Starting Your Baby on Solid Foods

Starting Your Baby on Solid Foods

September 20th, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments

Are you ready to start your baby on solid baby foods? Is your baby ready? Then gear up for a whole new adventure is feeding your baby! It will be a little messy – sometimes really messy – but you are setting your baby on a path to discovering new tastes, new textures and a whole new world of food. Start out on the right foot with the right foods and the right techniques.

Choosing Baby Spoons

Although lovely silver spoons are a very pretty baby gift, they aren’t the most practical for feeding your baby. A baby’s gums are sensitive, so look for spoons with a softer texture, such as those with a rubber tip. Plastic will work well too, but the rubbers ones are just a bit softer when starting out. Spoons should have a long enough handle so that you can manipulate them easily. Most baby spoons aren’t designed to hold much food, which is ok, because your baby won’t take much food at a time.

Which Food to Start With

Traditionally, baby cereal has been the first choice for solid feeding, but there is no real reason you can’t start with a fruit such as very well mashed bananas. When choosing a baby cereal, most new parents start with rice because it is bland and unlikely to cause an allergic reaction. Mix baby’s first cereal very, very thin, and use either breast milk or formula so that it tastes familiar.

Although you may have heard that you should start vegetables first before moving on to fruit to prevent baby from developing a sweet tooth and preferring fruits to veggies, there is no reason to follow this advice. Babies are already born with a preference for sweeter foods. Breast milk is sweet, and your baby has a natural tendency towards liking sweet foods. For this reason, starting with a sweet fruit like bananas may actually ease the transition, as baby is more likely to find the flavor pleasing. If your baby is formula fed, the sweet tooth may not be so pronounced, since formula is much blander than breast milk. Formula fed babies may do better on cereal mixed with formula as a first food.

Feeding Baby for the First Time

Don’t be surprised if your baby shows little interest or even makes a face the first time you try to feed solids! It’s best to start by dipping a clean finger into the food and letting baby taste it that way. The spoon is a foreign implement, and your baby may not be too interested in opening up for it just yet.

When you can get the spoon into baby’s mouth, start with a very small amount and wait for a reaction. It’s very likely that the food will wind up pouring out and onto baby’s chin. Your baby just isn’t quite sure yet what to do with this strange new food! For your first feeding, don’t expect to get more than a tablespoon at most into your baby, and don’t worry if most of it is on the bib or on baby. The earliest feedings are more about practice than about nutrition. Your baby is still getting all the necessary calories and nutrients from breast milk or formula.

Start with one feeding a day, and choose a time when your baby is generally alert and likely to be feeling cooperative. As you go and baby learns how to push the food back and swallow rather than spitting it out, you can slowly increase the thickness and quantity of the feedings. Before you know it, your baby will figure it out!

Your Baby’s First Fruits and Vegetables

Your Baby’s First Fruits and Vegetables

September 19th, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments

Fruits and vegetables will be among the first baby foods your baby will try, and will be an important part of a healthy baby diet from this point on. Introduce fruit and vegetable purees to your baby one at a time, and remember that he might not accept a new food right away. Keep offering rejected foods; it can take multiple attempts before your baby decides he likes it.

Where to Start

Contrary to popular belief, it isn’t necessary to start baby on vegetables before fruit. Starting with fruits won’t cause your baby to have a sweet tooth, mainly because he already does. Breast milk has a sweet taste; therefore babies will naturally be predisposed to liking sweeter flavors. This doesn’t mean your baby won’t enjoy vegetables, just that you might need to offer them several times before he decides to eat.

Great choices for first fruits and vegetables are easy to digest, nutrient rich choices that are not likely to cause an allergic reaction. Try fruits such as bananas, pears, apples and avocadoes. For first veggies, try carrots, peas and sweet potatoes. You will need to start with smooth and fairly thin purees. If you are purchasing baby food, start with stage one purees which are the smoothest and the thinnest. Alternatively, you can easily make your own fruit and vegetable purees at home.

Making Your Own Baby Food

Homemade fruit and vegetable purees are a simple and budget-friendly choice, as well as a very healthy one for your baby. You can make your own purees of just about any fruit or vegetable you can think of, quickly and easily at home. The first thing you will need is something to puree the food in; a regular food processor will work great, but there are also baby food makers available that are reasonably priced if you prefer to have a dedicated machine.

Most fruits and vegetables will need to be cooked prior to pureeing. The best way to cook them is via steaming; unlike boiling, steaming will leave the nutrients in the fruits and vegetables intact. You will need to cook everything until very tender to create a smooth puree, so it may require replacing the water a few times. A simple steamer basket that fits inside a regular pot is the most affordable method of steaming. After steaming, save whatever water was used in the cooking process. You can add it back into the puree to help thin it out. Blend until smooth, adding water as necessary to achieve the desired texture and consistency. You can then freeze your purees in ice cube trays for easy portioning later. After freezing, dump the trays into a sealed bag that you can label with the date and type of food.

Bananas and avocadoes make excellent first foods for your baby, and as a bonus, they don’t need to be cooked ahead of time. Simply mash them well and serve! Both are great sources of nutrition.

Adding New Foods

As you expand your baby’s diet to new fruits and vegetables, do so carefully to watch for an allergic reaction. You should add a new food no more than every 3-5 days. This slow pace with allow you to pinpoint which food caused any reaction your baby might have. Even though you are starting with the least allergenic choices available, there is always some risk that your baby could have an unusual reaction. Take it slow – this will also give your baby a chance to really experience the food and get used to the new flavor.

