Feeding Your Baby

Your baby will probably be eating:

• Breast milk and/or formula when hungry — about 30 ounces a day

• Infant cereal mixed with liquid — several tablespoons twice a day

• Vegetables, pureed — 2 to 4 tablespoons daily (include green and yellow)

• Fruits, pureed — 2 to 4 tablespoons daily

Give your baby new foods one at a time. Don’t force a new food. If your baby doesn’t like it, put it away and try again the next day. It may take seven to 10 tries before your baby starts to like a food.

If your baby is interested, let him try to hold his own bottle or spoon. Also offer finger foods, such as crackers and dry cereal, so he will try to pick them up. It may take a while, but that’s OK. He’s learning a very important skill.

Your baby will be messy when he is first learning how to feed himself. Try not to become overly concerned about neatness now. A large plastic tablecloth under your baby’s chair will make cleanup easier.

Check for the circle of safety when buying baby food. Do not buy jars that have the circle pushed up. Listen for a pop when you open the baby food jar. That will tell you that you have broken the vacuum seal, and it is safe to feed baby.

Serve and feed your baby from a dish, not directly from the jar. Don’t put leftovers from the dish back in the jar. You can refrigerate the unused baby food in the jar for two to three days. After your baby begins to eat an entire jar in one meal, then you can feed him from the jar.

No sweet foods! Candy, sugar, presweetened cereal, sweet desserts (including baby desserts), fruit juices, fruit-flavored drinks, and soda pop are filled with empty calories. These foods should not be fed to your baby because they will spoil his appetite for healthy food. These foods also are harmful to your baby’s teeth. Do not add sugar, sweeteners, salt, butter, oil, or other seasonings to your baby’s food.

Keep your baby’s teeth healthy. Do not give your baby a bottle to drink in bed while he is going to sleep. Do not give your baby sugar-coated foods or put sweets on pacifiers.

About weaning: Some babies lose interest in nursing as they become more active. Some mothers decide to wean their babies from the breast about now. We recommend you continue breastfeeding at least until your baby is 12 months old, if you can. Check out these sources for more good reasons to continue breastfeeding: http://aap.org and http://lalecheleague.org.

When you decide to wean your baby, try to do it gradually — over several weeks. Replace the feeding in which he is least interested with a bottle or cup feeding. After a week or two, replace another feeding. Do this gradually until your baby is weaned. During weaning, give your baby extra hugs and kisses.

Building Good Food Habits

Did you ever stop to think why you don’t like some foods? Food habits are formed during childhood. If a variety of nutritious foods are offered in the early years, most children will eat a variety of foods throughout life.

Children copy their parents, brothers, and sisters. If your baby sees her family eating healthy foods, she probably will, too.

Ways to help your baby develop good eating habits:

• Make meals pleasant and relaxed.
• Feed her with the rest of the family.
• Feed her as much as she wants, but don’t force her to eat more than she wants.

Introduce foods one at a time. After you are sure your baby is not allergic to a new food, introduce another one. Over time, your baby will learn to like a variety of healthy foods. Use colorful foods to make eating more interesting. Give different textures to help develop chewing skills.

Prevent choking. Do not give your baby small, firm, and slippery foods such as peanuts, raisins, whole grapes, hard candy, popcorn, raw carrots, or hot dogs cut into circles. Some people think it’s OK to cut foods into small circles for babies to eat, but this is the perfect size to cover their windpipe and choke them. Do not cut foods into small circles.