Eating Out with Baby: Tips for Less Stress

Eating Out with Baby: Tips for Less Stress

November 22nd, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments

When you first bring your baby to a restaurant at a young age, chances are she will simply fall asleep in her car seat while you eat. But as baby grows, dining out can become a bigger hassle than it’s worth. If you don’t want to give up on restaurant dining, you can still enjoy a meal out without major stress if you go prepared and make a few adjustments to your usual routine.

Choose Your Destination Wisely

Unfortunately, now that you are a parent, some restaurants are probably not a good choice unless you leave the baby at home with a sitter. While most restaurants are somewhat child-friendly and offer high chairs, there are some choices that are better than others. You have every right to have your child in a restaurant, but just as you would expect consideration from other diners, you need to give the same consideration.

Choose a restaurant where you won’t be the only one with a child and aren’t likely to disturb anyone attempting to have a quiet night out. With plenty of family restaurants in all types of cuisine available to choose from, it’s not hard to find a place where your baby will be welcome even if she is a bit on the noisy side.

Restaurants that are accustomed to serving families will also have staff prepared for the special pleasure of having a baby at the table. They will have plenty of high chairs, not mind a little mess, and even offer entertainment options for little ones such as crayons.

Feed Baby First

Depending on how old your baby is, odds are you won’t be ordering baby food from the menu, so there is no real reason for her to wait to eat. When you are seated and have placed your order, go ahead and feed your baby so that she won’t be hungry and therefore fussy. If you are ordering something off the menu for baby, put the order in as soon as you arrive and request that they bring it out as soon as it’s ready.

Reserve some small finger foods or snacks to offer to baby while you are eating in order to keep her occupied, but offer the bulk of her meal early on so that she will be full and satisfied.

Keep Baby Entertained

Showing up at a restaurant without anything to occupy your baby is a recipe for disaster. Keep a variety of toys on hand so that you can dole them out slowly as they are needed. Toys that can be attached to the high chair or table to avoid having to pick them up from the floor repeatedly are a good idea. Keep some toys that are only for eating out so that your baby will be excited to see them and they aren’t old news. It might mean carrying a lot of stuff around, but if the payoff is a relatively peaceful meal, it’s well worth it.

Remember that eating out with a baby will never be quite the same experience that it was before you became a parent. It’s a little more rushed, a little louder and a little messier than it was before. You can still enjoy eating at a restaurant, however, if you go in prepared and are able to take a little chaos in stride.

Favorite Snacks for Babies and Toddlers

Favorite Snacks for Babies and Toddlers

October 24th, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments

When your baby has graduated from breast milk or formula and is eating three meals a day, snacks will become an important part of the daily routine. A small, healthy snack twice a day, usually mid-morning and mid-afternoon can be a healthy addition to your child’s diet as long as you make smart choices that will both please your child and provide important nutrients.

Look for snacks that are kid-friendly, provide sustained energy, and that are easy for your older baby or toddler to eat. Snack time shouldn’t take a long time, or a lot of preparation, so having snacks ready to go will make it easier to choose right.

Favorite Snacks for Older Babies

When your older baby is ready to start snacking, he probably still won’t have all his teeth or be able to chew some of the snack options grown ups enjoy. Still, there are plenty of snack options for babies that are healthy, easy to eat and great tasting too.

Your baby’s favorite snack might be one of his first finger foods. Cheerios, the popular early choice for babies learning to pick up foods with the thumb and forefinger, will continue to be a much-loved snack for some time. They are easily portable, don’t require refrigeration and are made with healthy whole oats. Other similar dry cereals will work just as well, just be sure to watch out for sugar content by reading the nutrition label on the cereal box.

Add some protein to your baby’s snack with small pieces of cheese, which will be very popular with older babies. Use caution to cut the pieces small enough to avoid a choking hazard – try cutting thin strips rather than cubes or chunks. Yogurt is another excellent snack option for older babies that adds protein.

Bananas are an excellent snack choice that babies love. One of his first baby foods, he can now handle slices of banana, which are easy for him to hold and also soft enough to prevent a choking hazard.

Favorite Snacks for Toddlers

Once your toddler has cut her molars, a whole new world of food opens up, and that translates to snacks as well. Favorite toddler snacks will be a little more advanced than those you offered her as a baby. Now is the time to look to all kinds of fresh fruits and vegetables, and take previously loved snacks a little further.

