Rapley Weaning .com

Baby-led Weaning: The fuss-free way to introduce solid foods

Books

DVDs

Welcome!

I'm so pleased you've found this website. It's intended as a focal point for queries - to lead you to where you can learn more - rather than as a place to find out everything you ever wanted to know about parenting and BLW, but our books are a great place to start! The latest, available from July 2014, is Baby-led Parenting, a practical guide to understanding your baby and being the parent he or she really needs. Baby-led Breastfeeding will help you understand how breastfeeding works and how to get it to work for you, while the best place to get information about BLW is from the original Baby-led Weaning (as well as from the forums and blogs written by parents who are doing it). And of course, there's the BLW Cookbook, too.

URGENT: Help needed. Dr Amy Brown, a researcher at Swansea University, is exploring incidences of choking and gagging amongst babies. The aim of her study is to explore the factors that might be associated with babies gagging or choking on solids, such as method of feeding (BLW or spoon), type of food, or wider factors surrounding the mealtime. It also looks at frequency of choking and gagging according to the method of weaning, as well as the baby's age and physical development. It is hoped that this pilot study may lead towards more in-depth research and, eventually, definitive health guidelines for infants weaned following a baby-led approach. Participation in the study is open to mothers (or fathers who are the primary caregiver) with a baby who has started solid foods and is under twelve months old - whether or not the baby has ever choked and/or gagged.

The questionnaire will ask some general background questions about you and your baby before moving onto questions about your baby's physical development, your baby's diet and any incidences of your baby choking or gagging on food. It will take around 10 minutes to complete - less if your baby has never choked or gagged on a food and a little longer if they have. Any information that you give will only be used for the purposes of the study, and will be kept confidential. The questionnaire can be found here. If you have any questions regarding the study please don't hesitate to contact Dr Brown, at a.e.brown@swansea.ac.uk.

Meanwhile, the buttons on the left will take you to:

Information on all our books
Information about three useful DVDs on BLW (which are now also available as mobile apps)
A simple 'how to' leaflet, which you are welcome to download, print and share
Basic BLW guidelines, with a brief explanation of the rationale behind them
Details of the textbook in which there is a chapter about BLW
A bit of background about me
Links to just a few of the many websites and blogs about BLW
The email address for this site

Research into BLW is gathering pace! As well as Amy Brown's work in Swansea, there is lots going on in at the University of Otago in New Zealand and some serious interest from researchers in Canada. Meanwhile, my own study, comparing spoon feeding with self-feeding from the baby's point of view, is nearing completion - all very exciting!

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