Today's topic - food.
We're well into introducing solids to Josiah now and he loves his food. One of the biggest difficulties is deciding what to give him. I think one of the main things I have discovered along the way is that food companies may seem like they want to help give my child the best but really they just want my money. What makes me say that? Here's a couple of things:
Food companies sell a whole variety of foods claiming to be suitable from 4 months old. They send samples of these foods to parents from before their child has even reached 4 months. Is this because feeding solids from 4 months is good for my child? No. (Health professionals all advise waiting until 6 months) It's because they want to get us to buy their products from as early as possible.
Do not be naive enough to think that because something is designed for babies it will be more healthy than adult food. I was horrified to discover how much sugar and salt baby cereals have compared to some adult cereals. Heinz baby porridge has 23.5g sugar and 0.15g salt per 100g and Cow and Gate porridge has 0.12g salt and over 38g of sugar per 100g! Compare this to Weetabix with only 4.4g sugar per 100g (but 0.26g salt per 100g so the baby cereals win on that one). The clear winner though has to be Ready Brek with only 1g sugar and less than 0.1g salt per 100g. So why exactly am I buying over priced baby cereal?!?Several baby food companies send their own 'guide to weaning' type leaflets to parents. Some of them just blatantly try to push their products on you but a few seemed actually helpful with recipes for home-made purées and lists of suggested first foods to try. All the food companies suggested baby rice as a great starter food and sent plenty of vouchers and free samples. In some ways it is a great starter food - smooth texture, simple flavour. What they failed to mention is that it is one of the top causes of constipation in babies. Others in the list of top 5 poo stoppers include apples and bananas which are found in almost all shop bought fruit purees. The first meal we introduced Josiah to was breakfast and we began feeding him the sample packs of rice cereal we had been sent by different companies. Sure enough (just as we had him sleeping well at night and even a couple of nights with zero night feeds) he got super constipated, didn't poo for almost 2 weeks and couldn't sleep properly day or night from the discomfort. Almost 2 months later we are still trying to get him back to the great sleep habits he had before! Thanks a lot Cow and Gate baby rice :(
For unbiased advice on foods that are good for your baby try this site
Do you have any weaning advice to share? I'd love to hear your comments.
I did baby led weaning with bella and would really recommend it. By offer7ng her a variety of foods at each meal and encouraging her to feed herself from the very start, it helped to avoid fussy eating and tummy troubles. Its very messy to start with, but worth it in the long run because now bella is a much better eater (and makes mucg less mess) than her puree weaned siblings.
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