Popular snacks with the toddler crowd include thin cut apple slices – add some peanut butter or a yogurt dip for a little extra protein, berries such as blueberries, strawberries and raspberries, and grapes (cut up as they are still a choking hazard). Your toddler may also be ready for some raw veggies, such as thin carrot sticks and cucumber slices.

Toddlers still love cheese, and you can now offer slices paired with healthy whole grain crackers. Mix it up with different types of cheese for new tastes. Try melting cheese on the crackers in your toaster oven, and topping it with a small chunk of tomato for a different twist on a traditional snack.

The ability to self-feed with a spoon makes a cup of yogurt or applesauce an even more appealing snack for both mom and toddler alike. She will love feeling like a grown-up eating her own snack, and you will be free to get other things done!

Snack time for babies and toddlers is a great time for fun foods that are both healthy and delicious. The purpose of snacks is to keep your child going in between meals, so keep them small – remember it’s just a snack, not a second lunch!

The Best First Finger Foods

The Best First Finger Foods

October 10th, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments

Around 8-10 months of age, most babies will be ready to try finger foods. Every baby is a little different, however, so it’s more important to watch for the signs of readiness than to be concerned with your baby’s age. As with most milestones, some babies will be ready early while others won’t start finger foods until later. Don’t worry if your baby isn’t ready even by 10 months – it will happen soon enough!

Signs of Readiness for Finger Foods

In order to be ready for finger foods, your baby must have all of the same signs of readiness for solids, as well as a few other skills. Your baby should be able to sit up in a high chair without extra support, and should hold her head up without any difficulty. The tongue thrust reflex that causes babies to automatically push baby food out of the mouth to avoid choking should disappear around 6 months of age, but again every baby is different. This reflex should be gone before you offer baby finger foods.

The major skill your baby will need in order to start finger foods is the ability to actually pick up the food and get it into her mouth. At first, your baby will use her entire fist to gather up and grab food from her tray, and then attempt to shove it into her mouth. Gradually, however, she will start to use her fingers individually, and eventually adapt a pincer grasp – in which she will use her forefinger and thumb as a “pincer” to pick up food one piece at a time and bring it to her mouth. Although you can let your baby practice before she really gets the pincer grasp, it is one of the best signs of readiness for finger foods.

Choosing Finger Foods for Baby

The best finger foods for babies have a few things in common: they are easy to pick up, they are soft or will easily become soft in the mouth, and they do not present a choking hazard. To test a food before giving it to your baby, put it in your mouth and use only your tongue and the roof of your mouth to mash it. See how quickly it becomes soft and how easy it is to mash without using your teeth. Foods that dissolve easily and don’t require teeth to break up are good finger food choices for baby.

Some of the classic first finger foods for babies include dry cereal (such as Cheerios), small pieces of soft fruit or cooked vegetables (peas are perfect as they are small, easy to grasp, and mash easily without teeth) and pasta. Choose small types of pasta such as elbow macaroni or shells, and cook it very well (softer than al dente, which is how adults normally eat pasta) so that it will be easy for baby to mash in his mouth. While you might prefer your pasta in a sauce, it’s best to skip it when serving pasta to baby as a finger food. Sauces can make the pasta more slippery and hard for your baby to grip. They will also make the feeding process a lot messier!

Crackers that dissolve easily are another great idea for first finger foods. Choose low-sodium saltines or graham crackers, both of which become soft quickly when moistened. There are also some crackers on the market aimed at babies, but beware of teething biscuits, which are entirely different! Soft, small pieces of cheese are another excellent finger food, but be sure to cut them small as cubes of cheese pose a choking hazard.

Cheese isn’t the only potential choking hazard, so use caution about the size of every finger food you offer, and keep a close eye on your baby while she eats.

Starting Baby on Snacks

Starting Baby on Snacks

October 1st, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments

When your baby starts to master the art of eating solid foods and increases his intake, you will probably start thinking about adding a snack or two to his diet. The key to giving your baby snacks is to remember that they should be small portions and should be healthy choices. Snack time is also a great time for baby to work on his pincer grasp, so finger foods are a great choice.

