Healthy Eating
Healthy eating - right from the first bite
With childhood obesity rates growing alarmingly, it's more important than ever to ensure your child has a healthy diet right from the start. Here's how to do it:
The right time to wean
The latest guidelines from the Department of Health state that weaning onto solids should only start at 6 months. This is because a baby's digestive system is not fully mature until this age and starting solids earlier can increase the risk of infections and the development of allergies like eczema and asthma. However, some babies are hungrier than others and might show signs of readiness before the six month mark. If this is the case, speak to your health visitor but as a rule of thumb, never start before 17 weeks of age. If there is no history of allergies in your family, start out slowly with basic purees. If you do decide to wean your baby onto solids before six months, don't give any foods containing gluten, eggs, cheese, dairy products, fish and shellfish.
Signs that might indicate that your child is ready
- He seems hungry after a feed, but refuses more milk
- He wakes more often for night feeds
- The time between feeds gets shorter
- He sits up in a highchair and shows interest in what's going on at the table
- He grabs at the food on your plate
- He simulates chewing and makes appreciative noises as he watches others eating
How to get started
Choose a time of day when both you and your baby are relaxed (not too tired or hungry) - late morning is a good option. Start out using a basic fruit puree like pears. Place a small amount on a rubber tipped spoon and don't attempt more than one or two spoonfuls initially. Follow this with your child's regular milk feed. Don't be dismayed if your baby spits out these first spoonfuls - it's a foreign feeling to them and it takes practice.
Gradually introduce a broader variety of basic fruit or vegetable purees. You should ideally wait 3 days before introducing another new taste to ensure no allergic reaction. Once they're used to a food, try moving that food to the evening meal and introduce another new food at lunchtime. Once your baby is comfortably taking lunch and dinner, you can introduce breakfast using suitable baby breakfast cereals mixed with some pureed fruit.
You can also start mixing them up - like apple and pear or butternut and parsnip. After the age of 6 months - but more likely around 7 to 8 months - and once your child is established on 3 meals a day, you can introduce protein like chicken or fish.
Remember that solid food should not replace a baby's formula or breast milk. Children between the ages of 6 to 9 months still need at least 500 - 600mls (16 - 20oz) of breast or formula milk daily.
Safe food preparation
If you start weaning your baby under the age of 6 months, you need to be far more diligent about sterilising feeding equipment like spoons and bowls (another reason to hold off for as long as you can). After six months, there is no need to sterilise spoons and other feeding utensils (bottles excluded).
It's important to always wash your hands carefully before you prepare any meals for your baby and wash their hands too if they're eating finger foods.
Other safety tips:
- Baby food should be cooled quickly and either stored in a fridge for a maximum of 24 hours or frozen
- Never refreeze something once it's been defrosted and never reheat baby food more than once. Throw away any food that your baby leaves in her bowl as saliva from her mouth or spoon contains bacteria that will multiply.
- Always heat food till it is piping hot and then let it cool down before feeding. Test it carefully particularly if you used a microwave as hotspots can occur.
Preparing purees
The easiest way to make your own purees is to peel, chop and steam whichever fruit or vegetable you're using until it's soft. Then blend it in a liquidiser or mouli adding a bit of the reserved cooking water or breastmilk/formula milk if it's too thick, pour it into ice cube trays, let it cool and then freeze. Once frozen, you can pop the cubes into labelled freezer bags. This way you have a ready supply of different frozen purees that you can mix and match.
It's important for babies to experience a broad range of flavours to make the transition to family meals easier and to avoid 'fussy eating' later on. Jars of baby food tend to all taste the same as they've had to be cooked at very high temperatures, which causes the sugars in the food to caramelise. If you aren't able to make your own, try buying prepared frozen baby food which tastes homemade.
Growing up
You can begin introducing finger foods to your baby early on in the weaning process, so that they learn to manage different textures and begin to feed independently. Things like bread sticks, pieces of cheese of soft fruit are ideal. Also gradually introduce more texture to their food, either by mashing it or by adding small pasta shapes or cous cous to the meals. Once they are comfortable with bigger lumps, you can shift them onto meals the rest of the family has.
Make sure the meals you make have very little salt and that they provide a good balance of protein, carbohydrates and vegetables. Meals like cottage pie, lasagne, fish pie or chicken casserole are easy to make and easy for little mouths to manage. Increase the veg quota by grating vegetables into the meats while cooking. For some great toddler meal ideas, try these:
Healthy snacking
Most children are 'grazers' wanting snacks in between meals. The challenge is to ensure that they're healthy. Try to avoid biscuits, sweets and crisps. Opt instead for fruit, vegetable sticks with hummus dip, raisins, yogurts, smoothies, homemade muffins, breadsticks, cheese or cereal bars. >> Snackylicious apple crisps
