When is it safe to feed baby food

When, What, and How to Introduce Solid Foods | Nutrition

For more information about how to know if your baby is ready to starting eating foods, what first foods to offer, and what to expect, watch these videos from 1,000 Days.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend children be introduced to foods other than breast milk or infant formula when they are about 6 months old. Introducing foods before 4 months old is not recommended. Every child is different. How do you know if your child is ready for foods other than breast milk or infant formula? You can look for these signs that your child is developmentally ready.

Your child:

Sits up alone or with support.
Is able to control head and neck.
Opens the mouth when food is offered.
Swallows food rather than pushes it back out onto the chin.
Brings objects to the mouth.
Tries to grasp small objects, such as toys or food.
Transfers food from the front to the back of the tongue to swallow.

What Foods Should I Introduce to My Child First?

The American Academy of Pediatrics says that for most children, you do not need to give foods in a certain order. Your child can begin eating solid foods at about 6 months old. By the time he or she is 7 or 8 months old, your child can eat a variety of foods from different food groups. These foods include infant cereals, meat or other proteins, fruits, vegetables, grains, yogurts and cheeses, and more.

If your child is eating infant cereals, it is important to offer a variety of fortifiedalert icon infant cereals such as oat, barley, and multi-grain instead of only rice cereal. Only providing infant rice cereal is not recommended by the Food and Drug Administration because there is a risk for children to be exposed to arsenic. Visit the U.S. Food & Drug Administrationexternal icon to learn more.

How Should I Introduce My Child to Foods?

Your child needs certain vitamins and minerals to grow healthy and strong.

Now that your child is starting to eat food, be sure to choose foods that give your child all the vitamins and minerals they need.

Click here to learn more about some of these vitamins & minerals.

Let your child try one single-ingredient food at a time at first. This helps you see if your child has any problems with that food, such as food allergies. Wait 3 to 5 days between each new food. Before you know it, your child will be on his or her way to eating and enjoying lots of new foods.

Introduce potentially allergenic foods when other foods are introduced.

Potentially allergenic foods include cow’s milk products, eggs, fish, shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soy, and sesame. Drinking cow’s milk or fortified soy beverages is not recommended until your child is older than 12 months, but other cow’s milk products, such as yogurt, can be introduced before 12 months. If your child has severe eczema and/or egg allergy, talk with your child’s doctor or nurse about when and how to safely introduce foods with peanuts.

How Should I Prepare Food for My Child to Eat?

At first, it’s easier for your child to eat foods that are mashed, pureed, or strained and very smooth in texture. It can take time for your child to adjust to new food textures. Your child might cough, gag, or spit up. As your baby’s oral skills develop, thicker and lumpier foods can be introduced.

Some foods are potential choking hazards, so it is important to feed your child foods that are the right texture for his or her development. To help prevent choking, prepare foods that can be easily dissolved with saliva and do not require chewing. Feed small portions and encourage your baby to eat slowly. Always watch your child while he or she is eating.

Here are some tips for preparing foods:

Mix cereals and mashed cooked grains with breast milk, formula, or water to make it smooth and easy for your baby to swallow.
Mash or puree vegetables, fruits and other foods until they are smooth.
Hard fruits and vegetables, like apples and carrots, usually need to be cooked so they can be easily mashed or pureed.
Cook food until it is soft enough to easily mash with a fork.
Remove all fat, skin, and bones from poultry, meat, and fish, before cooking.
Remove seeds and hard pits from fruit, and then cut the fruit into small pieces.
Cut soft food into small pieces or thin slices.
Cut cylindrical foods like hot dogs, sausage and string cheese into short thin strips instead of round pieces that could get stuck in the airway.
Cut small spherical foods like grapes, cherries, berries and tomatoes into small pieces.
Cook and finely grind or mash whole-grain kernels of wheat, barley, rice, and other grains.

Learn more about potential choking hazards and how to prevent your child from choking.

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Feeding Your 4- to 7-Month-Old (for Parents)

Most babies this age are ready to try solid foods. Experts recommend starting solid foods when a baby is about 6 months old, depending on the baby's readiness and nutritional needs.

Be sure to check with your doctor before giving any solid foods.

Is My Baby Ready to Eat Solid Foods?

How can you tell if your baby is ready for solids? Here are a few hints:

Does your baby swallow food or push it out of their mouth? Babies have a natural tongue-thrust reflex that pushes food back out. Wait until this reflex disappears (typically when babies are 4–6 months old).
Can your baby support their own head? To eat solid food, an infant needs good head and neck control and should be able to sit up.
Is your baby interested in food? Babies who stare, reach and grab, and open their mouths for food are ready to try solid foods.

If your doctor gives the go-ahead but your baby seems frustrated or uninterested in solid foods, try waiting a few days before trying again. Breast milk and formula will still meet nutritional needs as your baby learns to eat solid foods. But after 6 months, babies need the added nutrition — like iron and zinc — that solid foods provide.