When to Add Snacks

Most babies will start on finger foods at around 9 months of age, when they start to develop the pincer grasp. This is a great time to add a snack to your baby’s menu. Remember that during these early days of solid foods, your baby is still getting most of his nutrition from breast milk or formula. Snacks are about developing skills more than about nutrition.

That doesn’t mean that what your baby eats for a snack shouldn’t be nutritious! At this age, everything your baby eats should be basic, healthy foods, and this includes snacks. Start with one small snack a day. You might want to save it for a time when you need a few minutes to accomplish something, especially if you plan to serve a finger food as a snack. As with meals, serve snacks after a breast or bottle feeding to ensure the solid food does not replace the essential nutrition of breast milk or formula.

Good Snack Choices for Babies

Healthy snacks for babies should be fairly similar to the foods they are eating as meals, with the exception of adding some classic finger foods. Remember that a snack should not be a meal, but should be small portions of a food that will help baby hang in until the next scheduled feeding. Before serving any snack, make certain your baby is able to eat the food in question – you should be seeing signs of the ability to mash food with her gums and she should be handling thicker, chunkier foods. Otherwise, you will have to stick to smooth snacks that don’t require chewing.

Fruit, cereals like Cheerios, yogurt and cheese are all great snack choices for babies. Soft fruits like bananas and peaches make great snacks that baby can easily mash with his gums. Be sure to cut them into small enough bites to avoid any risk of choking.

Many babies love cheese, and it makes an excellent snack. It’s a good source of protein as well as calcium. Cut it into small slices, and start with a fairly soft, mild flavored cheese like mozzarella. You can then move on stronger cheeses as baby adjusts. A few pieces of cheese served with a food that provides fiber, such as applesauce or whole grain cereal like Cheerios will make a good balanced snack with both protein and fiber for sustained energy.

As your baby eats larger meals more often, you will probably want to add a second snack. Into the second year of life, when formula or breast milk no longer provides all of baby’s nutrition, baby should be eating three meals a day along with two snacks. At this point, it will become more important to provide nutritious snacks that will keep baby going until her next meal. As baby grows, her snack options will expand along with her skills; she will be better able to chew and will often eat snacks without much assistance, giving mom a much-needed break.

Tips for Safer Finger Foods

Tips for Safer Finger Foods

September 27th, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments

Babies have a wonderful time learning to self-feed with finger foods, but there are a number of risks associated with finger foods. Follow this checklist for finger food safety to avoid putting your child at risk of choking.

Cook It Very Well

Adults prefer their vegetables with a little bit of crunch and their pasta al dente, but for a baby to eat these foods they must be a lot softer than how you might serve it on your own plate. Foods like peas, diced carrots, green beans, kernel corn, and potatoes all make excellent choices for finger foods, but need to be cooked until they are very soft. Gently squeeze a piece of the food between your thumb and forefinger. It should require very little force to break the piece down. Although this will also mean that your baby may accidentally crush it before getting it to her mouth, it’s better than trying to dislodge it from her airway. Pasta should also be cooked until it is very soft. Small pieces of meat can be served as finger food, but must be cooked until they are very tender.

Place the baby food in your mouth, and see how easily you can crush it without using your teeth. This is a good test of how well your baby will be able to mash it with her gums.

Cut It Small

Bites of finger foods should be small enough that they won’t become lodged in your baby’s throat, causing choking. Never serve baby a round food without cutting it up further. This applies to foods such as hot dogs, grapes, and other similarly shaped foods. Cheese is also a common choking hazard; cut it into small strips rather than chunks or cubes. Shredded cheese is a great idea for babies, but use shredder with large holes to make pieces big enough to grasp.

Serve It Slowly

Babies don’t always wait until they have swallowed before shoving more food in, which can cause choking due to too much food being in the mouth at once. Place only a few bites at a time in front of your baby to reduce the likelihood that he will cram too much into his mouth. Watch carefully, and remind him to chew and swallow before taking another bite.

Only At the Table!

Don’t let your baby run around with finger foods, or even crawl if he isn’t walking yet. Serve finger foods only at the table or in the high chair, where your baby will be focused on what he is doing and not on the move. Running with food in his mouth will increase the chances of food accidentally entering the airway rather than being swallowed. Keep feeding times calm and relaxed to make sure your baby eats at a reasonable pace.

