Simple & Safe Baby-Led Weaning: How to Integrate Foods, Master Portion Sizes, and Identify Allergies

by Malina Linkas Malkani

Start baby on safe, healthy whole foods with this essential guide

Baby is cordially invited to dinner (and breakfast and lunch)! With this guide to baby led weaning (BLW), you can start your little one on solid foods safely and healthily. Simple & Safe Baby-Led Weaning empowers you to help your baby feed themselves, developing motor skills and an adventurous palate--while meal preparation becomes easier and cheaper for you!

Learn when to begin baby led weaning, and find out what to expect along the way. Pick up practical advice for creating balanced meals and eating them together. A handy to-scale diagram takes the guesswork out of safe serving sizes.

Simple & Safe Baby-Led Weaning includes:



26 favorite foods--Get to know 26 of the best natural foods for baby led weaning with nutrition facts, feeding guidelines, and full-color photos.

Safety first--Breathe easy with safety guidelines, including info on prohibited foods and smart kitchen habits.

Allergy aware--Find out how to navigate, or even prevent, allergies and sensitivities as baby tries foods for the first time.
With Simple & Safe Baby-Led Weaning, baby can savor whole foods at the dinner table--with the whole family.

Genres: Parenting, Nonfiction, Childrens, Cookbooks, Cooking, Adult, Food

144 pages, Paperback

Published January 28, 2020

About the author

Malina Malkani, MS, RDN, CDN, is a pediatric registered dietitian and the bestselling author of Safe and Simple Food Allergy Prevention: A Baby-Led Feeding Guide to Starting Solids and Introducing Top Allergens with 80 Family-Friendly Recipes, and Simple & Safe Baby-Led Weaning: How to Integrate Foods, Master Portion Sizes, and Identify Allergies. She is also a sought-after speaker and single mom of three behind the Instagram and TikTok handle @healthy.mom.healthy.kids. A top nutrition influencer dedicated to educating her audience of over 140,000 followers about infant and childhood nutrition, Malina is a nationally recognized, trusted expert in the media who has appeared as a guest in outlets such as Good Morning, America (ABC), The Doctors (CBS), CNN, and Sirius XM Doctor Radio. She owns a nutrition consulting company, top pediatric nutrition blog, and New York-based private practice, all of which help caregivers nourish their babies, kids, (and themselves!) with confidence.

Reviews

[Alicia Bayer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmmm.... As a mom of five, I've read an awful lot of nutrition and parenting books over the years. I'm not a big fan of this one. It's basically a primer of all the foods you can give your baby as finger foods (meats, egg, toast, soft cooked veggies, little pieces of fruit, etc.) and lots of information about how important it is to do it starting at age 6 months. After 7 months, the author warns us the WHO has determined, it's "too late"!

The author is a dietician who suffers from the classic American expert syndrome of talking as if every expert until this year was ridiculously wrong and now we know everything there is to know. Sorry, but haven't we learned by now that we are continually learning new things when it comes to nutrition, science, allergies, etc.? Was the year 2019 magic? Now we know the final word and the book of science will be closed? Hmmm.

I also take issue with the author regarding organic foods, which she says studies show are not any healthier or better tasting and are just better for the environment. She doesn't even recommend going organic for tofu (which is one of about 20 foods with a double page spread showing how to cut it and saying why it's good for baby), which is all GMO if you're not buying organic. She does not mention concerns about genetically modified foods at all, for that matter.

There are pictures of each food showing it cut into tiny pieces or long pieces, which is handy if you need to know how to chop up your kiwi bit. Formula and breastfeeding are treated equally. There is no talk about the health benefits of breastmilk. There is an awful lot of fear-mongering and expert talk though. Oh, and food sensitivities are mostly not real. There's just a half a page about that (mostly dismissive, not good information on how to spot them). Again, hmmm.

This isn't one that I'll be recommending. It might be a good one to check out of the library, but be sure to read it with a wide variety of other resources for balance.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher for the purpose of review.

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is based on the method of Gill Rapley, but gives additional information on kinds of foods, portion sizes and allergies - as the subtitle suggests.

My expectations were exactly that, and to find what I missed in Rapley’s book. Malkani gives the exact same info but in fewer words, doesn’t repeat herself endlessly and is clear with her chapters.
I hoped to get more information on what (and how) to offer foods to certain ages, so what to start with at 6 months and how to continue or grow on this until the first year. I have not gotten an exact answer on this, which i know is hard to give, since every child develops differently. She does give some guidelines to this by stating all the different kinds of food that are safe to offer placed in three categories and then different advisements for the “palmar grip” and “pincer grip”, which indicates the state of development (i.e. age). This indeed is an addition to Rapley’s book that is, in my opinion, necessary before you start introducing solid foods to your child.

My advice: read both books in this order for a complete take on the method. Both books state the same fundamentals but they both elaborate on different (but important) things.

