How to Introduce the First Foods

How to Introduce the First Foods

Have you been asking yourself, how do I start my baby on solid food? In this video I’m going to  walk you through an example of what the first week of starting solids could look like for your baby.  

I’m also going to talk about things you can do from the start to encourage your baby to become  an independent eater.  

 and I equip parents with knowledge, so they can care for their children   Once your baby is 6 months old and showing all the signs of readiness to  safely start solids, I recommend parents try to introduce a new vegetable one day of the week,  a new fruit another day, a new carbohydrate food another day, a new protein food another  day and spend the last three days giving the new allergenic food of the week. I’m sure your child’s  healthcare provider told you to wait anywhere from 2 to 5 days between introducing new foods.  

There is actually no research to support the need to wait several days between exposing a baby to a  new food. The concern with this approach is that it significantly limits the amount of flavors and  textures your baby can experience before entering into the pickier eating phase of toddlerhood.  

We find that children who are exposed to more flavors and textures tend to be less likely to  be picky eaters as they get older. Also research shows that early introduction of allergenic foods,  and repeated exposure decreases the baby’s risk for developing allergies to those foods.

 In the  first week of starting solids, to be cautious you can offer just the new food each day. But then in  the second or third week, there is no reason to put off reintroducing foods that your baby has  already had previous days, while continuing to introduce a new food.  

At 6 and 7 months, I recommend offering solids once or twice a day. Make sure you’re doing it  in the morning or afternoon when your baby is in a good mood, not hungry or tired. It’s best to  do it about an hour or two after a milk feed so your baby isn’t starving. 

At this age our focus is to teach babies how to eat solids safely and expose them to new flavors and textures, not to  replace milk feeds with solids. If parents wait to give the food when the baby is hungry, they create  an unpleasant feeding experience, because the baby is frustrated and not cooperative with the  feeding process. And if you do it right after a milk feed, and your baby gags, a lot of the  milk might come back up. 

There are many different ways one can go about starting a baby on solids.  You might need to do some trial and error and modify the feeding sessions as you figure out what  works best for your baby. Let’s say that on day 1 of solids you will be starting with a vegetable,  and let’s say that it’s going to be carrots. 

First you’ll need to cook the carrots to soften them up.  Steaming is one of the best cooking methods for preserving nutrients in the hard vegetables and  fruits that will need to be cooked. When pureeing the carrots, you can make a thinned out version,  like the consistency of a butternut squash soup and another version that is a little thicker,  like an applesauce consistency. Start off adding a little breastmilk or formula to the cooked carrots  as you’re mashing them. And add more as necessary to get it to the desired consistency.  

By trying two different consistencies, it allows you to see what works best for your baby.  And in case you were wondering, at this age we offer food warm or at room temperature.  Offer a few spoons of the thinner purée, and then offer a few spoons of the thicker purée.  

Your baby will probably only take a few bites. The majority of food will most likely end up on  the baby’s face, hands or bib. This is the process your baby needs to go through to become familiar  with solids, and it’s normal. 

You may have noticed that at six months your baby is able to grab things and bringing them to the  mouth. Therefore there’s no reason to doubt your baby’s ability to start self feeding at  this age. When offering your baby a puree, you can preload it onto a spoon like the  tiny spoon  or the  soft tipped spoon and hand it to your baby to self feed. You can help guide the spoon towards your baby’s mouth, but the baby should be the one putting it into the mouth.  

The spoons I just mentioned come as a two pack. So while your baby is eating the puree off of one  spoon, you can have the other one ready to go. There is also no reason to delay offering the  new food of the day in the version of strips for your baby to practice picking up and self feeding.  

Studies show that babies are no more likely to choke on strips of food than on pureed food as  long as the finger food is offered in a safe size for the baby. For babies 6 to about 8 or 9 months  of age, the size of the strips should be about the thickness of an adult pinky finger. And make  them about 2 to 3 inches long, so when the baby grabs the food, there is still some sticking out  for the baby to munch on. Most feeding sessions will probably go for about 15 to 20 minutes.  

So a way you could structure this is to spend a few minutes giving the thinner version of the  puree on a preloaded spoon that your baby self feeds, then a few minutes with the thicker puree.  

