How to Buy a Good, Safe High Chair, Feeding Spoon, Bibs, etc

How to Buy a Good, Safe High Chair, Feeding Spoon, Bibs, etc

February 22nd, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments

When it comes to baby gear, especially baby food and safety related items, a spur of the moment decision should be avoided. Check reviews and always consider the safety aspects of feeding items as your child will be spending a great deal of time over the next years in the high chair – you want to be sure you have a safe one.

The High Chair

A high chair should be sturdy, well constructed and easy to clean. One of the hidden dangers of many high chairs is the amount of food that gets trapped under frills and flounces and encourages bacteria growth. Fashion should be a final consideration when it comes to a high chair with safety and ease of use coming in first and second respectively.

Safe High Chairs

The safest high chairs offer multiple levels of restraint. This means that your baby might be strapped with the safety straps around the legs, and then further prevented from movement by a t-shaped opening at the legs. When the tray is snapped on, she should be good and trapped. This seems outlandish when you first put your six month old in the high chair for a bite of carrots. But a toddler in a high chair can be a recipe for injury or at least disaster if he is able to get lose and climb or fall down when you turn to refill his plate.

A safe high chair also has a wide base which keeps the high chair from tipping. Again the active toddler can rock until he falls in a flimsy high chair or he might pull it on top of himself if he attempts to climb. A safe high chair also allows for easy cleaning to prevent trapped food and the growth of bacteria. Fluffy cloth covers and deep grooves make cleaning a high chair difficult.

The tray on a high chair is one of the most critical parts for keeping your baby in the right position and for properly displaying food. If possible, consider a high chair with a removable tray insert that you can wash in the dishwasher for sterilization after meals. This will also help with cleaning the chair. The tray should lock on strongly and not be knocked loose with an enthusiastic kick. A one-handed release is a nice feature as well when trying to handle multiple things at meal-time.

Longevity

A high chair is a large piece of baby gear, and ideally you can use it for a long time. To do so, however, you’ll need to find a high-chair that is versatile. Look for a deep reclining feature. While your child should be able to sit up to eat, you can use the high chair well before this point to offer your baby a higher view of the world around her. As your baby grows, you should be able to tip the seat back up and adjust the straps and tray to fit his growing body. A portable high chair can help you when it comes time to travel or just eat away from home, but never trade portability for safety.

Other Meal Equipment

Other meal items such as utensils, bibs and dishes should be purchased with safety and cleanliness in mind. Buy dishes that are sturdy enough to be thrown on a tile floor time and time again and utensils should be suited for small hands and mouths. Metal utensils pose more risk than plastic, so you may opt to save metal utensils for the toddler years.

All baby food items should be microwave and dishwasher safe to give you increased options for cleaning and sterilizing the items after every meal. Bibs should be made of a material that can be easily washed. Wash bibs after each use and if you use a plastic bib, use a mild detergent and a piece of clean cloth to wipe it off – a dishrag can introduce germs and other forms of bacteria.

Tips for Happy Eating

Tips for Happy Eating

February 22nd, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments

Mealtime should be one of joy and fun – not harping or frustration. To keep mealtimes happy, you should approach each with a sense of fun, not duty. Helping your baby reach his nutritional requirements should be fun – not work.

Prepare and Focus

Prepare all of the necessary items beforehand so that you can focus on your child exclusively during the meal. It’s distracting to be hopping up and down for a missing spoon or bib while trying to bond and enjoy your baby over a dish of applesauce.

Eat as a Family

Nothing will please your baby more than to eat with the family. Pull the high chair up to the table and have your child sit alongside his siblings or with just his parents as they eat each meal of the day. If you aren’t able to feed your baby while eating yourself, you can feed him before dinner and then allow him to sample mashed table foods or play with a cup of water during the actual meal – he’ll simply enjoy being around family. As he starts eating finger foods, eating with the family will become much easier, and it’s nice to have the routine already established.

Never Force

You should never force your children to eat anything. Provide only healthy options for snacks and meals and allow them to eat what they want, when they want. A snack should be small with larger servings of different foods at mealtimes, but grazing, or eating small meals frequently, is perfectly normal for children and many adults. Making food a battleground simply removes any pleasure from the meal all together. If your child is being obstinate about eating any food at all at mealtimes, allow him to go hungry until the next normal meal or snack and serve him a normal portion then. Unless there is a medial issue or he’s filling up on unhealthy snacks, he’ll eat when he’s hungry and forcing it won’t truly help matters.

