’d cut up very tender pieces of meat such as chicken leg meat and give it to her.

One of the nicest things with baby led weaning is that you get to enjoy your meal while your baby is super amused with her own meal. However, with the nice comes with the not so nice. The not so nice part is your baby, left to her own device to feed herself, is not a very considerate little human being in keeping everything tiny and clean. Half goes in, half goes everywhere else, great if you have a dog that seizes the opportunity to help clean up, not so great if you don’t have one and have to clean it up yourself.

Other benefits of this process included not having to pack separate containers of food for your baby if you are going out. She ate everything I ate, just in much tinier pieces.

For anyone that wants to give this a go, I absolutely encourage it, it’ll be fun to watch your baby, and it’ll provide hours of entertainment for your baby…ok, I’m exaggerating about the hours, maybe half hour at best, but at least that gives you some “me” time to have a somewhat relaxing bite to eat.

If you decide to give this a go, I also recommend carrying a thick skin with you at all times, because you’ll receive attention with your awesome eater, and these attention come in both good and bad. With our first, she was capable of eating whole blueberries by the time she was 10 months old, I did not have to split it in half. I’d lost count on the number of times I’d been chastised by random strangers, getting yelled at for being an irresponsible lazy mom. I’ve also lost count on the number of times random moms would comment on how “talented” my baby was. I always make an effort to encourage the moms that are in awe to give their own baby the tools to develop their self-feeding skills. Some are excited by it, some shake their head for fear they might hurt their child. At the end of the day, it’s your choice on how you want to help your child pursue their feeding independence. Use your instinct, and yes, do use common sense and always be aware of what your child is doing while they're feeding themselves. For us, we like it, and we’re currently doing it again with our second.

Sandy Lynch is an entrepreneur, and a mother of two strong-willed daughters