December 9, 2008
Diet for Babies
When your baby can sit with support, hold his head steady, and can take food off with his mouth from the spoon and swallow it easily, this is the right time to move to the next diet stage. This usually occurs when baby is 4 to 6 months old.
The first food your baby can eat is baby cereals. After baby cereals, you can give your baby rice, then oatmeal. Later on, when he knows how to drink from a babies small cup, you can give him a freshly squeeze fruit juice for his vitamin C supplement.
Once your baby reached 6 to 8 months old, he can now hold and grab onto things. He can sit without support and he can begin to chew foods. The best foods that you can give him on his stage are pureed, mashed, and strained foods. You can try to boil a potato or a carrot and then mashed it. You can also give soft fruits for him to eat.
Later on, you can give him strained meat; cooked and mashed dry beans, and boned and cooked fish.
At the age of 8 to 10 months old, your baby can take a full bite of foods. He can pick up small pieces and he can feed himself. You can move to the next food level, which are cooked and mashed egg yolks, and Cottage cheese and yogurt. You can also give him crackers, small pieces of cooked vegetables and peeled soft fruits.
When your baby reaches age 10 to 12 months old, he can now chew and swallow mash food. You can give him soft foods that the rest of the family can eat like crackers, cereals, cooked meat, peas and lentils, and cooked egg yolks.
It is best to offer your baby 3 small amounts of foods everyday. Older babies can eat larger amount of solid foods in a day. It is best to allow your baby to choose how much he will eat. Never force nor encourage your baby to eat more than he wishes to eat.
Filed under Babies by Sally
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When did you start to add formula to your babies diet?
I have bf my baby since birth she is now 5 months old. I am considering adding formula to her diet slowly so that weaning won't be so hard, like switching 1 feed a day for a week then 2 feed etc. Any thoughts?
You are her mother. You can bring formula in if you want and at any intervals that you want. However, it is best to breastfeed at LEAST 9 months to 1 year. It is much healthier for your baby. I seriously wish I hadn't stopped breastfeeding my daughter. She's only 2 months… Try to keep with the breastfeeding and when you just get tired of the routine, slowly introduce the formula. From my experience though, you will wish you continued for her health.
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I wouldn't add formula to my baby's diet for weaning purposes. If weaning was on my mind (mine wean around 2 yrs by themselves) I would pump it into a bottle to get them used to the idea.
This will help maintain your milk supply as well.
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Mama of 4 breastfed babes
You should try to let your baby wean themselves. I would hate to add formula to their diet and experience the difficulties of finding the right formula etc… My daughter has reflux so formula is def. out of the question as long as I continue to produce milk the first year.
http://www.kellymom.com/bf/weaning/weaning_intro.html
http://www.kellymom.com/bf/weaning/how_weaning_happens.html
"Child-led Weaning
Child-led weaning occurs when a child no longer has a need to nurse - nutritionally or emotionally. A baby who self-weans is usually well over a year old, is getting most of his nutrition from solids, is drinking well from a cup, and cuts down on nursing gradually. If children are truly allowed to self-wean in their own time, most will do so somewhere between the 2nd and 4th year. Obviously, some will wean before this time and some will wean after this time, too. " Of course like it said, some babies will self wean earlier, like 1 year or 1 1/2 years.
"Mother-led Weaning
If you feel that you need to encourage weaning before your baby is truly ready, it is possible to gently and lovingly "help" your child along the way, while at the same time remaining as flexible and as respectful to his needs as possible. Some children, even though they're not truly ready, can be gently weaned without too much of a protest. It's important to always conduct mother-led weaning in a way that is gentle, gradual, flexible, patient, and as respectful to your child's needs as possible. Be aware of any signs that the weaning process is going too quickly for your child and be ready to slow things down some if necessary.
If you want to take an active approach to weaning before baby show signs on his own, you might consider waiting until at least the age of 18 months. At this age most children can be told "no" and asked to wait on nursing more easily than a younger child can. "
After 1 year your baby will no longer need breast milk or formula so why not just breastfeed until 1 year and not worry about having to wean from formula after just having weaned TO formula? By the time you get your baby completely on formula you'll be feeding it to her for like 2 months maybe. I'd just stick with the good ol' BM.
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