To protect your baby’s health, it’s important to know what kind of baby food to give them. Choking is a danger, so avoid giving them foods larger than your little finger. Breast milk is best for the first two months, then introduce solid foods slowly, starting with cereals and vegetables. At nine months, they can eat bite-sized pieces of fruit, vegetables, and meat. Baby food manufacturers label age-appropriate foods, but it’s not necessary to buy prepackaged baby food.
Babies go through developmental stages in every aspect, including the foods they can eat. In order to protect your baby’s safety and health, it is important to know what kind of baby food to give your baby.
It’s also important to remember that choking is a danger to babies and young children. To prevent your baby from getting any food that could choke, make sure you never give your baby anything larger than the diameter of your little finger without cutting it first. Foods you need to be especially wary of are grapes, blueberries, hot dogs, and other similarly shaped foods. Marshmallows – jumbo marshmallows, for older children – are a major concern, as they are soft and conform inside a child’s throat, making it more difficult to move food with emergency remedies such as the Heimlich.
Due to choking and other concerns, baby foods are usually grouped by age or developmental stage. Although baby food manufacturers label their baby food jars, making it easy to figure out which type is best for your baby, you can easily avoid the expense of prepackaged baby food, just by knowing a few basic rules.
The first thing to consider is breast milk versus formula. This may not sound like “baby food,” but it is, as breast milk or formula provides 100% of the baby’s sustenance for at least the first two months. While breastfeeding may seem like a hassle, you should carefully consider the health benefits for your baby before making the decision to put him on formula. Breast milk is designed by nature to meet all of your baby’s nutritional needs, and formula is a bad imitation at best. Additionally, breast milk imparts the mother’s immunities to the baby, which means that breastfeeding babies get less sick in their first year than formula-drinking babies.
Eventually, however, you’ll need to start giving your baby solid foods. As already mentioned, prepackaged baby food is clearly labeled for the different stages of development; however, you can feed your baby roughly the same foods that you and the rest of your family eat, as long as you know how and when to present them. It is important to be cautious about introducing new foods, as it is not known what allergies your child may have; therefore, when you are starting your baby on a new food, give him small amounts at first and wait several days before introducing another new food – that way, if an allergic reaction occurs, you will be able to pinpoint the food that caused it.
Most baby food manufacturers also make iron-fortified single-grain baby cereal, which may be the first solid your baby starts eating. You can start offering cereal when your baby is strong enough to hold her head up and still, opens her mouth to accept a spoon, and swallows the food instead of spitting it out. This generally happens between four and six months. While the vast majority of your baby’s sustenance should still come from breast milk or formula, it’s important to start your baby on solids as early as possible to avoid nutritional deficiencies or a reluctance to try solid foods later.
Between six and nine months is when you’ll be able to start offering more interesting baby foods. Once your baby has been introduced to all the different types of infant cereals — single grain and multi-grain — you can start giving her other grain products, such as bread, toast and crackers. Start slowly with fruits and vegetables, being wary of allergic reactions; you’ll probably want to start with vegetables so your baby gets used to them before trying the sweeter, tastier fruits. Start with mild-tasting foods; at first you’ll want to purify everything you feed your baby, but make sure you slowly transition to solid foods so he learns to chew properly. Meat and meat alternatives should be introduced in the same cautious manner, but only after the child has been properly introduced to fruits and vegetables.
At nine months, your baby should be able to eat bite-sized pieces of fruit, vegetables, and meat or meat alternatives. You can also start offering juice, but you should limit your daily juice intake to about four ounces per day; because of all the sugar it contains, juice is high in calories and can either make your child not hungry during mealtimes or it can help lead to obesity. Also, between nine and twelve months, you can start offering dairy products like yogurt and cheese; however, the later in that period cow’s milk is introduced, the better. Remember that young children should only have whole milk, rather than reduced-fat milk.
As mentioned earlier, baby food manufacturers produce and label age-appropriate foods for your baby, taking much of the planning out of introducing your baby to solid foods. However, shopping for prepackaged baby food is entirely unnecessary, as determining what to feed your baby yourself requires just a little knowledge and common sense.
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