Make Food Fun

To make mealtimes fun, you should focus on making food fun as well. Have your older toddler help in the kitchen. Older children can make entire dishes on their own and toddlers can help with stirring or adding ingredients. Letting your child help prepare the food makes it much more fun and interesting to eat. Arranging the food colorfully on the plate is also greatly entertaining for children – even adults love eating pancakes designed like smiling faces.

Pay Attention to Signals

Your nonverbal child will send you signals that he is filling up or is no longer interested in his meal. When he starts playing with his food or throwing it on the ground, he’s not hungry enough to eat it and you can remove a source of frustration by taking his plate and offering him a toy to play with instead. This allows him to stay at the table with the rest of the family, but you won’t have to scramble to clean up a huge mess at every meal.

How to Quickly, Easily, and Safely Make Your Own Baby Food

How to Quickly, Easily, and Safely Make Your Own Baby Food

February 22nd, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments

Making your own baby food is an easy way to save money, to introduce your child to the same foods your family eats and to control what items you’re feeding your child. Making your own baby food is simple – you’ll need something to process the food such as a hand mill, blender or food processor. You’ll want storage containers such as ice cube trays as you can freeze baby food to keep it fresh much longer than storing it in the refrigerator.

Selecting Food Items

The majority of baby foods made at home include fruits and vegetables. To get the safest produce, you might opt to buy organic as these items will be free of pesticides and other toxins used in growing commercials plants. But you have the option to use fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables. Use fresh fruits and vegetables very soon and freeze the extra portions to ensure they are stored safely. Avoid vegetables high in nitrates such as carrots, beets, green beans and squash. You might use the organic varieties of these or buy them frozen as nitrates are less likely to appear in the frozen varieties.

Prepare the Raw Ingredients

To prepare the vegetables and some fruits, such as apples for the food processor, you’ll need to cook them. You can cook them until soft by steaming, baking or boiling. If you elect to boil the vegetables, use as little water as possible and pour as much as possible back into the blender with the rest of the food item. Remove peels, pits and seeds from applicable food items.

Preparing Fruits and Vegetables

To prepare the baby food, place the soft fruits and vegetables into a food processor, blender, or food mill. Add a bit of liquid – water, formula or breastmilk and puree until the mixture is smooth and soupy. If the food has small seeds, be sure to strain it before serving. Most preparations produce more than a single serving of food, so place the extra into ice cube trays, freeze and then store in freezer bags. You can simply thaw the item to have freshly prepared baby food at any time.

Preparing Grains

You can puree grains as well. Rice and millet can be cooked according to package instructions and then ground in a food mill or blender until smooth.

Preparing Meats

To make meat dishes for baby, you must first remove the skin and as much fat as possible from the piece of meat. Cook the meat and then place it into the hand mill or food processor. Add a bit of water and puree or grind it up. Older babies can handle the meat if it is cut up into very small pieces.

Storing Baby Food

As mentioned, you can freeze the extra portions of baby food and store them in the freezer. Ice cube trays make a nice serving size and are easy to use. Keeping the frozen food cubes in plastic bags allows you to label each with the date. You can keep fruits and vegetables for up to eight months if solidly frozen and meats and grains store up to two months.

The Importance of Mealtimes

The Importance of Mealtimes

February 22nd, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments

When your baby is young, she eats when she is hungry. As she grows, her feedings might start to fall into a typical routine, but as she begins eating table foods, she should have firmly established mealtimes.

Solid Foods

As your baby begins eating solids, she is still getting the vast majority of her nutrition from formula or breastmilk. It is only over time as she eats full meals of solids that a shift will occur between milk and solids as the primary form of nutrition. Regardless of how much she needs the solids, once they are introduced, you should be feeding your child at mealtimes rather than sporadically throughout the day.

By a year, your child should be taking a cup or bottle only a couple of times a day and eating three full meals. She should also be enjoying two snacks a day – one in the midmorning and one in the mid afternoon. Toddlers have a small stomach and not much appetite on average. Serving many small meals of solid baby foods including healthy snacks is the best way to get all of the daily nutrients into her small system.

