Advice by Pediatric Conditions: Feeding Infants
Solid Foods: There are many reasonable ways to introduce solid foods to infants. With just a few guidelines that are listed below, you should be able to relax and enjoy mealtimes with your child.
Why Do You Start Solid Foods?
The main reason you’re introducing solid foods is to increase the pleasure in your child’s life. With few exceptions you are not introducing solids because breast milk or infant formula is lacking in some important nutrient. Now, please re-read the first two sentences in this paragraph because you’ll spare yourself worry and aggravation if you understand those two facts.
When Should You Start Solid Foods?
For most people, introducing solids when their infant around 6 months of age is reasonable.
What Are Good Choices For First Foods?
Start with foods high in iron because breast milk is low in iron (but it’s easily absorbed by the baby) and high-iron formula has iron that’s difficult to absorb. So, it makes sense to start with an iron fortified baby food – usually cereal in United States.
Next, you can add a new simple food (a cereal, a fruit or a vegetable – unmixed) to your infant’s menu about every 3 days. This means at any given time there is, at most, one “new” food on your child’s menu. That way if some “new” problem arises, like constipation, diarrhea, rash or vomiting, you’ll have a good idea what “new” food may have caused that problem.
Give foods that appeal to you and that you think your child might enjoy. There’s no good rationale to support giving green vegetables before yellow, or yellow vegetables before greens, or fruits before vegetables, or vegetables before fruits etc. Some parents think their children eat vegetables better if they’re offered before fruits and some parents like to give fruits first because they know they can treat stooling problems with certain fruits.
Give whichever you want first. It probably won’t make much difference in the long run. There is a fair chance your child will become a “picky” eater by two years of age, no matter what you do with the first foods.
On the other hand, there are reactions to certain foods that are consistent. If you’re like most parents you’ll find that bananas and apple sauce thicken the stools (or may even cause constipation) while pears, peaches, prunes, apricots and plums loosen the stools.
So, if your child has a tendency towards constipation, avoid bananas and applesauce and give pears, peaches etc.. If you want to thicken your child’s stools avoid the stool softening fruits and give more bananas and applesauce.
Meats are best started after 7 or 8 months of age, if you want to offer meats. Most children don’t care for meats until well past their first birthday so don’t expect much meat eating and don’t expect your infant to eat any baby food meats because they taste and smell awful. Further, it is not important that a child eat a minimum of meat. Little or no meat works very well for most children.
When Can You Give “Real” Food To Your Child?
After 2 or 3 months of introducing 1 new food every 3 days you will have given about 20 different foods; some cereals, some fruits and some vegetables.
If you are like most parents, you will have found that your child has no significant problem with any of those first 20 foods. You can then stop giving 1 new food every 3 days and start giving mixtures of food which may contain quite a few “new” dietary items. For example, you can give pizza and lasagna and enchiladas and whatever foods your family normally eats – with only a two exceptions; honey and Karo Syrup.
Of course, everything has to be soft and swallow-sized for an infant, so you’ll need to use your fork or spoon to mash these foods.
You can give foods that contain spices and that are not especially “baby” foods and you can give finger foods, like Cheerios at this time. This is the best time to introduce meats, but you’ll have to shred the meat into baby-sized bites and you still wouldn’t expect your child to show much interest.
How Can You Be Sure Your Child Is Getting The Correct Amount Of Calories, Protein, Calcium, Other Minerals, Fats and Vitamins?
The core of your child’s nutrition will usually be breast milk or formula or, when a child’s 1 year of age, whole milk – even if they’re eating cereals, fruits, vegetables and meats.
A nursing child should nurse, at least, 4 times/day and a child drinking formula or milk should consume, at least, 20 oz’s/day to ensure they are getting adequate calories, protein, calcium and most vitamins.
The quantity of starches, fruits or vegetables a child eats, beyond this core nutrition, is not crucial. Again, the breast milk, formula or milk will usually supply the most important parts of your child’s nutrition.
As you give more solid foods, your child will decrease the amount of breast milk or formula or milk. As long as your child is nursing 4 times/day and/or drinking 20oz/day of formula or milk, you are probably not giving too many solids. If you find your child’s consuming less than the minimum core nutrition, decrease the solids until the core nutrition increases to meet the above guidelines.
You don’t have to worry about giving too few solid foods. Even if your child eats no starches and no fruits and no vegetables and no meats, but is doing well with their core nutrition, it is unlikely that you’ll have a significant nutrition problem.
With no solids it’s possible that your child could develop a mild anemia (that’s easily corrected and routinely monitored in our office at the 9 month check-up). And if you’re only breast-feeding beyond 6 months of age, we may choose to start a vitamin supplement for a child that’s eating no solid foods. Otherwise, you should have no problems.
If you get stressed monitoring the number of green vegetables and yellow vegetables and orange vegetables that your child eats (or doesn’t eat), you are more likely to cause dietary problems than you are to help things. Remember, solid foods and meals should increase enjoyment in your child’s life. Mealtime is not the time to enforce your will upon your child.
On the other hand you are not expected to go out of your way to give junk foods. Once you are past the introductory baby food stage, you should be offering your child the kinds of (age appropriate) foods that the rest of your family eats. If your child wants some of the healthy choices you are offering, great. If your child doesn’t want some (or all) of the healthy foods you are offering, fine. Don’t worry about the foods your child doesn’t like – just stop offering those foods you know they don’t like and offer more of the healthy foods your child enjoys.
When To See The Doctor
You should make an appointment if your child’s core nutrition is below recommended levels even after stopping other foods and you should make an appointment if you find yourself getting aggravated about your child’s eating habits.
