Feeding your baby is all about trial and error. If you breastfeed, will the baby latch, will your supply be enough, will something you eat affect your baby? Formula feeding is no easier — what type and brand will your baby like, what bottle will they prefer? It’s stressful! But when they get a little older and try solid food, it’s a little more fun. Trying puréed pears and peas and bananas and carrots — it’s so cute seeing them explore these new flavors! Seasoned mom-of-four Hilary Duff is taking it one step further, though. She gave her 7-month-old baby Townes a decidedly unconventional dinner, and she already shared a message for any mom-shamers who might judge her for it.
“If your [sic] vegan maybe skip this story today!” the How I Met Your Father star, who shares Townes and daughters Banks, 6, and Mae, 3, with husband Matthew Koma, warned followers on her Instagram story on Tuesday. (PEOPLE has screenshots HERE.) Once every potential hater was warned, she explained what her daughter was eating.
“Starting with steak on the 4th child ☺️,” Duff wrote. “Purées ain’t doing it for her.” Steak?! And this isn’t some kind of blended, steak-juice situation. It’s an actual hunk of meat the baby is gnawing on in her highchair. She babbles and swings the steak around, with tiny bits of meat running down her chin and all over her arms, clearly loving it. As she chews it, she shrieks with happiness, making Duff laugh in the background.
While you wouldn’t necessarily think of babies and steak as going well together, it’s not that far off from baby-led weaning in which parents skip spoons and creamy foods and give their baby soft finger-foods instead. Dr. Katherine Williamson, a pediatrician in Orange County, California, previously told SheKnows, “I like the concept of baby-led weaning because I think, in general, it has that concept in mind that your baby is taking an active role in feeding themselves. They’re touching the food, they’re having a relationship with the food. Their brain knows that their hand is touching the food, can feel that texture. I love that.”
That’s exactly what Townes is doing. Even if she won’t devour the whole chunk of meat, she’s still learning and exploring it and tasting it (and loving it!). Just make sure not to offer known choking hazard foods, like whole grapes, hot dogs, hard veggies, and more. But other than that, follow your baby’s lead if they want solids or purées. “This is a philosophy I adhere to with food whether they’re babies or toddlers or older: Follow the baby’s cue,” Williamson told us. “If the baby doesn’t like purées, go for the chunky. If the baby doesn’t like the chunky, go for the purée.”
It seems like Townes is definitely a chunky-food baby. In a recent interview with PEOPLE, the “With Love” singer revealed that she recently took her youngest daughter to a chef friend’s house, where she ate “a big glob” of gourmet quiche and started “choking a little.”
“Normally, I’d be panicked,” Duff said, “and now I’m waiting, waiting, ‘Oh good, you worked it out.’ You know what I mean? There’s just a coolness to me, finally, on the fourth kid that makes life a lot more tolerable right now.”
The 37-year-old, who is also mom to son Luca, 12, with ex-husband Mike Comrie, welcomed her sweet, chubby-cheeked baby on May 3. “Townes Meadow Bair 🧸 , now we know why she made us wait so long … She was perfecting those Cheeks!” Duff announced this spring, sharing pictures of her labor and water birth with baby Townes.
“I Have been dreaming of holding you in my arms for months and the past 5 days of getting to know you, stare at you and smell you has been pure moments of magic,” Duff wrote. “We all love you like you’ve been here all along beauty.”
Now it seems like Townes fully fits in with the family. Earlier this month, the Lizzie McGuire alum shared pictures from Thanksgiving break, with all four kids picking out a Christmas tree, going to an arcade, and seeing Moana 2. “Been a busy break. Filled with flu. Adventure. Flu. Lots of plans. and thank the high heavens school is back in session 😅” she captioned the post.
Townes is so busy, she doesn’t have time for normal baby stuff! She’s gotta keep up with those older siblings, clearly.
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