Establish Healthy Habits

One of the healthiest food habits you can have is to treat your food with respect. This is something you can help your child learn by taking mealtime seriously and not sabotaging meals with snacks too close to the meal or with distractions from the food at hand. Sitting down together for a meal as a family helps children eat healthier and encourages healthy relationships as well. Your baby will love being part of the family at mealtimes and will enjoy her own food more in your company – especially once she’s able to eat the same items you’re eating.

A Healthy Variety

Snacks should be one or two items offered in small portions, but a meal can include up to a third of the day’s caloric requirements. You should serve a variety of food at each meal to give your child an option of what to eat and to make picky eaters less trouble at mealtimes. So long as there are healthy options on the plate, you don’t need to trouble yourself about which options your picky toddler is choosing. Over the course of a few days, your child is likely eating all that is necessary – even it is one choice at each meal.

Establish a Comfortable Routine

Children of all ages are comfortable in a routine. Knowing when to expect at certain parts of the day makes them feel more at ease as they go about their day. The typical day for any child is anchored by mealtimes. If you have breakfast, lunch and dinner in a steady fashion day in and day out, you’ll be going a long way to giving your child the kind of structure she craves and you’ll be allowing her to live her life with an undistracted focus on play and discovery.

The Amount of Foods Your Baby Should Be Eating

The Amount of Foods Your Baby Should Be Eating

February 22nd, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments

The amount of food your baby requires varies a great deal not only from one developmental stage to the next, but also among babies of the same size and age. Many conditions play into the nutritional requirements of babies, and the best way to determine if the child’s needs are being met is through growth and measurement patterns. If your child is eating a balanced children diet and growing well, you can rest assured he’s likely getting what he needs.

While this is comforting, many parents still prefer to average their child’s food intake at different age. This becomes more important as children reach their first birthday and are taking the bulk of their nutrition from solid baby foods. When trying to help your child meet the minimum requirements for a toddler, be sure to average three days to a week at a time rather than focusing on each day. In a given day a toddler might seem to eat next to nothing in a particular food group, but then compensate by eating large amounts the next day.

Birth to Four Months

From birth, babies are fed breastmilk, formula or a combination of the two. The breastfed baby is eating eight to twelve times a day at random intervals and the formula fed baby is eating six to eight times a day on more regular intervals. The breastfed baby should be nursing ten to forty minutes in a sitting and the formula fed baby should be consuming 16 to 32 ounces on average.

Four to Six Months

The breastfed baby continues on the same track, but with reduced feedings. Occasionally longer stretches of feeding will occur offering you signs that your baby might be ready for a supplement to breastmilk. The formula-fed baby is eating 24-36 ounces of formula on average.

Six to Nine Months

Beginning at six months, the amount of formula and breastmilk should hold steady as you introduce solids. Introduce the solid foods slowly and let your child eat as much as she wants at mealtimes. She is still getting the bulk of her nutrition from milk and formula at this stage, but increasingly she is gaining essential vitamins and nutrients from the solid food. All told, she should have:

  • Breastmilk or formula (24-34 oz.)
  • Half cup of iron-fortified baby cereal per day
  • Soft mashed, ripe or soft-cooked fruits or veggies
  • Strained meats

Ten to Twelve Months

As your child becomes more adaptable with finger foods and is able to eat larger portions from a spoon, her needs for milk or formula will decrease. This means getting a balance of nutrients from solids is even more important as they are becoming the bulk of her diet.

  • Breastmilk or formula (16 – 24 oz.)
  • Cereal, toast, bagels, crackers, dry cereal, whole grain bread, pasta, rice, cooked grains, muffins
  • Fresh, peeled ripe, soft-cooked fruits and veggies
  • You can now also add egg yolk, yogurt and soft-cooked beans

After One Year

At a year, your child might be eating voraciously or starting to slow down as her rate of growth slows. At the minimum, your toddler should be eating:

  • 2 cups of milk (you can switch to whole milk at one year)
  • 4 servings of fruits (a serving is 1-2 tablespoons)
  • 2 servings of meat or the equivalent (a serving is 1-2 tablespoons)
  • 4 servings of breads and cereals (a serving is one quarter of an adult serving)

Be sure that your child gets at least one fruit or vegetable with vitamin C and another with vitamin A every day, and that at least one grain be a serving of iron-fortified cereal.

