I realise this is rather a late contribution to this debate, but here goes: I am a health visitor practising in the UK and it has always seemed to me entirely logical that a baby's outward abilities ( e.g. to reach out and grab food and take it to his mouth) would keep pace with his inward abilities (i.e. to produce appropriate enzymes for digestion of said food). We don't decide for our children the age at which they should start to crawl, walk etc. so why should we decide for them when they are ready for solids? (And by the way, there's nothing remotely "solid" about the stuff most people feed their 4 month olds!) What we DO do, though, is give our babies the OPPORTUNITY to crawl by putting them on the floor to play. If we were prepared to give them the same opportunity to feed themselves - i.e. include them in our mealtimes and put food within their reach - they would surely do it themselves from the word go, accuracy increasing with practice. If we were meant to feed our babies with spoons we'd surely have evolved a spoon-shaped finger! I think the idea of "feeding" babies (as opposed to letting them feed themselves) is a bottle feeding thing - as anyone knows who's ever tried to persuade a reluctant baby to take the breast or to feed actively when he just wants to hold on! Breastfeeding babies do the feeding - we simply offer them the opportunity - so why suddenly change? Gill Rapley, IBCLC, UK (new subscriber - thanks Jill!)