Do not add cereal or other food to your baby's bottle because it can lead to too much weight gain.

Watch for signs that your child is hungry or full. Respond to these cues and let your child stop when full. A child who is full may suck with less enthusiasm, stop, or turn away from the breast or the bottle. With solid foods, they may turn away, refuse to open their mouth, or spit the food out.

How Should I Start Feeding My Baby Solid Foods?

When your baby is ready and the doctor says it’s OK to try solid foods, pick a time of day when your baby is not tired or cranky. You want your baby to be a little hungry, but not so hungry that they’re upset. So you might want to give your baby a little breast milk or formula first.

Have your baby sit supported in your lap or in a high chair with a safety strap.

Most babies' first food is iron-fortified infant single-grain cereal mixed with breast milk or formula. Place the spoon near your baby's lips, and let the baby smell and taste it. Don't be surprised if this first spoonful is rejected. Wait a minute and try again. Most food offered to your baby at this age will end up on the baby's chin, bib, or high-chair tray. Again, this is just an introduction.

When your little one gets the hang of eating cereal off a spoon, it may be time to try single-ingredient puréed meat, vegetables, or fruit. The order in which you give them doesn't matter, but go slow. Offer foods that are high in iron and zinc — such as meat, poultry, eggs, and beans — especially if your baby is breastfeeding. Try one food at a time and wait several days before trying something else new. This will let you identify any foods that your baby may be allergic to.

Which Foods Should I Avoid?

Foods that are more likely to cause allergies can be among the foods you introduce to your baby. These include peanuts, eggs, cow’s milk, seafood, nuts, wheat, and soy. Waiting to start these foods does not prevent food allergies. Talk to your doctor if you’re concerned about food allergies, especially if any close family members have allergies, food allergies, or allergy-related conditions, like eczema or asthma.

Infants with severe eczema or egg allergies are more likely to have allergies to peanuts. Talk to your doctor about how and when to introduce these foods to your child.

Possible signs of food allergy or allergic reactions include:

rash
bloating or an increase in gassiness
diarrhea
vomiting

Get medical care right away if your baby has a more severe allergic reaction, like hives, drooling, wheezing, or trouble breathing.

If your child has any type of reaction to a food, don't offer that food again until you talk with your doctor.

Babies shouldn't have:

foods with added sugars and no-calorie sweeteners
high-sodium foods
honey, until after the first birthday. It can cause botulism in babies.
unpasteurized juice, milk, yogurt, or cheese
regular cow's milk or soy beverages before 12 months instead of breast milk or formula. It’s OK to offer pasteurized yogurt and cheese.
foods that may cause choking, such as hot dogs, raw carrots, grapes, popcorn, and nuts

Tips for Feeding Your Baby Solid Foods

With the hectic pace of family life, most parents try commercially prepared baby foods at first. They come in small, convenient containers, and manufacturers must meet strict safety and nutrition guidelines.

If you prepare your own baby foods at home, here are some things to keep in mind:

Follow the rules for food safety, including washing your hands well and often.
To preserve the nutrients in your baby's food, cook it in ways that keep the most vitamins and minerals. Try steaming or baking fruits and vegetables instead of boiling, which washes away the nutrients.
Freeze portions that you aren't going to use right away.
Whether you buy the baby food or make it yourself, texture and consistency are important. At first, babies should have finely puréed single-ingredient foods. (Just applesauce, for example, not apples and pears mixed together.)
After your baby is eating individual foods, it's OK to offer a puréed mix of two foods. As babies get older, they will learn to eat a greater variety of tastes and textures.
If you use prepared baby food in jars, spoon some of the food into a bowl to feed your baby. Do not feed your baby right from the jar — bacteria from the baby's mouth can contaminate the remaining food. If you refrigerate opened jars of baby food, it's best to throw away anything not eaten within a day or two.
Around 6 months of age is a good time for your baby to try a cup. You might need to try a few cups to find one that works for your child. Use water at first to avoid messy clean-ups. Do not give juice to infants younger than 12 months.

Over the next few months, introduce a variety of foods from all the food groups. If your baby doesn't seem to like something, don’t give up. It can take 8 to 10 tries or more before babies learn to like new foods.

Is it possible to feed dogs with baby food, what to give instead for puppies

January 25, 2022

The question seems simple and unambiguous only at first glance. Many people think that if a product is made for babies, its quality should be on top and certainly suitable for feeding pets. We do not argue that in most cases the production of food for infants is indeed of high standards, but the problem here is not in the quality of raw materials and compliance with production standards, but in compliance with the composition of baby food to the needs of predators - adults and especially growing ones.

Only as a treat

If there is a baby in the house, dogs often get the uneaten remains of instant cereals, milk mixtures, vegetable and meat purees. Well, if it's about giving baby food as treats to dogs, it's okay, even though it doesn't make sense. Just do not forget that the share of this kind of treats should be no more than 10% of the calorie content of the entire diet (per day), otherwise your dog will quickly gain weight, which will be very difficult to get rid of.

