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So what do we give them in the beginning? What about chewing properly so as not to choke? or is this where the 'real' age for solids becomes much later than we're led to believe?
I have to wait until DD is 6 months corrected, so that's 7 1/2 months and she's already watching me eat! LOL.
WRT soy - I thought soy was the reason that asians have a low incidence of cancer? (so many "studies" out there.. totally agree with moderation being the key with anything).
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I would never dream of telling you when to start your child on solids Liz. I'm just saying I believe I knew when the time was right with my own DD. Every child is different - that's why I chose to ignore the guidelines and I treated the stuff about allergies with a pinch of salt. Some may think that was foolish - that's OK too - I'm prepared to take that risk because it honestly seemed cruel to me to deny her something that she obviously wanted so badly. Of course, it wasn't that she was just watching, she was trying to grab and she was much more restless/bored with her bottles. Added to that was her physical readiness - she swallowed no problem. If she hadn't I would have waited. But all those factors, not just one, made me give her solids.
She literally jumped up and down with excitement after a few goes with food and I so wish I'd videod her. She would giggle and headbutt the spoon in her fever to get to her food and her eyes became saucers. And she also seems much happier to have her bottles now too because it's not the only thing she's getting.
But if I was a Viking (I feel a tad silly writing that but just to answer your question...) and I thought it was going to be unsafe to give her some of my chewed up food, then obviously I'd wait a bit longer.
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I haven't read through the whole article, or this thread, so I don't have a feel for the response. But I wanted to say that I went to the ABA seminar yesterday, and heard Gill speak. She also presented video footage. What she's talking about makes alot of sense to me as a mother, and this way of feeding really works in our household.
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I was talking about this with my MCHN last week and she went to that seminar and found it to be fascinating. I had already decided this was how we were going to do things (the biggest one being less work for me in having to puree the foods) and it just makes so much sense kwim? We had a huge chat about it - I'm really lucky that this time I got a MCHN that is aligned with my thoughts on things. Although we have only just started on solids late last week and it is cereal, I want him to get used to the idea of swallowing food. He has had an arrowroot biscuit and managed that fine, so I think by next week it will be onto the finger food. Although there will be some foods like my homemade vege soup that will be fed to him from a spoon - as he sits with his siblings and sees them eat soup from a spoon - there will always be some foods that need to be spoon fed if you want them to have it. So overall I am stoked with myself that I waited till 6mths this time as there is such a huge difference in development.
BTW - it has nothing to do with the age of the child for those defending their stance to introduce solids earlier than 6mths, but surely you can see how this all fits together - early infant milk feeding and then baby led solids is all linked together and it is a natural progression for them in their development to move from milk to finger fed solids. As for wether they will 'starve' or not, thats an individual thing, there will always be babies that need something more than what they are getting at some stage and yes, it is up to us as their parents to take that step, but we can't ignore the information we have about early solids and we have to be more aware and take that into account. The guidelines have come about from some serious and in-depth study and research about it and isn't just something 'made up' - unlike years ago when it was an advertising free-for-all and baby food companies could do and say what they liked.
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I have a question that a BB member and I were pondering yesterday while we drank tea and ate biscuits while BF our kiddies. Now the MCHN approach of "introduce solids at 6 months" appears to stem from a concern about the level of iron that babies have stored from birth, and the fear of that tapering off steeply from 6 months. We were wondering whether it is that the human body can only store "6 month's worth" of iron, so to speak, or whether, on average, the amount of iron a baby gets in utero runs out at about 6 months. If it is the former, that seems odd, because cavewomen didn't have vitamisers, so couldn't puree food, and certainly didn't have iron-enriched rice cereal at their disposal. If it is the latter, then surely the amount of iron stored by the baby would be dependant upon how healthy the mother's iron levels were during pregnancy? In which case, if a woman is anaemic in the last few months her bub might really need the iron at about 6 months, or even earlier (?), but if she had normal to high iron levels (as I did, when tested at 38 weeks) then the food-at-6-months-because-of-iron-deficiency argument would really fall down.
I do not mean to add to the debate about early intro of solids or the pros or cons of pureeing, but I am interested if anyone knows anything about this bypothesis. Opinions are welcome of course (!) but if anyone has the "facts" it would be appreciated
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Great food for thought Rory. I would assume that we can only store iron for a limited time and that what stores we have are not infinate - even as adults we need to eat food with iron in it to maintain our iron stores too. Seeing as how there is no way of 'quantifying' exactly what is in breastmilk in terms of nutrition, we just *know* that it is perfectly suited to our children's needs, it would be interesting to know how they came about this idea of iron levels dropping off in exclusively BF babies (on the presumtion that FF babies keep getting iron from iron fortified formulas - not wanting to start the old debate again, simply making an obvious statement about what we know to be true).