Minimizing the Likelihood of Food Allergies and Digestive Problems

Minimizing the Likelihood of Food Allergies and Digestive Problems

February 22nd, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments

Babies born to a parent with allergies have a 48% chance of having their own version of allergies. Children born to two parents with allergies have a 70% chance of a similar food allergy. Despite the care that parents are taking to follow proper guidelines regarding food and infancy, the instances of allergies continue to rise. In 2006, 6.8 million children suffered from some kind of allergy and these children are two to four times more likely to have related conditions such as allergies or asthma as well.

Cleanliness and Allergies

One of the factors that many scientists are pointing to as leading the increase in allergies is the cleanliness with which we raise our children. In ultra-sterile environments, babies don’t come into contact with many forms of bacteria and food items which is believed to lead to allergies to the said food items later in life. This theory is supported by a recent study on nuts. 8,600 Jewish children in the UK and Israel were studied. It was found that those who did not consume nuts in early childhood were ten times more likely to develop a nut allergy.

If this is the case, it would seem that our efforts to remove potential allergens from a child’s diet backfires and causes them to be more allergenic in the end. Most disturbing is the thought that the more sterile your home, the more allergy prone your child will become.

Proper Food Introduction

Many babies display food sensitivities at a young age. These are similar to, but are not actually allergies. The food sensitivity will disappear over time while the allergy will remain for a lifetime. To test for food sensitivities and allergies, you should begin introducing fruits, vegetables, grains and meat between six months and a year of age. Introduce the foods one at a time to make it easier to spot a food that might be causing a problem.

Diarrhea and a slight rash is a sign of a food sensitivity. If this is the case, simply mark that food off the list for six months before trying it again. Swelling, hives, and difficulty breathing are signs of a food allergy. Discuss the situation with the doctor and then you’ll likely remove that food item from your child’s diet.

After one year, babies can try cow’s milk, eggs, chocolate, strawberries, citrus fruit and soy. At two years you can introduce eggs and as your child approaches three, he is ready for nuts and fish. Remain vigilant about trying new foods, and carefully consider delaying foods more than the standard recommendation of time if you are trying to prevent allergies – you might very well introduce one. This might also be true for avoiding foods in pregnancy. Early exposure in the womb might help to offset future allergies as well.

How to Prevent Choking and Gagging

How to Prevent Choking and Gagging

February 20th, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments

One of the very real dangers that comes with the introduction of solid baby foods in babies is choking. In fact, gagging and choking are among the most prevalent dangers for children of any age. It is impossible to prevent all risks associated with gagging, but you can be prepared and take steps to minimize the likelihood.

Get Trained

Your first step is to take an infant CPR and choking course. Food is by far not the only item that will go into your child’s mouth, so a course on how to handle any object in a choking situation is well worth the time. You can take the course while preparing for your child’s birth or soon after, but it is extremely beneficial to all parents.

A course will show you the correct way to handle a gagging or choking baby – and the procedure changes as your child ages. Knowing what do to in an emergency is just as important – perhaps more so – than attempting to prevent it from ever occurring.

The Difference Between Choking and Gagging

There is a substantial difference between choking and gagging. Many children gag as they learn to control their tongues and swallowing mechanisms. Gagging happens with alarming frequency for many children, although once a month is frequent – not once a day or week. Choking is a situation where an obstruction has entered the airway and can not be easily dislodged. Choking is life-threatening as air supply is being cut-off and knowing how to handle the situation can save your child’s life as there is often no time to wait for paramedics to arrive in a severe situation.

Avoiding Gagging and Choking

Both gagging and choking occur when objects or food obstructs or come too close to the airway. Gagging is a reflex when food comes too close to the back of the throat without swallowing and choking is a true blockage. Gagging is usually resolved by the child coughing or moving the food away from the back of his mouth on his own – interfering too early can make gagging more serious than it is, so watch your child to see if he can clear the problem on his own first.

Feed Small Bites

When spoon feeding your child, offer him small bites. Loading up a spoon might make the meal go faster, but it will also give your baby more food to handle in his tiny mouth. Small bites are easier to handle and allow them to swallow safely.