Test It Before You Serve It

Just as you tested how cooked a food is with your fingers or mouth, you should test any new food you are thinking of offering to baby as a finger food. Make sure that your baby is capable of gumming the food, bearing in mind that he doesn’t have the molars to chew that you have. Even if you think it looks soft enough, it’s best to try it yourself. It also carries the bonus of checking cooked food for appropriate temperature.

Common Feeding Myths Uncovered

Common Feeding Myths Uncovered

September 2nd, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments

As a new parent, you will receive a lot of advice from just about everyone you meet on every possible topic related to raising a child. One of the most popular topics is feeding, as everyone has an opinion on what is the right way to go about it. Unfortunately, some myths are being perpetuated by these well-meaning people. The best way to stop the spread of feeding myths is to uncover the truth.

Feeding Myth #1: Solids Help Babies Sleep

You’re exhausted, and you feel like if you have to get up one more time in the middle of the night you are going to keel over. It’s not hard for a new parent in a state of sleep deprivation to cling to any possible thread of hope for a better night’s sleep. So when a friend or relative suggests adding solids to baby food diet earlier than you had planned, it sounds fairly reasonable. After all, if baby stays full longer, he will sleep longer, right? Unfortunately, it isn’t true. There is no evidence that starting solids early, or really at any time, has any effect on a baby’s sleep patterns or the duration of night sleep.

Right now, the AAP recommends waiting until baby is 6 months old to start solids. While it may be tempting to start your baby early in search of better sleep, it’s not a good idea. Babies need to be developmentally and physically ready for solids before starting. Giving a baby whose digestive system isn’t ready for it solids might cause gastrointestinal upset – which could disturb sleep even more.

Feeding Myth #2: Fatty Baby Foods Will Make Your Baby Fat

Although a diet high in fats isn’t a good idea for grown-ups, babies need a lot of fat to promote brain development. Babies under 2 should always get the full fat version of foods like milk and other dairy products. Foods like avocadoes are very high in fat, but contain the good fats that your baby needs to grow. Never put a baby on a low fat diet, and if you have concerns about your baby’s weight, talk to your pediatrician.

Feeding Myth #3: Giving a Baby Fruits Before Vegetables Leads to a Sweet Tooth

This popular myth states that if you give a baby fruits as a first food, your baby will refuse to eat vegetables due to having developed a preference for sweet foods. The truth is, there is no evidence that starting fruits first will cause your baby to dislike vegetables. As for the sweet tooth, all babies are born with a taste for the sweet. This natural preference exists because breast milk is sweet, and babies are predisposed to prefer the taste of breast milk over anything else.

Feeding Myth #4: You Can’t Start Finger Foods Without Teeth

Babies can learn to chew even before they have teeth. Most babies will develop their front teeth, the incisors, first, which aren’t even helpful in chewing most foods. Molars don’t usually appear until much later, when your baby is already quite proficient at chewing a number of foods by mashing them with her gums. There is no reason to wait until the first few teeth appear to start finger foods – just watch for signs of readiness and choose foods that will dissolve easily in the mouth, and can be mashed without real chewing.

While these are only a few of the rumors you may hear about feeding your baby, hopefully this list will encourage you to seek out the truth before taking any steps to change your baby’s diet.

Tips for Feeding your Toddler

Tips for Feeding your Toddler

August 27th, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments

Toddlers are notorious for finicky and strange eating habits. Even if your child was a great eater as a baby, you may suddenly find yourself confronted with a whole different person when the toddler years come along. With a new desire for independence and a newly discovered ability to voice opinions, feeding your toddler any kind of healthy toddler diet can be a difficult challenge. Try these tips to make it a little easier.

Mix It Up

Pairing a food your toddler refuses to eat with one that he likes might encourage him to actually eat it all – but not if you let him pick and choose. The best way to get a toddler to eat a food he generally refuses is to mix it in with the one he likes. If he wants a great big bite of that macaroni and cheese, there’s no way to get it without a few French-cut green beans along for the ride. That spaghetti sauce he loves, well, there are now grated carrots and finely chopped spinach inside. And no way to avoid them.

Mix up all kinds of healthy foods with toddler-friendly favorites: finely chopped vegetables are easily added to meatballs; soups are a great place to add more veggies too. Add extra fruit to oatmeal and yogurt, and even ice cream. Blend bananas, berries and other fruits into pancake batter.