[Gabriele MaZa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like a summary of blw main points. As it is so brief, I recommend this book 😊

[Kassie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic! Very practical advice and excellent straight forward step by step instructions. My baby is a confident eater and I don't worry about her choking. I still watch her, of course, but I trust that she knows what she's doing, and I'm confident in preparing foods for her. 💪

[Lindsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent overview of BLW and a good resource to have on hand but it was very short and most of it was just how to serve certain foods which can easily be found online.

[Chloe Bemis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this in one sitting - short but detailed! Very straightforward and helpful. Will reread sections as we get closer to starting solids.

[Niccola Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read as a Dietitian and first time mum in preparation for my baby starting solids.

Practical and evidence based advice. This book doesn’t feel like it’s trying to prove anything, just provide well researched, easy to understand information.

Lots of practical food suggestions and ways to prepare foods based on developmental milestones.

Good information to support introduction of allergens.

I would recommend and will likely be referring back to this one.

[Ashley Cornell · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really excited to start BLW with my little one, but this book actually kind of turned me off of it. It had some good information for when we do finger foods down the line, but a sample meal plan or more specific information about starting the process would have been great instead of showing me how to cut a bunch of different foods into the same shape.

[Marga Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some outdated information regarding readiness for introduction of solids, but overall very helpful and practical for a first time mom!

[Sarah Carter · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredibly helpful resource for introducing babies to solids. Answered a lot of my questions and made me more confident in feeding my child. I also love the to scale pictures of servings and emphasis on plant-based iron sources. It is a well-designed book.

[Catherine Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

cutest book! not applicable to my life right now but it was good, informative, & helpful. i have no other books of its type to compare it to but i would recommend this to a new mother.

[Sarah Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very helpful, quick overview of BLW, nutrition, and food preparation. It offers only a quick overview of the research, and then moved into ideas for balanced meals.

[Jessica Marsh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has made me really excited to start our BLW journey in about a month! I am glad that I read it prior to starting because I learned so much!

[Kimi · Rating 2 out of 5]

This could have been an article. I was hoping for something that leaned more heavily into the how-to portion.

[Krithika · Rating 2 out of 5]

Could’ve been a blog post.

[Krista Winward Flinders · Rating 4 out of 5]

A practical resource I’ll be coming back to. Easily digestible and beautiful images.

[michaela · Rating 4 out of 5]

the visuals were so helpful and there was lots of little ~recipes~ that baby enjoyed

[Kate Grumme · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not totally sure what I was hoping to get from this book.. there were some helpful tips but I’ll probably still have to google. -anxious mom

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informational, I like the visuals, I’ve learned BLW is a bit more anxiety inducing than I thought it would be 😅

[Jamie Fuson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Helpful just to calm my nerves about starting solids- quick and easy read and able to reference back if needed

[Faith Buck · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is simple, practical, and helpful to anyone who is introducing their baby to food. As a fellow RDN (dietitian), I will be referencing this for myself and recommending it to others for years to come!

[Kayla Ziesmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the visuals!

[Claudio · Rating 2 out of 5]

Somehow I could not connect with this book.
I learned more from 20 minutes on Youtube.

Beautiful graphic, nice illustrations.

[Sarah Grider · Rating 4 out of 5]

*I was given this book for free from the publisher* I found this book very straight forward and helpful to explain BLW. I appreciated the examples and pictures, and I especially liked the balanced meal ideas. I would have liked a suggestion for what order to introduce different categories of food. Like another reviewer said this book is "woo" free.

[Hannah • So Obsessed With · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

I appreciated the portion size and serving suggestions that were pictured to scale, I found the overall book lacking. It didn't make me feel more confident about baby-led weaning or fully addresses some of my questions and concerns. I So Liked It for a basic overview, but not as a go-to resource. This is one I'd suggest getting from the library, rather than buying.

[Zee M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely appreciate a primer book that doesn’t go on forever. I could take issue with the lack of coverage or glossing over of certain topics but I feel like I got what I wanted out of this book and there are plenty of resources for more in-depth discussion on specific topics (I.e. food allergies)

[Bonnie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The information in this book was useful, but didn’t really justify the length of an w rite book. I was mostly interested in the to scale photos of the foods but they weren’t as helpful in practice as I’d hope. I ultimately felt this book was a waste of money for the amount of use I got out of it.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I followed the author on instagram and really enjoyed her personality. I found her instagram to be VERY helpful. The book is very cut and dry. Emphasis on simple. Worth checking out at the library but not for purchase.

[Jessica Stevens · Rating 3 out of 5]

Has great information if you want to start BLW. However, I would also suggest watching some videos about it as well, since I feel like this book didn't include absolutely everything. But it's a great place to start!

[Jennie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful pictures and some good info but I still feel left adrift about how to know if my baby is ready to start.