Preloaded spoons are a great way to encourage fine motor skills, hand eye coordination, and self feeding when practicing baby led weaning. By preloading a spoon, you’re able to feed different textures while still allowing baby to feed herself.
It’s easy to get caught up in the idea of baby lead weaning and simply serve the same finger foods over and over. But the reality is, we need to introduce a variety of foods and textures to baby.
Sometimes this means we need a spoon. While most of us started BLW to avoid spoon feeding, there are still ways to use a spoon and encourage self feeding for baby. One of these ways is providing baby with preloaded spoons.
What are Pre-Loaded Spoons in Baby Led Weaning?
Pre loaded spoons are exactly how they sound – spoons that have been filled with food for your baby to self feed with.
While baby led weaning usually calls for solid foods in the sense that they can be picked up with the hands, sometimes foods just can’t be grabbed. While your baby is learning how to get food from table to mouth, we need to make the process easy to avoid frustration.
So with foods that are thinner or more liquid, you can “pre load” them on to a spoon, and allow your baby to grab the spoon and self feed.
What to put on a spoon for baby led weaning
Really, anything that is unable to be easily picked up with their hands. You may need to thicken the liquids, if they are too thin. This helps ensure the food actually makes it to his or her mouth without sloshing off.
Spoons for preloading
You can really use any spoon for preloading, but you’ll want to choose something soft for safety. We also always used something smaller, since then you won’t overestimate how much to put on the spoon and it will be easier to fit in baby’s mouth.
(Psst: We wrote a whole post on the best baby led weaning spoons!)
I loved these simple spoons with my boys since they’re cheap, a bunch come in a pack, and they have a rest to keep the spoon level when you place it on the tray. They’re also super inexpensive.
More baby led weaning posts:
Baby Meal Prep
Benefits of Baby Led Weaning
Best Baby Led Weaning Bibs
Baby Led Weaning Snacks
First Fruits and Vegetables for Baby
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