Ashley, a pediatric OT known as @helpinghandsOT on Instagram (*hint - you should totes follow her there) spoke with me this week about all things first foods related. 

Ashley was the perfect person to educate us on this as not only has she been a practicing pediatric occupational therapist for over a decade, but she's holistically minded and also has additional specialities in pediatric feeding and picky eating. Needless to say, I learned a whole bunch during our convo!

During the interview we discussed:

• Signs + cues to look for that your baby is ready to try out some foods
• The age range that typically happens at
• Downsides to feeding too early
• How the mouthing of items is an actual developmental stage for babies + parents should not be overly protective during this time (obviously not saying to be neglectful either!)
• Tips for when first introducing the solids
• Why it's important for the infant to join the family during meal time
• Why purees may not actually be the best food for babies

Resources:

• Highly recommend reading this blog post by Ashley about the Top 10 first foods 
• You can find her website as a whole here: https://helpinghandsot.com/
• I had a past podcast episode (Ep. #7) with speech language pathologist, Shandy titled How to De-escalate Mealtime & Get Your Child to Try New Foods that I think you'll enjoy if you found this one relevant.
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