In terms of cavemen/women/children, you have to remember that there would have been a high infant mortality rate and it would be impossible to surmise what the cause of this was. I would think that even with their limited knowledge that they would have had some remedy for this, considering that early man ate a lot of meat and so the children would have the same diet, or possibly even that if the women ate a lot of meat that possibly she would have fortified her own breastmilk with iron - does that make sense?
Regardless of the how's and the why's of it all, sooner or later they are going to have to start eating solid foods. simple as that. They can't live on milk forever
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Just popping in to say the paw paw was a success( allbeit a messy success). I'm still mashing his banana (still very lumpy though) because that gagging nose scares the heck out of me but I'm learning to trust that he will spit out what he can't swallow.
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It's just hard to shake the 'first foods' thing hehe. I have seen (perhaps Barb posted it?) it said that pureed food only became the norm because we were introducing 'solids' too early, and that's why it needed to be pureed. I just can't think of what else I would give as a first food, no matter what the age LOL.. don't they still need to learn to eat? Even if you wait until they're close to 12 months.. they still need to learn to chew and swallow. btw.. I don't like the really pureed stuff.. we started with mush more than anything.
Any examples of what to feed? I'd love to not have to prepare 'baby food' for DD! heheh
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Well I wholly agree with that statement. I have never pureed Ari's food and she has developed a lot better eating habits. We would just give her what was on our plate, (we don't add butter or salt to our food so it was easy) little tastes of things from 5 mths off my finger and once she was 6-7 mths (as gross as it sounds) I would just either break up with my finger or give it a bit of a chew - kind of like a baby bird. She chews well, eats well, and is not fussy. The only thing she won't eat is the pureed stuff my MIL tried to give her :-)
It has made the intro of solids so much easier and cheaper
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Yeah, DS was eating our food pretty early on, and to this day eats anything and everything - ALL DAY!! But I still did prepare baby food for him in the early days, mushed veggies frozen into ice cubes. Or cooked and mushed fruits. *shrug* Think I'll probably still do it for DD.. worked well with DS hehe. I can't imagine finger foods that early tho.
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I can totally see what you are saying fionas, however with Paris she was way more ready than Seth ever was, she was having 3 meals a day by the time she was 5 months and she was loving it. Yet she ended up with severe eczema and later at 4 asthma attacks. For me I wish I had known then what I do now. And yes there is a possibility it could have happened anyway but I would have put it off a few months on the off chance it would have helped.
♥ BellyBelly's Creator ♥
Cailin you will remember how Lijie started early too and we had all those probs with eczema patches (not as bad as paris), tummy probs and some sort of milk related reaction - green poo and stomach ache whenever he had milk. Rissy had nothing, and all she wanted was breastmilk thanks!
Kelly xx
Creator of BellyBelly.com.au, doula, writer and mother of three amazing children
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Felix didn't start solids until he was pretty much 6 months.
He's now coming up to 7 months and we are very much trying the finger food thing (rather than the purees).
But...I'm finding it really confusing as to what I can actually give him.
So far, we've tried:
banana
avocado
rusks
cooked pears
cooked apples
All the above foods have been given to him as finger food...about the size of a hot chip (sometimes a little smaller)...
Is that how you do it?
Anyone got any other suggestions of what I can give him?
Cheers!
BellyBelly Member
Monnie
zuchinni cooked and cut into fingers is a good one
carrot and beans (well-overcooked) is good too
Strawberries in quaters, grapes in halves
Once he is a little older cheese sticks, meat, sandwiches in fingers
hmm can't think of any else at the moment
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Thanks Saram
I'll try those ones...
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I was quite surprised with DD, whilst I did tentatively start solids just after 5 months, I did start her on rice cereal which she did not take to very well. One day when she would have been 6months I gave her a slice of rockmelon to suck on, well she took to it very well and was able to munch down on it and swallow with out much of a problem. Sadly I did not continue down that path and still pureed and mushed food as I thought I was doing something wrong.
Fionas - you could be right about chewing food, hard to know as historians are in love with kings and queens, not with what the average everyday person did. I can certainly see them handing over a cooked bone with a bit of meat still on it, for the baby to suck the meat off and suck the marrow out of. Stews would break down quite well, which could then be ground with a spoon (no forks), but that would still require spoon feeding, a labour intensive task for a very busy household.
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Monnie, also melons, pieces of cheese (my boys loved tasty cheese straight off - there is usually no need to start with those highly processed cheeses marketed for kids), and cherry tomatoes there are really lots of things you can do. I would hold off on strawberries though - these are one of high allergy risk foods that is not recommended before 12 months.
any veg you would usually do mashed is ok as a finger food!
arquene love pumpkin
we also just started pasta and she devours that!
all by her self no spoons required! i love it
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