And for the final portion of the meal you can let your baby explore the strips of food. The mini mat makes it possible to offer the different versions of the food in different compartments.  The use of a crinkle cutter makes the strips less slippery for the baby to pick up. 

At first babies are  cautious and curious. If your baby doesn’t even put the strip of food into the mouth, that’s okay.  At least you’re giving your baby an opportunity to practice picking up food in this form.  

It’s only a matter of time before your baby will start bringing the strips of food to the mouth  and taking small bites using the gums. During the meal, you can pick up a strip of food and take  small bites of it and make exaggerated chewing motions to demonstrate to your baby how it should  be done. Giving your baby the opportunity to learn how to self feed from day one is the best approach  for raising an independent eater. That is one of the underlying principles behind baby-led weaning.  

If you’re nervous about your baby self feeding, and prefer to start with spoon  feeding your baby the puree, I recommend that you still set aside time during meals to give  your baby an opportunity to practice self feeding. 

 I notice that some parents continue to spoon feed their child well into toddlerhood, but this actually delays their ability to  master becoming an independent eater. The sooner babies start practicing, the sooner they master  the ability to self feed. If you’re finding this information helpful, hit the thumbs up button.  

Now let’s say that on day 2 you give the new fruit of the week. Avocado is a great one to start with.  Most of us think of avocado as a vegetable, but it’s technically a fruit. Avocados are full of healthy fats that our babies need for their rapidly developing brains. You can mash up fresh avocado with some breastmilk or formula.

 Here is an example of what it could look like. I have a thinner version of puree in one compartment, a thicker version in the other compartment  and strips of avocado cut using a crinkle cutter in the third compartment. The first 10 minutes or so you can let your baby experience the puree versions. And then the second 5 to 10 minutes,  you can offer strips of avocado for your baby to practice self feeding.  

Let's say that on day three you’re introducing the carbohydrate food of the week. Foods that fall  into this category include the starchy vegetables and whole grains. The starchy vegetables include  sweet potato, white potato, corn and different varieties of squash, just to name a few. This  group also includes the whole grains like oatmeal, barely, buckwheat, rice and whole wheat. 

Let’s say that the carbohydrate for week 1 is going to be baby oatmeal cereal.You can mix two different consistencies  using breast milk or formula, and offer it to your baby. For day 4, let’s say you will be giving the  new protein food of the week. The protein food group includes meat and plant protein foods. Eggs and fish also fall into the protein group, as well as the allergenic food category.  

Most babies are born with enough iron stores to last them for the first 4 to 6 months. But after  that to ensure healthy growth and development, it's very important for them to have an iron rich  diet. Since the iron that comes from meat sources is more readily absorbed by our bodies than iron from plant sources, meats are considered an important source of iron for the baby. 

That’s why we recommend including meat in the baby’s diet early on in the food introduction process.  Let’s say that chicken is the new meat of the week. It’s best to prepare a fattier part of the chicken, like the thighs. Especially if giving strips of meat, a baby is less likely to choke  on the fattier more tender strips of meat than the less fatty dry portions, like chicken breast meat.  

If you will be pureeing the chicken, you can mix it with breast milk or formula,  or with one of the foods that you already introduced in previous days, like carrots.  

In the first 10 minutes of the meal you can offer the puree version, then during the second portion  of the meal, you can offer strips of chicken that are about the thickness of an adult pinky finger and 2 to 3 inches long. As long as the meat is soft, your baby will be able to takes small bites using the gums. Or your baby might just suck on the strip of chicken.  

Even so, your baby will benefit from getting iron and other nutrients from the juices of the meat.  For day 5, 6 and 7, you can introduce the first allergenic food of the week. Since yoghurt already comes in the consistency of a puree, that might be the easy one to start with to expose your baby to  a milk product.

 I recommend giving full fat plain yogurt instead of the shelf stable baby yogurt,  which contains a lot of sugar. Since babies have a higher risk of reacting to the 8 common  allergenic foods which include milk, peanut, egg, fish, soy, tree nuts, wheat and shellfish,  out of an abundance of caution you can offer that same allergenic food three days  in a row and hold off on exposing your baby to any new foods during those days. 

So this is an  example of what week one of solids could look like. I hope that by walking you through this,  you’re able to have a better understanding of how to go about exposing your baby to a wide  variety of foods as you embark on the journey of starting solids. See you in the next video.

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