Parenting & New Baby Advice Blog

Archive for the ‘Feeding’ Category

Your baby might be ready to help feed herself when she sits with stability in her highchair, can put objects into her mouth, has begun some chewing motions, and perhaps holds breast or bottle in her hands while feeding. Both she and you benefit from her attempts to feed independently. Though the process may be much slower and is definitely messier than your feeding her, the advantages of letting her try are many. She feels good making her fingers, body, and mouth cooperate as she attempts to satisfy her hunger. Feeding herself stimulates all her senses and provides a wonderful learning experience. She will taste and smell the food. She will feel the texture and temperature on her fingers as she reaches, chews, and swallows her food. She will love the click her spoon makes on her dish or on her new teeth. And she will enjoy the bright colors of the squash and peas.

Transitional Period

At six months, your baby can put objects into her mouth. She explores her world with her mouth, which makes this time perfect to begin some finger foods. She can also sit with little support. By seven months, she may have some teeth and begin to make chewing motions with her mouth. She can hold a small bottle by herself and may even begin to take liquids from a cup with your help.

While she cannot be expected to feed herself all her foods at this stage, she can participate by feeding herself some foods while you prepare the rest of her meal. She can also have finger foods for snacks.

Appropriate finger foods during this period include those that dissolve easily in her mouth, such as the following:

• Small pieces of toast.
• Small pieces of cooked vegetables, such as peas, squash, soft green beans, or broccoli.
• Small pieces of very soft meat, such as fish without bones, chicken, or hamburger.
• Small pieces of scrambled egg [unless there is a history of allergy].
• Small pieces of ripe bananas, peaches, and pears.
• Small pieces of soft cheese, such as Monterey Jack. Or Colby [unless there is a milk allergy].
• Cheerios or puffed rice.
• Foods you should avoid include those that may cause choking. Do not offer the following during the first year:
• Any dried organic fruit, such as apricots, raisins, dates, pineapple, or coconut.
• Any gourmet nuts, such as walnuts or peanuts - only if age appropriate. Be careful here!
  
• Popcorn, potato chips, corn chips, or crackers that do not dissolve well.
• Hard candy of any kind.
• Uncooked vegetables, such as carrots or celery.
• Hotdogs and other foods that might be of “windpipe size.”

Bath time is an excellent time to teach your baby to drink from a cup. She will enjoy the challenge and you will not need to contend with a mess on the floor, or her clothes. Use a plastic shot glass or a plastic nipple cover as the first cup. The smaller diameter makes it easier for her to manage with her small mouth. You can offer her water, breast milk, formula, or juice from a cup.

If you are bottle feeding your baby may enjoy helping you hold her bottle. Let her participate by pulling the nipple in and out of her mouth and adjusting the angle of the bottle. Avoid putting her to bed with her bottle, though; as she falls asleep, less saliva bathes her teeth and she swallows less often. Some milk may “pool” in her mouth and support the growth of bacteria, which leads to tooth decay.

Toddler Period

The rapid rate of growth in the first year of life slows during the second year. Correspondingly, your baby’s appetite diminishes as well. She may express some very strong food preferences and refuse to eat foods she seemed to enjoy as an infant. She may show lack of interest in eating and dawdle for what seems like hours over her meal. She wants to feed herself but may be very messy with cup, spoon, and fingers. If a food is too difficult to chew, she will take it out of her mouth and not eat it. Cutting her food into easy to eat pieces will help.

Since individual children vary so much in their growth, activity level, and interest in food, the amount of food to feed and how frequently to feed vary too. In general, your toddler needs about nine hundred to eighteen hundred calories a day in her second year. The calories should be from a high quality, varied diet. Milk intake should be monitored by your baby’s doctor. Some toddlers may not get enough milk, while others get too many of their daily calories from milk.

Offering your child a balanced varied diet, including some high quality protein foods, and avoiding “junk” food is the best approach to feeding. Never force-feed your toddler. Even when it seems she is not eating at all, force feeding is not the answer; this approach may lead to the development of some unnecessary feeding problems. Let her natural appetite be her guide. If she is only offered good food, then when she does eat, she will eat well.

Each new stage of development offers new feeding challenges to parents. Remember that by offering your baby very nutritious foods, prepared and portioned in a way that is appropriate for her age, you are doing the very best you can to be healthy.

Making Your Own Baby Food

The first foods you offer your baby should be smooth in texture and thin in consistency. Initially, solid foods should, therefore, be offered to her in a very liquid form-that is, pureed. At about seven or eight months, your baby is able to manage soft chunks of food with some substance [such as bits of cheese, flakes of fish, peas and Cheerios], which she can get from the family table. As a result, pureeing your baby’s food is a temporary task.