Fun Finger Foods

Toddlers love foods that are fun to eat, so serve up finger foods with interesting options for dips. Vegetables are suddenly a lot more interesting with a choice of dips, such as a cheese sauce or ranch dressing. Take the meatballs out of the spaghetti sauce and serve them as a finger food with marinara on the side for dipping.

Pieces of fruit can be served this way too; use vanilla yogurt as a tasty dip for apple, pear and banana slices as well as fresh berries.

Use dinner rolls to make sliders for little hands, topped with small slices of tomatoes and piece of lettuce. Then put mustard and ketchup on the side to dip the slider into. When you up the fun quotient of a food, you make it a lot more interesting to a toddler.

Work With, Not Against Your Toddler

Sometimes the best you can do with a toddler is to wave the white flag and make peace. Dinner time power struggles don’t get anyone anywhere useful. You will wind up frustrated and your child will not learn anything. Try to find a compromise. If she really doesn’t like broccoli, there is likely nothing you can do to make her eat it. Try to substitute other foods that offer similar nutritional value. Explain to your toddler that you know she doesn’t like broccoli, so you aren’t going to make her eat it. Instead, she can try this spinach, which you think she will like a whole lot more.

If your toddler has that common obsession with foods staying separate on the plate, don’t get frustrated because you don’t understand it. Instead, show her you get it by letting her choose a plate with separate compartments for all her foods.

Feeding a toddler can be frustrating, but if you keep your cool and find ways to make foods more interesting, you will have a lot more success than with demands and ultimatums. When your toddler feels you are listening and understanding, you will get more cooperation than when you try to lay down the law.

Learning at the Table: Meal Time and Motor Skills

Learning at the Table: Meal Time and Motor Skills

March 4th, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments

From the very first time your baby starts to eat solid baby food, a new opportunity is created to learn and practice new and important motor skills. Meal time isn’t just about eating! It’s also an important part of your child’s development.

Starting Early

Even though your baby is nowhere near ready to feed himself when he first starts on solid foods, there is no reason you can’t let him have his own spoon right from the start. Bring two spoons to each feeding, one for baby to hold and one for you to feed him. Soon he will start trying to imitate what you are doing with the spoon, dipping it into the food and bringing it to his mouth. It will be messy, but your baby is laying the foundation for feeding himself while learning new motor skills.

Finger Foods

Somewhere around 8 months old on average, your baby will be ready to start self-feeding in earnest. The right place to start is with finger foods that dissolve easily in the mouth but are fairly easy to pick up. Small chunks of banana or the classic baby snack, Cheerios cereal, are great choices for first finger foods. Using the thumb and forefinger to pick up small items, also known as the “pincer grasp” is an important milestone and finger foods will help to develop the fine motor skills required.

The Right Tools for the Job

When your baby is ready to really use utensils, she will need her own fork and spoon. Look for utensils with thick, easy to grasp handles made of a non-slip material. Plastic forks are good for early practice, but they will soon frustrate your little one as they don’t work very well. Instead, look for a metal fork with rounded tines to avoid potential injury, but enough of a point to allow easy spearing of food. When choosing a spoon, try to find one that is not too flat and won’t spill easily. Utensils should be short, as anything too long will be difficult for little arms to maneuver.

Getting Started with Utensils

Learning to use a fork and spoon are a great chance to work on manual dexterity and hand-eye coordination. Although the spoon is the first utensil a baby encounters, most children will learn to use a fork faster, mainly because the food stays on the fork more easily than on a spoon. Start with an easy to spear food like small pieces of melon or pear. Place the fork in your child’s hand and guide her through the motions of spearing the food, and bringing it up to her mouth. You’ll be rewarded by the sight of her face lighting up with joy as she realizes she can eat just like you do!

Using a spoon requires even more skill than a fork. Learning the scooping and lifting motion to get food onto the spoon, and then the careful balance required to get the food all the way to the mouth are difficult tasks. Thick foods like oatmeal and yogurt are a great choice for learning this skill, as they will be less likely to spill off the spoon. Encourage your child to lean forward, towards the dish so that the spoon doesn’t need to travel so far.

The process of teaching your baby to self-feed can be messy, but remember that you are developing motor skills and life skills too!