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The First Solids
Introducing solid foods to your baby is a fun and exciting time. It is a learning experience for you both, so don’t feel like you should know everything there is to known already. Here are the basics on what foods to introduce, and how to introduce them.
What Foods?
Smooth, bland foods are the best foods to introduce first, as your baby is more likely to accept them, and they are less likely to cause a reaction. Introduce them in the following order;
1. Baby cereal – rice cereal
Make this into a smooth paste using either breast milk or formula
2. Vegetables
These should be cooked well then mashed into a smooth puree. Start with pumpkin, potato, sweet potato and carrots. When your baby seems to be accepting these, you can introduce some vegetables with stronger flavours such as broccoli and cauliflower. You may like to start by mashing these in with the already accepted vegetables.
3. Fruits
Fruit will need to be mashed or pureed until smooth. Hard fruits will need to be cooked first in order to puree or mash them. Start with pear, apple and banana. Note: It is important to introduce vegetables before fruits, this way your baby will not develop a liking for only sweet foods straight away.
How to Introduce New Foods?
1. Offer solids after your baby’s breast or bottle feed. Breast
milk (or formula) should still be their most important food source at this stage.
2. Offer one new food at a time. Offer only that food by itself.
3. Allow the baby to accept or refuse the new food. If they refuse, try that food again in a few days time. Continue this
process to allow the baby to develop an acceptance to the new food.
4. Offer new foods in small amounts. Try ½ teaspoon first.
5. Offer new foods in the morning so you can monitor the baby throughout the day and ensure they are not having any reaction to the new food.
6. Don’t panic if your baby does not seem to be eating much. They are still learning and developing at this stage, and still receive the majority of their nutrition needs from breast milk or formula.
Added to site on : Saturday, 20 November 2010