Good 1st foods for babies????

Question

I have a 5 month old and don't plan to start solids for another month. He only has 1 tooth and another coming. So, why on the La Leche League website would they list shredded chicken beans and chunked fruit as good first foods when the baby wouldn't be able to chew it? I was planning on continuing breastfeeding until he's 1 year and starting rice cereal @ 6months. When do you start on those others though, and would I just gradually give him pureed veggies and fruits? Please help with your motherly advice!!!! 1st time mom if you couldn't tell!!!

Answer 1

Babies without any teeth can still eat food provided it is soft and small. Their gums are remarkably good at mashing the food in their mouths. With my youngest daughter, I intended to nurse her as long as I could. She was just shy of 7 months when she had anything besides breast milk. I began with infant rice cereal made with just water. She ate that 1-2 times a day for about a month then she just began eating regular table food. Mashed bananas, cooked mashed sweet potatoes, mashed steamed carrots , unsweetened applesauce, mashed potatoes, canned (no sugar added) peaches, pears, and apricots, and plain yogurt were all first favorites. By 9 months she ate what we ate as long as we cut it into tiny pieces or mashed it. She drank only breast milk until she turned a year than we introduced whole cow's milk to her, which she liked. I breast fed her until she self-weaned at 14 months. Commercially prepared baby food is a great convenience, but you don't have to use it. Shredded chicken, meatloaf, beef stew, mashed garbanzo beans, and cooked egg yolk are all good first protein foods and are good about 9 months. You can mix things with water, breast milk, formula if it seems a little too thick. Egg whites, nuts, and whole milk are best after 1 year mostly due to higher instances of allergies. A good tip is to introduce each new food slowly and feed for about 5-7 days until adding another food. If your baby does have a food sensitivity, you will be able to tell which food it is. Then you can discontinue that and try again later. Most food sensitivities are not long-lasting.

Answer 2

i have no clue why they would say to feed those things as first foods, you have to get the baby ready for things like that and make sure they understand to chew. the best thing is to give rice cereal first for about a month, then start veggies, i was always told to start with the yellow veggies, then green, and then orange. the reason is because yellow ones tend to be more bland, the next step up in flavor is green, and orange ones are the sweetest. you only give one new type of food every few days in case if they have an allergic reaction to something you dont have to guess what it was. after you introduce all the veggies, then you can introduce fruits (in any order). you want to introduce veggies first so that they dont get too used to the sweet fruits and then refuse veggies. hope this helps.

Answer 3

Well im a first time mom to. But the doctors dont help much its a mothers instinct. Well my son is 8 1/2 months and has 6 teeth!! So i gave him stage 1 gerber foods and cereal at 4 months, then I started stage 2 and added oatmeal cereal for breakfast. Stage 3 foods will be in 2 weeks!

Answer 4

Definitely a first time mom :-P

With my son (first child) started rice cereal at 4 1/2 months
Baby food at 6 months
Table food at 8 months

Second child (after having cared for several dozen other babies) started rice cereal at 3 1/2 months
Baby food at 5 months
Table food at 6 1/2 months
Off the bottle (using sippy cup) at 9 months

It's amazing how you just "know" what to do and when with your second child, you just don't second guess yourself all the time and worry about what other people think or how one doctor tells you no when another says yes...just relax :)

If he hasn't ever been exposed to food before it's going to take some getting used to. I would start at the bottom and work your way up as he clues you in. Try knew things and if they don't work set them aside to try again in another week or two. It's all trial and error and you will do just fine going on your own gut instinct.

Answer 5

Most breastfed babies don't need solids until much closer to a year.

On top of that, infants don't chew with htier front teeth, they use thier back gums... so teeth are irrelivant. What is important are the childs motor skills. If they can pick something up, put it in thier mouth and chew it... they are ready.

Rice cereal is basically void of any nutrition. Its extremely processed and infants can't really digest grains anyway.

My advice, if you are set on starting right at 6 months, would be to start with mashed banana or avocado. Fresh food is always better than pre-packaged and those are both easy for baby to swallow and packed full of good nutrients.

We tried banana around 6 months and my son was just not interested. So, we waited... close to 8 months, he let us KNOW that he wanted big people food and he fed himself eagerly. He has been doing it ever since.

Everyone comments on what a good eater he is and how great it is that he drinks so much water.

Good habits start now... feed him what you would like for him to eat in the future. Your milk is plenty until well after a year, so don't worry about "filling him up"... just offer good food and let him set the pace.

Goodluck!

Answer 6

Mashed bananas...yummmmm.

Follow the baby. Try a variety of pureed foods. Sweet potato, pumkin, custard, apple. You can even mix the rice cereal in with the pureed fruit or vegetable to make the flavours less strong. Your baby will soon tell you what it does and doesn't like.

Keep going with the breastfeeding. They can do both!!

My second child didn't give the breast up until she was about 16months old !

Answer 7

Ide say by 4 months baby can start eating all the baby foods in car, If you havent yet start with vegetables then go to fruits then around 8 or 9 months start giving him more solids like real carrots or potatoes or small pieces of fruit. Just make sure to chop em up good. Bout 6 months i would give him cheerios or wagon wheels, or crackers stuff like that.

Answer 8

I started my son on cereal at 6 wks...then at four months I gave him stage one pureed food by gerber and at 8 1/2 months gave him solids such as the gerber chunks in a jar plus other soft veggies and fruit....

Answer 9

I started my kids and grandkids on cereal at 4 months. About 8 mths for strained carrots, peas, beans, sweet potatoes.......always started with the veggies first introduced one every other week to make sure they weren't allergic. Started fruits right before the first birthday. Didn't want to give them a sweet tooth or any bad habbits from infancy.

Answer 10

When you get ready to give him the fresh fruit, there are these pacifyer pouch things. You can put veggies, fruit, or ice in them for your little one to chew on. It keeps the seeds from coming out of fruits and such. You can get them at babies r us.

Baby safe feeder is what it is called
http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2404768&cp=2255981.2256162.2256179&parentPage=family