Babies
Give Your Baby a Life-Long Lesson in Good Eating
By
Oct 14, 2006, 12:11

(NC)-Healthy eating habits are formed at a young age. Dr. Richard Theuer, an infant nutritionist and consultant to Beech-Nut Nutrition, offers some useful tips to parents to develop smart eating practices.

The foundation of your baby's diet through the entire first year of life is breast milk or infant formula if you are not breastfeeding or have stopped. Breast milk or infant formula provide 100 per cent of the food energy and all the nutrients your baby requires at birth and for the first three or four months of life (except for vitamin D if you or your baby do not get out in the sun often).

If you are exclusively breastfeeding, paediatricians recommend starting solid foods at six months. Introducing solid foods later than six months has more risks than benefits. Starting earlier than six months may result in less frequent breastfeeding and ultimately less milk production. Iron absorption from breast milk is depressed when the breast milk mixes with other foods in your baby's intestinal tract, so starting solid foods too early may increase the risk of anemia.

If you are not exclusively breastfeeding, you should not start your baby on solid foods before two to three months. Swallowing solid food requires a different technique than sucking and swallowing milk from the breast or a bottle. A baby's system is not mature enough to process solid foods until three to four months and so the food is squeezed right back out. Introducing solid foods before three months of age also increases the risk of causing allergy. Waiting until four months is a good idea.

By the time your baby approaches his or her first birthday, breast milk or formula will provide roughly half of the food energy your baby needs, but it can be as little as one third. The rest of your baby's diet should be a variety of healthy foods, containing no added sugar or salt, that together with the nutritious foundation of breast milk or infant formula provides the nutrients your baby requires.

Parents should avoid feeding their children foods with added salt or sugar. They should also avoid adding sugar or salt to the homemade foods. Through exposure and experience children seem to learn whether certain foods should be salted or sweetened. Even very young infants consume more of a sweetened food and show a preference for sugar water if regularly exposed to it.

When your baby gets close to a year of age and certainly soon after that, you may notice a great change in your baby's reactions to foods. Familiar foods will be generally welcome but new foods frequently will be rejected. That's an important reason for parents to expose baby to a wide variety of foods between six and nine months of age.

For further information on healthy nutrition for your baby, call the Beech-Nut Helpline at 1-800-233-2468 weekdays 9a.m. to 6p.m. Eastern Time.

© Copyright by EveningsNews.com