What are the best starter foods for my baby?

Question

Dr. Katherine Wojnowich, MD · Answer

So what are the best starter foods for my baby? Great question. First, you want to make sure that your baby is old enough to be able to eat solid foods appropriately, be able to digest them, and just work the mechanics. And so typically, we recommend starting a solid foods at six months. In terms of what to start with, really it's going to be an individual choice. Some popular choices might be something like sweet potato or avocado. You always want to start with one food at a time. A, just so that the baby can get used to that kind of taste. B, if there's any concern for allergies, you want to make sure you know what's causing it so that you can eliminate that from the diet. And so that's why we want to do one at a time. Another good tip is that you want to try to introduce vegetables or less sweet foods first because once fruits get into the mix, kids like to eat those. And they are less inclined to eat vegetables. Once you have introduced two foods independently, you can mix them together as long as your baby tolerates that. And so that's where, once you know that they do OK with broccoli, for example, you know that they do OK with apples, you could combine that together if you wanted to. But I would say probably, like I said, two pretty popular ones would be something like avocado, which is great. It has healthy fat, so it's going to encourage appropriate body development, muscular development, brain development, and it's tasty. Or something like sweet potato, which again is tasty and well tolerated, but not too, too sweet. But again it's an individual choice. And like I said, I would probably try not to introduce fruits first just because then kiddos tend to not like the vegetables nearly as much. And I've done this three times now. So I have three kiddos at home. And we made baby food for all of them, and I will tell you, certainly, that they they prefer the sweet stuff as opposed to the not sweet stuff. And so we typically would mix, like I said, like apples or bananas with a vegetable once they could tolerate that. As they continue to progress, probably around nine months, is when you can consider adding in a nut like peanuts or walnuts or cashews. They found that when you introduce that in that early range, they're less likely to be allergic. So those are some options for you.

Dr. Bill Sears · Answer

Picture of your in my office and you're holding your precious baby. Say it 6 to 7 months and you have the question about starter foods. And I love those little six-month-old babies with their little fat cheeks and their big smiles. So this may surprise you what starter Foods, remember the old days of rice cereal and all that. We don't do that anymore. We don't feed a baby out of a box. So my first starter food. Is avocados avocados, why? Because of healthy fat and your baby's brain is 60% fat. So you're feeding a little sad head. So avocados that has a good mouth feel and then the next one, this is really surprise. You is wild. Salmon. A little bit of mushy mashed up, salmon and this is called shaping young taste three magic words in the Be feeding shaping one taste. So when you shape young taste, you've those Foods. You put on the baby's tongue early on, they select the the taste buds of the tongue. They say like and they send by a chemical test messages to the Crave center of the brain. Those text messages and the Brain registers like like avocados, like salmon they're full of fat and I'm a fat head, keep eating more. And so imagine two or three times a day like like like like like like and by two years of age, the Crave Center in your baby's brain is grown for life to Crave avocados and salmon what a wonderful tool. To give your baby for life. The starter foods of smart fats.

MaryEllen Kelly, RD, CSSD · Answer

Great question here. Asking what are the best starter foods for my baby. So it's becoming increasingly more popular to utilize the approach of baby LED weaning here in this country. I know it was a lot more popular in Europe before making its way to the United States. And there are definitely folks that have been doing it in the United States for a long time. So in the concept of baby LED weaning, we're not doing kind of straight puree Is from the time we introduced food but actually trying to introduce a wide variety of textures with a systematic approach and making sure that you know, we are being mindful of what makes the most sense at different stages. You know, as they progress that said things like avocado being cut into strips that the baby can try to actually kind of pick up with their hand and feed to themselves. Kado is a great first food also taking foods like potato, sweet potato, butternut squash, even carrots and steaming them down to kind of us. Often enough texture. That isn't so soft that it falls apart, but soft enough. That the baby can kind of with their Palmer. Grassed, sort of pick it up with their hands and feed it to themselves. You can try anything that you can steam into that texture sort of always say like in a finger shaped Shape. So if you're giving it to them in a shape of a baby finger and they can work to feed themselves, you're working on a whole host of things. In addition to nutrition, you're working on their feeding ability and their mouth feel and trying to just get familiar with different textures. Instead of just doing straight purees all the time for that early phase of feeding, have fun with it.

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"What are the best starter foods for my baby?"