Funded by: MIUR - Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Università e della Ricerca (PRIN 2022, grant number 2022S8PEY7)

Partners: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Sapienza Università di Roma

Web site: www.progettospoon.com

Description: The complementary feeding period, i.e., when infants are introduced to foods and liquids different from milk, has crucial consequences for physical, cognitive, and socio-emotional well-being. In many industrialised societies, the first solids that mothers offer to infants are puréed foods on a spoon (“parent-led weaning”, PLW). In the last 15 years, there has been a rise in “baby-led weaning” (BLW), an alternative approach which is based on the infant independently eating finger foods, participating in family meals, and setting the pace and the amount of food eaten. This proposal aims to assess, for the first time, whether 4-year-old children who were exposed – between 6 and 12 months of age to the BLW approach have better outcomes, in terms of cognitive, motor and language development, self-regulation, mindreading skills, and eating behaviour, than children who were exposed to the PLW approach. Additionally, we aim to evaluate whether, during preschool years, families who employed a BLW approach have more sustainable food habits than families who chose a PLW approach during infancy. We will conduct a study on a sample of 4 year-old typically developing children (N = 180). These same children participated in a longitudinal study on the relationship between the complementary feeding approach and infant development from 4 to 24 months of age, carried out by our research team (PRIN 2017WH8B84 to E. Addessi and F. Bellagamba). In the current proposal, primary outcomes will include both parent-report and observational measures of children’s cognitive, motor and language development, self-regulation, mindreading skills, and eating behaviour, along with information on parental sustainable food habits. Predictors will be both a parent-report and an observational measure of the complementary feeding approach employed at 8 months of age. As covariates, we will consider a range of factors that may influence the outcomes (as breast-feeding history, childcare attendance, physical activity, sleeping habits, media and book exposure, maternal stress).