Appropriate Age of Solids
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends introducing solids around 6 months of age. The World Health Organization recommends that infants start receiving complementary foods at 6 months of age in addition to breast milk. Babies who were born prematurely should wait to be fed until their adjusted age of 6 months and signs of readiness. Other signs of readiness are when baby has lost the tongue thrust reflex and baby can sit unassisted for at least a minute.
http://who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs342/en/
https://www.aap.org/en-us/advocacy-and-policy/aap-health-initiatives/HALF-Implementation-Guide/Age-Specific-Content/Pages/Infant-Food-and-Feeding.aspx https://www.unicef.org/nutrition/index_breastfeeding.html
https://www.breastfeeding.asn.au/bfinfo/solids.html
http://www.healthycanadians.gc.ca/healthy-living-vie-saine/infant-care-soins-beb https://health.clevelandclinic.org/2013/03/dont-feed-your-baby-solid-food-before-6-months/
Puréed
A baby who is developmentally delayed may benefit from doing purees versus baby led weaning. When you spoon feed anyone can feed your baby. Some daycares or child care providers are not comfortable with baby led weaning and may ask you do purees. If you are terrified of choking then purees may be best for your family.
The best first foods are things like Avocado, Carrots (add olive oil to increase calories), Sweet Potato (add coconut oil and cinnamon for calories and taste), Winter Squash (Mix with cinnamon for taste), Pear, and Banana. Introducing fruits before veggies or at the same time does not cause baby to have a sweet tooth. Babies are already drawn to things that are sweet because breastmilk is sweet. There is no need to wait in between new foods as babies can have an allergic reaction at the first or the 100th exposure. Start with 1 Teaspoon at a time and gradually increase from there. Around 9 months you can add in table foods. For a baby that has just had purees you want to start with soft foods. Good foods to start with are soft fruits and steamed veggies. Eggs, and Salmon are also good first table foods. Once they get the hang of that you can add meat! When you start introducing table foods you want pieces to be about the size of a puff.
Homemade VS Store Bought
Both home-cooked and store-bought baby food are good options for infants being introduced to solid foods, according to a U.K. nutritional study comparing the two.
Each option had upsides and downsides. For example, home-cooked food had higher nutritional content, but 50% of homemade meals also exceed calorie recommendations, and 37% exceeded the recommendations for calories from fat, reported a research team led by Sharon Carstairs, a PhD student at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland.
Only 7% of the commercial baby food evaluated exceeded calorie recommendations, and less than 1% exceeded recommendations for calories from fat, Carstairs and colleagues reported in Archives of Disease in Childhood.
On the other hand, the store-bought food was more expensive and offered less variety. For example, store-bought meals included only 22 types of vegetables overall, compared with 33 for homemade meals.
“For parents concerned with providing a varied diet, if the parent relied solely on the commercial market, then it is likely that the child would be exposed to a lower overall range of food types in terms of vegetables, meats, and fish options,” Carstairs and colleagues wrote.
“Our findings cannot provide a straightforward answer in terms of which is ‘better,'” Carstairs said in an email to MedPage Today. “It is important for parents to consider either of these meal types as part of the whole diet and to ensure that a variety of foods and textures are provided.”
https://www.medpagetoday.com/pediatrics/generalpediatrics/59228
Links:
http://kellymom.com/nutrition/starting-solids/babyfoodcalories/
https://www.pinterest.com/explore/baby-foods/
Rice Cereal
Baby cereal is filling for babies, but it doesn’t offer a great deal of beneficial nutrients. Rice Cereal is full of synthetic vitamins and has high levels of arsenic. When flour is refined to make cereal the most nutritious part of the grain is removed. Mixing cereal in the milk & into a bottle is a choking hazard. If you insist your baby has rice cereal please feed it to them with a spoon.
http://www.foodrenegade.com/why-ditch-infant-cereals/
Off Limit Foods
After 6 months babies can everything but honey. Current Studies indicate that early exposure reduces the risk of allergies so you should introduce high allergen foods before the age of one. Ex: Eggs, Peanut butter and Shellfish. If there are certain allergies in the immediate family you can seek help from an allergist on the best way to introduce those foods. If you are worried about introducing certain foods you can ask your child’s pediatrician to do it in an appointment.
http://www.aappublications.org/news/2017/01/05/PeanutAllergy010517
Baby Led Weaning
Baby-led weaning is an approach to introducing solid food where baby self feeds whole foods that the family is eating. Baby participates in meal times and copies the family. In baby led weaning baby eats what you eat. Babies learn to eat by watching and mimicking you. The chances that baby will accept the food are much higher that they eat because they see you eating the same thing. They are given the freedom to explore different tastes, textures and what and how much they consume without the pressure to eat a set amount of food. Baby led Weaning means they can handle different food textures from the beginning of starting solids. You avoid the time consuming process of making baby food but still know exactly what your baby is eating. Baby led weaning builds confidence, helps with hand eye coordination and encourages baby to eat while the family does, eating what the family is eating.An important thing to note is that babies can have only 400MG of salt a day. That means DO NOT ADD SALT to babies food. Take out babies portion and then salt the food. At first, you want the pieces to be about the size of your finger so that baby can easily pick the food up. There is good reason to believe babies who are baby led weaning are at a lower risk for choking with baby led weaning. Baby led weaning teaches baby to chew before they swallow and babies control what goes in their mouth. I always encourage all parents to take a CPR/FA class when they have a child or before no matter if they BLW or not. . A good saying that helps to ease the fear is “Loud and Red let them go ahead, Silent and Blue need help from you.” NEVER EVER swipe food from a baby’s mouth. Let them gag it out or give them a couple of good pats to help them work it out.
(Baby Led Weaning Group) https://www.facebook.com/groups/1578341132430270/
(Baby led weaning book) Baby-Led Weaning: The Essential Guide to Introducing Solid Foods-and Helping Your Baby to Grow Up a Happy and Confident Eater
https://www.amazon.com/…/1…/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_QtKdybK5646NA
Combining Traditional and Baby Led Weaning?
If baby is feeding them selves and your also sticking a spoon in there mouth it may confuse them and cause them to swallow without chewing. Purees can be given on a loaded spoon and allow baby to feed themselves. I think that Jill Rapley sums up the answer in this quote quite perfectly: “This is a tricky one. I am totally in favour of parents doing whatever works best for them and their child. If this involves a combination of spoon feeding and self-feeding, so be it. What this isn’t, though, is a combination of BLW and conventional weaning – it’s really just conventional weaning, but starting at six months (from when the introduction of finger foods alongside spoon-fed pureed or mashed food has always been recommended). BLW is about more than just offering your baby food to pick up – it’s about trusting him to know what he needs. If you’re topping him up with a spoon after he’s had a go with his hands, then you’re not really doing that. The bottom line is that trusting your baby and not quite trusting him are simply not compatible. So, while doing some self-feeding and some spoon feeding may work for you, it’s not BLW.
Links: http://www.rapleyweaning.com/
Food Allergies
Most common food allergies are:
- Milk
- Tree nuts: Walnuts, almonds, pine nuts, pecans
- Eggs
- Soy
- Wheat, barley, rye, oats
- Peanut butter
- Peanuts
- Shellfish
Food Allergy Symptoms
- Diarrhea
- Indigestion
- Nausea
- Vomiting
- Cramping
- Being flush
- Itching
- Or having itching lips
- Passing excessive amounts of gas
- Hives
- Rashes
- Colic
- Cramping
- Being flush
- Itching
- Or having itching lips