What is the difference between commercial and homemade baby food? The difference really depends on the quality of the foods used to make the baby food, the care given to preserve the vitamin and mineral content, and the amount of salt, sugar, preservatives, and spices that have been added to the food. In general, homemade baby food is often denser in calories. That is, it often is thicker and has less water. Commercial baby food is required by law to list the ingredients contained in each jar. You will notice that in response to parents’ wishes, commercial baby food now rarely contains added salt, sugar, spices or preservatives.

Homemade baby food may have a higher vitamin and mineral content than commercial baby food if it is made from the very freshest foods and if it is served soon after preparation. A long shelf life and exposure to light may reduce the vitamin content of commercial baby food.

In the preparation of commercial baby food, care is taken to be certain the food is free of bacteria and other organisms that could make your baby sick. Homemade baby food is safe; too, if a high standard of cleanliness is used in its preparation.

If you decide to make your own baby food, the following method may be helpful.

Preparing Your Own Baby Food with a Blender or Food Processor

1. Use the freshest and best foods available. Avoid canned foods that are high in salt and additives. Avoid using foods that have added sugar, spices, preservatives, or fat, and don’t add these ingredients yourself.
2. Wash your hands carefully before you handle the food or equipment.
3. Make sure all the cooking utensils, the cutting board, and the blender or food processor is very clean. You can do this by scrubbing all equipment with hot, soapy water and rinsing it well.
4. Prepare the food for cooking by washing organic fruit and vegetables well and removing skins, pit, and seeds. Remove the fat, skin, and bones from meats.
5. Cook the food by steaming or boiling in a very small amount of water in a covered pot. Cook until tender.
6. Add a cup of the cooked food to the blender or processor and puree with just enough of the cooking liquid to allow the blades to spin. Add more cooking liquid or water if necessary.
7. Some foods do not need to be cooked. Fresh peaches, pears, and bananas are examples. These may be processed by cutting the peeled fruits into chunks and then pureeing.
8. The pureed food may be served right away. The remainder should be stored carefully for later use.
9. To store the pureed food, place serving size portions in an ice-cube tray, a paper cupcake liner, or a glass dish or on a piece of plastic wrap and freeze. Two tablespoons is an arbitrary serving size. Make the servings larger or smaller depending on what your baby eats.
10. To serve stored food, reheat the individual portions. Microwave ovens can be dangerous since they may create hotspots in the cooked food, which can burn your baby’s mouth. Be sure to cool the food to a safe temperature before feeding.

Once your baby no longer requires purred food, a baby food grinder is a convenient way to make baby food right at the table. The grinder should be very clean, and the food used in the grinder should be very fresh, unsalted, and without spices, fat, or skins. Place the right portion in the grinder, adding water or cooking water as needed to get the right consistency. You will discover that as your baby grows older, she prefers foods from your table since she wants to eat the same foods she sees you eating.

Once you've got the process down, you can even make these to give as baby gifts to your friends or family when they've had a baby. It's the ultimate gift that keeps giving.

Using formula means you need bottles, nipples, and other paraphernalia. There’s really little difference between plastic and glass bottles except that glass bottles are more breakable. What size you choose is also a matter of convenience. Some parents find special bottle/bottle liner systems handier. But more often than not, you will have received these in your baby diaper cakes or other baby shower gifts.

Nipples come in many different sizes and shapes. Some are promoted as being “more like mother” because of their shape. What’s really important is not what the nipple looks like in the package, but how it works when your baby is sucking on it. If you find a nipple that meets your baby’s needs, stick with it.

You may wonder if it’s necessary to sterilize your baby’s bottles and nipples. If your water supply is safe and clean, there’s no need to sterilize or boil bottles and nipples. Clean them with hot, soapy water and then rinse and thoroughly dry them. Some mothers put the bottles in the dishwasher.

Mixing and Storing Formula

With the concentrated and powdered formulas, water must be added before use. Except when told otherwise by your doctor, never add more formula than the instructions say. Over-diluting formula on a regular basis leads to malnutrition.

If your water supply is clean and safe, there’s no need to boil the water before adding it to the formula. As a general rule of thumb, if you can drink the water without problems, so can your baby. If you have concerns regarding water quality, check with your local water or health department, or discuss your concerns with your baby’s doctor.

If you just mix one bottle of formula at a time, you can just add cold tap water to the powder, mix it well, and feed your baby. In areas with fluoride in the water, you won’t need to give your baby supplemental fluoride. Avoid using hot tap water- it has a greater tendency to pick up lead from plumbing.

Mixed or open formula can be safely kept refrigerated for twenty four hours. If you are traveling, the most convenient form is powdered. You simply add water and you are ready to feed your baby. You should be extremely cautious, however, if there is any question to water quality- for example, an camping trips or in foreign countries.

