Newborn And Infant Solid Foods
How do I introduce my baby to solid food?
To introduce solid foods to your baby first wait until your baby is a appropriate age - at least 4 months and preferably 6 months. Then, watch for signs of readiness. If the baby is ready to eat then you can go ahead and introduce solid foods, one at a time. Start with your vegetables, then introduce rice or oat cereals and move on to your fruits. Each "solid" food should be in purade (in mostly liquid form) until the baby is a little bit older and has some teeth.
How do I know if my baby is ready for solid food?
There are a few really great signs of readiness that you should be looking for to know your baby is ready for solid foods. The first one is that the baby should have lost tongue thrust. E.g. if you touch the baby's lower lip, tongue thrust means the tongue is going to stick out right at you. If the baby is doing that, it is not ready at all for solid foods and you need to wait a little longer. Your other two cues for solid foods are that the baby can sit when supported in a high chair or even in your lap. It has full control of its head can even look back over its shoulder and can see people far off. When you approach with a spoon or your finger the baby gently opens its mouth without sticking its tongue out at you - then you know it is ready for solid foods.
How should I introduce new solid foods?
To introduce a new food to your baby, make sure you pair it with something the baby is already comfortable with. The first time, you're going to be using a bland solid food, like a vegetable or a rice cereal, and the baby will likely take it very well. But, as you start introducing things that are more difficult, or more flavorful, you want to make sure you pair it with something the baby has already tried. Don't introduce a new food any faster than every few days so that you can make sure your baby's not allergic to it.
What solid foods should my baby eat?
Babies should start with very bland, pureed foods. Your best choices of solid infant foods would be rice cereal, oat cereal, barley cereal, or the wide variety of fruits and vegetables. You don't have to purchase these already pureed. You can make baby food at home as long as they don't have any skin and no seeds. So go ahead and introduce your baby to a wide variety of fruits and vegetables and let them see which ones they like and which ones they prefer. Around eight or nine months, you can also introduce cheese and meat to your baby.
What solid foods should my baby stay away from?
Your baby should stay away from solid foods that are a high risk for choking and things that have nuts, seeds or skin, for the first two years. You also want to avoid cow's milk, or the high allergen foods, such as shellfish or nut oils, because the baby's digestive system is not quite ready for these foods. It could cause the baby a life-long problem. The other food you want your baby to stay away from for two years is honey, because honey contains live botulism spores that don't hurt you or me but could affect your baby.
Should I feed my baby organic foods?
Organic foods are not necessary to feed your small baby. Because of the regulations in the food industry, to be labeled an "infant food," it has to be a very pure form of food. However, if you feel more comfortable with organic foods, and believe in any way that they are beneficial to you and your family, you may feel free to use organic infant foods, but they are not a necessary part of infant feeding.
How many times a day should my baby eat solid foods?
When you introduce solid foods at around four to six months of age, you'll only feed your baby one serving of solid food a day. Servings are very small - no larger than one teaspoon to one tablespoon. As your baby ages, it's okay to increase number of servings of solid foods per number of months that you've been feeding. For example, if you started at four months, you can give one solid feeding. At five months, you can give two, and so on. The average one year old eats six times a day, so that's the goal for where you're going with solid foods.
Do I need special equipment to feed my baby solid food?
No, babies come with all the special equipment that they need. You just need some kind of spoon or feeding utensil. It's better not to use forks because they could jab into the roof of the baby's mouth, and of course not knives. However any kind of spoon that the baby can wrap its lips around is more than appropriate. The reason for using most feeding equipment is because parents don't like a mess. So if you don't like a mess it's OK to use all the feeding equipment in the world. But if you're OK with it, you and your baby can feed with anything you have in your house.
How can I teach my baby healthy eating habits?
The first thing to do if you want to teach your baby healthy eating habits is to remember that there's a division of responsibility in feeding. You as the mother get to decide what kind of food is available, and how much of the food is offered. The baby gets to decide whether or not it eats that food and if it asks for more and is satisfied with the amount of food. So tips to you as a mother wanting to encourage healthy eating habits are to provide a wide variety of food so the baby can try all the different fruits and vegetables, all the different meats, and all the different kinds of things that you might want to feed them in the later years. Also, your responsibility in teaching healthy eating habits is not to force feed the infant or offer more food than it's able to handle. When you start feeding the baby its stomach is very small. That means the maximum amount of food that it can handle would be about a tablespoon, and it's much more likely to eat nearly a teaspoon of food. If you try to force it in, a 1/4 cup, 4 ounces, 6 ounces, you'll already be teaching your baby to short circuit its right to decide, "I don't want to eat". So remember a tablespoon is about the maximum you should offer to fit your baby's stomach.
Should I be concerned if my baby is eating less than usual?
It's not necessarily concerning if your baby has times when it eats less or more than usual. As your baby enters its toddler years, it will have lots of days when he surprises you with the amount of food that it can take in. You shouldn't be surprised if one day, your baby doesn't eat as much as usual, and the next day it eats more than usual. However, if a pattern starts to develop of more than two or three days where your baby refuses to eat, you should probably call and ask for help.