Avoid Thick Foods

Thick cereals such as rice or oatmeal and other foods such as peanut butter are thick and tend to be sticky inside the mouth. When feeding your baby cereals, make them creamy – not clumpy to be sure they won’t be too hard for your little one to handle. Peanut butter should be avoided for at least one year and then spread very thinly to avoid thick clumps that can be potentially dangerous.

Cut Finger Foods

Finger foods are the first food stage where true choking is a very real possibly. The two worst foods for choking are two childhood favorites – hot dogs and grapes. To make these a finger food, you should cut them, but avoid cutting them across only. Making circles out of the food just makes it more perfect for filling up an airway. Cut the food across into circles and then lengthwise as well to make smaller pieces which are both easier to eat and less likely to exactly fill your child’s airway.

Skip Hard Items

Children and even adults can have difficulties with hard foods such as nuts, popcorn, and hard candy. These items should be avoided ideally until your child is closer to six or seven and then eaten sparingly to reduce risk under close supervision.

Dealing With Fussy Eaters

Dealing With Fussy Eaters

February 20th, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments

Fussy eaters can be frustrating to parents, especially when you can’t determine why your child is fussing over his bottle or his plate. Fussy eating can be cause for concern or it might be perfectly normal – it is just one of the trials of parenthood to determine the cause of your child’s eating problem.

Fussy Eaters During Infancy

The baby who fusses over a bottle has a legitimate reason a resounding majority of the time. The younger the baby is, the more likely there is truly a problem. Fussy eating at this stage might indicate:

  • Your baby has a digestive disorder or condition such as acid reflux that makes eating painful.
  • Your baby has a milk or soy allergy that causes discomfort or pain while eating or immediately after.
  • Your baby prefers one feeding method. Many babies love the breast and balk at the bottle, while others prefer the bottle after it’s been introduced and refuse to nurse.
  • Your baby is teething. Once babies start to cut teeth around six months, they might start fussing on the bottle or breast because the sucking hurts their tender gums.
  • Your baby has an ear infection. Sucking hurts the inner ear if it is already inflamed due to an ear infection. This is true of both nursing and bottle feeding.
  • Your baby prefers another taste. There is a different flavor between formulas and between preparations styles. You can actually smell the difference in many. It might be that your baby likes the taste of formula made from powdered formula, but not the concentrated variety. This tends to happen later in infancy as your child becomes more independent.

If you have a fussy infant at feeding time, speak to your child’s doctor to rule out the possibility of any problems.

Fussy Eaters as Toddlers

Once your child becomes a toddler, there are many other factors to consider. The biggest concern for many parents is when an otherwise voracious eater suddenly stops soon after his first birthday. It seems he’s just picking at his food or barely eating when he used to eat much more at a meal. This is normal for most children and not a sign of picky eating.

Babies roughly triple their size between birth and a year or fifteen months. But from the first year through the third, they grow only a few inches and might only gain three to five pounds. This slowing of growth means their appetite and nutritional requirements slow as well. Your child isn’t eating simply because he isn’t hungry. Offer healthy foods at meals and during snacks and monitor how much he eats over a three day period. Compare this to the requirements for a toddler and you’ll likely see that he’s right on track.

Other times truly fussy eating does develop in toddlers. Toddlers are learning at such as rapid rate, and one of the most entertaining things they learn is how to agitate their parents. If he sees that a food means a lot to you, your toddler might refuse to eat it on principle. To avoid this don’t make mealtime into a battle. Provide an array of healthy foods your child typically enjoys and be content that he is eating healthy foods, even if he’s eating only a bit of one today and refusing it tomorrow.

Finally, toddlers seem to enjoy testing their limits. They relish in the realization that they have a choice as to what and how to eat. They might try out their new found freedom at the dinner table by refusing to eat anything but a certain meal or particular item. Play along as much as possible and work to include all necessary food items in the course of a day. Food strikes and “favorites” grow old after a time for children, so it is best to simply wait them out. If you’re concerned about malnutrition in the week that you child will only eat bread and macaroni, feed him a multivitamin suitable for his age to help carry you through to the next week when he’ll only drink orange juice and chocolate milk.

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