Timing of Solids with Bottle or Breastfeeding

Timing of Solids with Bottle or Breastfeeding

September 18th, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments

Through the first year of your baby’s life, the number one source of nutrition is breast milk or formula. Although you can start solid baby foods around 6 months old, it will be a long time before your baby is able to get all of the necessary calories, vitamins, and minerals for growth and health from solids. Therefore breastfeeding or formula remain vital to your baby’s health.

Solids: Before or After?

When you first start out with solid foods, your baby will likely take so little that it won’t really matter when you do the feeding. The small amount consumed won’t have much impact on your baby’s appetite for the breast or bottle. As your baby progresses with solids, however, and starts to take larger amounts, you will need to pay attention to make sure that solid feedings do not replace breast milk or formula feedings.

When your baby starts to take enough solids that it impacts appetite, you should be sure to feed solids after breast or bottle feeding rather than before. Wait a little while before offering the solids so that baby won’t be too full and will be interested in eating, but don’t wait too long. You want baby to have some room for solids, but not be on an empty tummy. If your baby is too hungry and fills up on solids, a missed formula or breast feeding may result. At this stage in your baby’s development, the nutrients from solid foods aren’t enough to make up for what would be missed by skipping a bottle or a nursing session. Furthermore, if you are nursing and baby starts to skip feedings, this will have an impact on your milk production. Milk supply will drop as the demand drops, so make sure baby is nursing often enough to keep your supply up.

When Solids Increase

When your baby increases solid feedings to twice and then three times a day, these meals (as long as they are healthy and balanced, and offer a wide variety of nutrition) will start to fill nutritional needs much better. This is the beginning of baby weaning from the breast or bottle, but make sure it doesn’t happen too fast! Continue to offer breast milk or formula prior to solid feedings. As your baby’s digestive system gets used to the solids, liquid sustenance won’t be quite as filling. It is likely that even after a whole bottle or regular nursing your baby will still have enough room for a solid meal.

As before, give a little time in between to make a bit more room, but don’t wait until baby is starving! As your baby’s first birthday approaches, solids will become more important and you will see a decrease in bottle and breast feedings. This is ok, as long as your baby is gaining weight appropriately and getting all the necessary nutrients for good health. This is also a good time to allow the less frequent feedings to slowly decrease milk production as you head towards weaning.

Remember, babies should continue to receive most of their nutrition from breast milk or formula until their first birthday, at which point you can switch to cow’s milk as long as your pediatrician approves. Up until this point, it’s best to follow the breast or formula first, solids second rule.

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!

Baby Food: Safe Food-handling Practice

Baby Food: Safe Food-handling Practice

February 22nd, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments

Your baby has a very sensitive digestive tract and is not used to even the smallest amount of bacteria that might be lingering in your household. To protect your baby’s health, it is important to handle all food items and food stuff carefully.

Cleanse and Sterilize Feeding Equipment

All feeding equipment such as new spoons, cups, bottles and especially nipples, should be placed in boiling water for 3-5 minutes before use. You should also wash the items carefully, preferably in a high heat dishwasher setting to add additional sterilization. There are also ways to steam sterilize bottle components and other feeding utensils or breast pump parts in the microwave – look for special bags for exactly this purpose. In the case of latex components, such as bottle nipples, read the manufacturer’s instructions. It may very well be that you should be replacing those every three to six months to keep them safe for baby.

Keeping Formula Safe

Formula can be stored in an unopened container for long periods of time – look for the expiration date on the container to determine exactly how long. Once the formula is opened, however, ready-to-eat or condensed formula should be kept cold and used within 48 hours. Powdered formula can be opened at kept at room temperature, but be sure to keep the container’s lid on when it is not in use.

Always mix formula according to the instructions and measure carefully as estimating amounts can make the formula to thin or too thick. While not especially harmful to baby, thick formula can cause constipation and thin formula might not provide the adequate amounts of nutrition required.

After mixing a bottle, it can only be used for about an hour after baby has started eating. Waiting longer allows bacteria to grow and can be harmful. If the bottle is made and not actually fed to your baby, you can store it covered in the refrigerator for up to forty-eight hours. Do not store a bottle, even in the refrigerator that has been partially drunk.

Breast milk

If you pump breast milk, it can be stored at room temperature for up to six or eight hours, but four hours is a safe limit as room temperature can vary. Breast milk can be refrigerated for up to eight days, but for the best temperature settings, avoid storing the milk in the door of the fridge which experiences the most temperature fluctuations. Breast milk can be frozen in the top compartment of a refrigerator/freezer for three or four months and can last up to six months in a deep freezer. Again, avoid storing the milk in the freezer door. Once a bottle of breast milk has been started by your baby, it should be discarded in an hour or two.

Solids

When feeding solid baby foods, you can only use each container for two days once it has been opened. If you “double-dip” meaning you use a spoon in the container and then give it to your baby before returning it to the container, you’ve introduced bacteria to the food and should not use it for more than an hour. Throwing away every container you open after just an hour can be extremely wasteful, especially with younger babies who are just learning to feed. Prevent this by scooping out food from the container into a small cup and then storing the uncontaminated remainders of the container for a later feeding. You can then feed baby from the cup and not have to waste.