Dear Readers,
I asked for a topic to write about yesterday on my Facebook page, and someone asked for me to talk about "what age do infants start food, other than formula? what kinds are recommended? what foods should you avoid?" Well, I will talk about this, but I have to preface that I am not a Pediatrician or a Dietitian, that this is my experience with having 3 children, and what I have done with each of them. I will also share what I have read on different parenting websites and their recommendations, but when it comes down to it, the parent has the last and only real say in how and what their children eat.
In short, I am not the Parenting Food Police. ;)
How should I write this? Long hand, with a story or just a cut and dried list of what I now do? How about both. I'll do the list first and then my story, that way you can read the list first and if you want to still read the story, then you can, but you aren't forced to in order to get the information you want to read (I hate those types of blogs).
Here's what I do now (note: I don't say I have always done this- you know better, you do better, right?).
-no foods except breastmilk or formula before 6 months of age
-I do a mix of purees and baby led weaning(BLW)*
-Avocado is a good first food or Banana
-Stay away from Dairy before age 1 (no cheese bits, no cow's milk)
-I don't tend to feed meat before my kids have most of their teeth
-Most people suggest veggies before fruits when doing purees
A few good websites that I tend to look at for parenting experience are:
Kellymom
Babycenter (some people have problems with babycenter but I find most of the information there to be pretty helpful. As long as I stay away from the forums)
La Leche League International
So, there's the short version, I hope my information was helpful. Please, if you have the need or desire for more detailed answer, feel free to leave a comment, and I will be happy to answer any questions!
The Long Answer:
When I had Colton, I was very new to taking care of a newborn (obviously), but even more so because I wasn't one of those girls who enjoyed babysitting when I was growing up. Mostly because I was a youngest child and really from age 7-8 on, an only child because my older brother moved out when he was 16-17 years old or something. He's 8 years older than me. ANYWAY, back to Colton, our little guy was in the Nicu for 5 days after birth so he was given a mixture of formula and breastmilk. I did alright pumping for awhile, but after a few weeks, I just felt it was super difficult and gave up. We switched to formula full time.
I still kind of regret giving up. And although, he had a tongue-tie, I feel now that I just didn't try hard enough to continue to breastfeed, and I just gave up. It's fine though, and his tongue tie was corrected at 6 months with an in-hospital procedure.
At 4 months, our pediatrician told us to start giving him rice cereal and that at 6 months we could start on other purees. At 1 we were told to stop giving Colton formula and to give him milk in a sippy cup. We still gave him a bottle of milk at nap time and bed time until he was probably 14-15 months, I think. But soon after that he was completely off bottles.
With our middle child, I breastfed exclusively until we started doing baby led weaning at about 6 months. I actually had a bit of a hard time with JD at the beginning of our nursing relationship too. I pumped and gave a bottle for the first few weeks, and then used a nipple shield before we finally were able to wean off the shield and just plain ole breastfeed. It was an accomplishment! He started having milk at around 1 year old but we continued our nursing relationship until he weaned himself at about 25-26 months old because I was halfway through my third pregnancy and my milk had changed back to colostrum. His last official nursing session was about one minute long right after we brought home our third son, JD was 2 years and 4 months old.
Currently with our littlest, who is almost 5 months old, he is exclusively breastfed. We've always had a great nursing relationship, as if we are old pros at it. Thank goodness! I plan on doing a mixture of Baby Led Weaning and giving him purees as well. Just for fun. Because I love the mantra, Under 1, Just For Fun! (pertaining to any food other than breastmilk or formula.)
Well, the littlest is waking up from his nap!
Yours in Friendship,
Stacy
P.S.
*Baby-led weaning (BLW) means forgetting purees and weaning spoons, and simply letting your baby feed himself.
Many parents follow BLW without even thinking about it. This is particularly the case with second or later children. Babies love to copy their older siblings. They often try to grab food from other children's plates, happy to feed themselves just like their big brother or sister does.
http://www.babycentre.co.uk/a1007100/baby-led-weaning#ixzz3UaCG9xrn
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