Making homemade baby food for your baby offers the advantage of controlling what goes into his sensitive tummy. You control how much sugar and spices your baby gets, if any. Even when you found offers for sale at prices of 50 cents per jar, producing your own food for your baby is a less costly alternative than if it is ready made.
Making homemade baby food for your baby is very easy, with few simple tools: a boiling pot, a blender, baby food grinder, and few minutes of your time. Same as jarred food, begin slowly, introducing only only one vegetable or fruit per new week. Make sure there are no signs of an allergic reaction. Start with less acidic fruits such as bananas, apples or pears.
Basic tips:
Vegetables and fruits
- Wash fresh fruits and vegetables to remove any chemical residue.
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Self feeding is an important step to your baby’s independence, so be patient with them.
Use shaped plastic bibs that catch spilled food, and put a plastic sheet under the high chair.
Give your baby their own spoon and offer food that is of stiff consistency, such as mashed potatoes or other pureed vegetables, in a non-spill bowl. Never mind that they get very little at first, they’ll have a lot of fun. Have a spare spoon handy so that you can feed them, if needed.
Even if they find a spoon difficult, they’ll love feeding themselves with finger foods. Finger foods can also keep them busy if the meal isn’t quite ready.
Above all be flexible; if one food doesn’t suit, try another – no single food is essential.
Introduce trainer cup with a spout for drinks as soon as your baby can manage it. Some breastfed babies never accept a bottle and go straight to a cup for water. Others prefer a bottle for water and may take time to get used to a cup.
Vary your baby’s diet so that they learn to like different tastes and textures, avoid giving the same type of foods all the time as this is boring for the child and may also encourage “fussy” eating in later months.
FOODS TO GIVE
- Fruit and vegetables: wash them thoroughly in cold running water and peel potatoes, carrots, apples and peaches to avoid the risk of pesticide residues. Aim to give some vitamin C at each meal, whether as fruit, vegetables or juice, as it helps your bay’s body to absorb iron.
- Milk: from 7 months use full-fat cow’s milk in cooking. From one year, give as a drink.
- Meat and fish: try to offer at least one serving every day of lean meat or boneless fish.
- Protein in the form of low fibre foods such as cheese or tofu, if your baby has a vegetarian diet.
Don’t worry too much, but do take some sensible precautions.
FOODS TO AVOID
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Knowing what food to give your child and when to give it, will help you to introduce food with confidence.
Your baby on its first few months of existence is exclusively a liquid diet. Don’t start weaning until at least 6 months; before that, a baby’s digestion can’t cope, the baby’s digestive system is not capable or suitable for anything other than milk or water and any temptation to feed him or her more substantial food should be resisted.The Department of Health recommends exclusive breastfeeding (or baby formula feeding) for the first 6 months. However all babies are different and how you decide, depends very much on how you see your baby’s needs at that time.
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What is hypoallergenic formula milk
Whether or not a formula milk is hypoallergenic – i.e. will not cause symptoms of allergic reaction – is determined by the proteins contained in the formula, not the sugar or carbohydrate. Misconceptions are common about what is and what is not hypoallergenic. No formula is NON-allergenic; the specialty formulas just have degrees of lesser stimulation of the allergic response. According to the Food standards agency “If your baby is diagnosed with a cows’ milk allergy, your GP might prescribe hydrolysed milk formula for her. You shouldn’t give her partially hydrolysed formula or soya formula without consulting your GP, because babies with cows’ milk allergy might react to these types of formula.”
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