The transitional period begins sometime between the fourth and six months. By then your child can show a readiness for solids by being able to indicate when he is hungry and full, to swallow food from a spoon without extruding it from his mouth, and to digest more complex starches, proteins, and fats. You will know when he’s ready for solids when he shows an interest in what you are eating.

Milk [breast milk or an iron fortified formula] is still the most important food in his diet. Since he is beginning to deplete his iron stores, an iron fortified cereal is often the first solid food offered. The cereal can be mixed with breast milk, water, or formula. Start with just a teaspoonful in a very liquid form. During the next months, you might build up to three level tablespoons of cereal a day to supply the seven milligrams of iron your baby needs. Use one grain cereals at first, such as rice, oats, or barley. Later, you can introduce multi-grain cereals.

After cereal, the order of introduction is not important. However, breastfed infants might be offered a high protein food, such as chicken or lamb, because breast milk is somewhat lower in protein than formula. Some parents like to offer vegetables first, hoping to accustom their babies to foods less sweet than organic fruit. Once you begin to give your baby solids, offer him water too because his kidneys must work harder to excrete the by-products of these new foods.

Introduce only one new food a week so you will be able to identify which food, if any, causes a problem for your baby. You might suspect a food allergy if your baby has diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal pain, eczema or a chronic runny nose. The most common offending foods include wheat, soy milk, cow’s milk, eggs, orange juice, tomatoes, peanut butter [and other nut products], chocolate, fish, and beef. If your family has a history of allergy, be sure to tell your baby’s doctor and get some special guidance for feeding your baby.

Foods to avoid in the second six months of life include honey, milks other than breast or formula, and allergenic foods such as tomatoes, orange juice nuts, and chocolate. Avoid adding salt to your baby’s food, he does not need it. Avoid giving him large pieces of meat, hard candy, gourmet nuts (do NOT give your child any nuts) or popcorn, which may choke him. Also avoid nitrate containing foods, such as spinach and turnip or collard greens. These foods have been associated with methemoglobinemia, a very serious condition that interferes with the oxygen carrying ability of the blood.

The American Academy of Pediatrics also recommends not giving your baby juice in a bottle since this predisposes.The Modified Adult PeriodThis period begins about the eighth month of life, when your baby is able to eat chunkier foods and a more varied diet. You will find that he will finally be on a more predictable feeding schedule. Most of his food can come from the family table, although you will have to cut it in smaller pieces and perhaps grind his meat.

You're snuggled up with your little one and their little baby blanket getting ready to feed them. In this picture are you breastfeeding or bottle feeding? The decision to breastfeed or bottle-feed isn’t an easy one. There are many factors you must consider. Since you are going to be the one taking care of your baby, you must feel comfortable with the decision. Being pressured into one or the other feeding method only leads to discontent.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember is that, on the whole, babies do well whichever way you decide to feed them.

Bottle Feeding

Mothers have fed their babies formulas for years. In the past, evaporated milk was the main component of formula. Doctors would recommend various additions to it in an attempt to make the formula more complete.

Large companies now manufacture many different types of formula. They are continually improving their products, trying to make them closer to breast milk. There are also a number of special formulas available for babies with certain problems.

The formulas most babies drink use non-fat cow’s milk as their base and source of protein, many different sources of fat are used; soy, coconut, and corn are the most common. Various vitamins, minerals, and trace elements are also added. There is, unfortunately, no way to duplicate the antibodies found in breast milk.

Some formulas use soy protein in place of non-fat cow’s milk as the main source of protein. These formulas are for babies with a milk allergy or intolerance.

Babies with digestive problems or acute, severe diarrhea often need formulas that are very easy to digest and absorb. These formulas are casein as their proteins source. They are used for only a few days, until the baby can get over the diarrhea.

Choosing a Formula

All the milk based formulas currently available are similar in composition and nutrient value. There are small differences between them, but they are more similar than different. Despite this, some babies seem to do better on one milk based formula than on another. If your baby has gas, vomiting, or bowel problems, with one formula, switching to another may help.

Most formulas are available either with or without supplemental iron. This element is necessary to prevent anemia. Most babies have no problem with the supplemented formulas, and many doctors recommend them. The most common problem from the added iron is constipation. If your baby is constipated, you might temporarily try giving him formula without the extra iron.

Most babies do well on any milk based formula. Many hospitals give out samples of formula when you leave the hospital. Just because your baby was started on one formula, doesn’t mean he needs to continue on that brand.

Ready-to-Feed, Concentrate, or Powder?

Formulas come in three forms-ready-to-feed, concentrate, and powder. All three forms contain the same protein, fats, and other nutrients. Which you choose is a matter of price and convenience. The most convenient, but the most expensive is the ready-to-feed in individual bottles or quart cans. The powder and concentrate are less expensive, but more of a hassle to use.