Introducing Solid Food to Your Infant

The first six months of a child’s life is a relatively easy one when it comes to nourishment. There are no spoons, no bowls, no splatter of carrots on the dining room walls or trail of Cheerios all through the house. The only thing you need is breast and/or bottle. But the time will come when you need to think about solid food and how to go about it.

As with all things baby-related there are whole aisles devoted to baby food at your local grocer, Target, Wal-Mart and Rite-Aid. Standing in front of food choices can be daunting. Cereal? Fruit? Vegetable? What is the ideal first food for your baby? And, like the number of items of the shelves, there are an equal number of experts with opinions on the topic.

Back in the “good old days,” there was no question. You went from breast/bottle to cereal mixed with breast/bottle milk. But allergies are increasingly playing a larger role in infant foodstuffs and further research has shown that the hard-and-fast cereal rule is no longer so hard and fast. There are a few more choices now that there were in the past. But the biggest and most agreed-upon advice is to wait until your infant is 6 months old (or until your pediatrician gives you the go-ahead). This means that your baby is developmentally ready and that their digestive system has matured enough to handle something other than milk. So what are the choices?

Most experts do agree that there are 4 foods with which to start your baby on: cereal, banana, avocado, or sweet potato.

• Cereal: Rice cereal specially formulated for babies is digested easily and is not a common allergen, making it a good first food. It is prepared with warm water, formula, or breastmilk. Rice cereal is bland, with very little taste (or resembles the milk your child is already getting), so your infant only needs to get used to the new texture. There are a variety of brands, but try to stick to those made with organic whole brown rice.
• Banana: Ripe banana is also simply prepared with the mash of a fork and is easy to digest. Do your best to buy certified organic bananas, so that you know they have not been sprayed with a fungicide, which can permeate the banana skin. NOTE: There is some concern that the sweet taste of ripe bananas can cause your infant to develop a sweet tooth, causing difficulty when introducing non-sweet foods.
• Avocado: Ripe avocado is another item that is easily prepared and digested, but may not be as readily available as other options.
• Sweet potato: You can prepare your own sweet potato (bake, steam, microwave) and mash up, thinning with breastmilk/formula if need be. Or, you can buy commercially prepared sweet potato baby food jars. If you make your own, you can mash the whole thing and have enough for several meals, and is really quite easy to do. Less sweet than bananas, more readily available than avocado, this is a good first food.

The rule of thumb when starting out on solids is to give your infant their normal breast/bottle feeding and try the solid after they have finished. This way they are guaranteed nutrition. Just make a small amount—a tablespoon should do it to start, and introduce the food with your finger. Those sensitive gums aren’t ready for a metal spoon yet. If you are averse to finger feeding, you can try a soft baby spoon or plastic spoon.

Choose one food and stick to it for 4-7 days. Too soon and you may not spot an allergic reaction. Introduce only one food at a time. Once a food has cleared the 4-7 day test, you can mix it with another cleared food (rice cereal and bananas, for example). Watch for signs of irritability, rash, excessive gas, and other signs of allergy. Bowel movements will begin changing, and additional water will probably be necessary once solid food becomes a regular habit (more on that in a future column).

And one more thing:  DON’T FORGET THE BIB!
 

Check out the new HealthNews pregnancy and childbirth column, which debuted yesterday, June 6th. Bringing in Baby: Pregnancy and Childbirth Made Healthy, written by Constance Rock, LM, CPM and Aleksandra Evanguelidi, LM, CPM, will run every Saturday and focus on all aspects of pre-pregnancy, pregnancy, childbirth, and early postpartum. Find out everything you need to know to have a healthy conception, pregnancy and birth.