Particularly harmful in this regard are porridges, a source of readily available carbohydrates. However, cottage cheese, kefir and milk mixtures are also not the healthiest food for a dog. Yes, they contain milk protein and usually probiotics, but they are often additionally sweetened - which is not good for animals at all. If we are not talking about puppies, but about adult dogs, then “native” milk sugar is a big risk. The farther from puppyhood, the less pets have enzymes designed to digest lactose. By 7-8 months, only a small part of the dogs can digest and assimilate the "milk" well, the majority have bloating, diarrhea of varying degrees of intensity.

What about meat purees in glass and tin jars - such as Tyoma, Nestle, Grandmother's basket, etc.? It is they who are most often referred to when they talk about feeding pets with baby food. Moreover, many owners specifically buy baby food in stores, and do not use stocks purchased for children and grandchildren with the goal of “not wasting”. Usually this practice is typical for owners of small puppies, adult dogs of small breeds, as well as pets who find it difficult to chew. Alas, it is undesirable to give even meat baby food to dogs on an ongoing basis. And there are reasons for this.

Why shouldn't you feed your dog meat baby food?

First, these products have a completely different composition. The dog will obviously not receive the necessary components - animal protein and fat, which are vital to it, and calories will not be received from the usual and so healthy meat, fish or poultry, but most likely from grain and starch.

Secondly, all these products undergo a powerful heat treatment (sterilization), during which not only possible pathogenic microorganisms are destroyed, but also many useful substances vital for predators are lost - a number of amino acids and vitamins. In the manufacture of industrial food for dogs, the same thing usually happens, however, manufacturers, knowing about the problem, introduce the "lost" substances additionally, at the last stage of production.

It is not for nothing that ready-made food, which is intended for daily nutrition of animals, is called “complete” or “balanced”, and its recipe is called “formula”. On the label you will definitely find the components included in the mineral-vitamin complex, the amount of proteins, fats, carbohydrates, fiber. And even if some substances were not enough in the feedstock, after taking samples for analysis, the developer will add what is needed to the “dough” of the feed.

Data on the needs of dogs are not taken from the ceiling and not from the personal experience of the manufacturer, but are correlated with the figures recommended by the competent regulatory organizations - AAFCO, FDA, as well as GOSTs for non-productive animals.

Thirdly, in the composition of children's meat food, you can often find such undesirable components as potato starch, rice or wheat flour. And also, which is rather unpleasant, salt, spices and even dried onions. The proportion of such additives is rarely indicated, and it may happen that when buying a “meat” puree, you will provide your pet with only its likeness, moreover, devoid of the necessary nutrients.

Why is the use of baby food so popular in feeding puppies and dogs? This product really has many advantages: it contains understandable types of meat, is well homogenized and has a delicate texture (which is important for small puppies and dogs with oral problems), is completely ready for use and can be stored at room temperature. An important advantage for some owners is the financial side of the issue: sometimes baby food seems cheaper than high-quality wet dog food, and at the same time it is easy to buy.

Is it possible, taking into account the above-mentioned advantages, to choose an analogue for children's purees among canned food created specifically for dogs? Delicious, complete, healthy in composition, delicate in texture, conveniently packaged and affordable and available in stores? Yes, you certainly may.

What to give instead of baby food?

Let's start with those who receive baby food not from younger family members, but from reverent owners who strive to give their pet the best and safest.

Feeding small puppies

For the first three weeks, mother's milk is the only thing a puppy needs, but then you can start accustoming a kitten to meat food. Not any diet is suitable, but as you understand, the most tender, easily digestible and very nutritious. It is commonly referred to as a "starter", but not all manufacturers make one. We have such a product in our assortment, it is Blitz Sensitive "Turkey with Zucchini" - a starter food for puppies, pregnant and lactating bitches. Packed in 200 g cans with a key. Contains turkey meat, several types of offal, zucchini pulp, milk powder, prebiotics and a vitamin and mineral complex. The product has a high calorie content, so it is advisable to give it up to 4 months, when the puppies are growing rapidly, then it is advisable to switch to other canned food options, for example, with chicken and pumpkin or lamb and turkey.

All Blitz wet foods for dogs and puppies are complete rations with 80% to 98% meat ingredients. By consistency, they are divided into “pieces in sauce” or chopped pates, they are available in different packaging options (85 g, 200 g, 400 g and even 700 g) and are presented in a wide flavor palette - you will definitely choose what suits your pet.

The current assortment can be viewed on this page of our catalogue. Foods marked "for all breeds and ages" are designed, among other things, for the daily feeding of puppies that have come out of the lactation period.

Canned food for small breeds of dogs

Miniature pets (Chihuahua, Spitz, Dachshund, Toy) are also very fond of eating baby food, and in terms of packaging it seems to be intended for them for a single portion. But, despite the external "toy", these are real dogs - brave, tireless, with well-developed muscles and light bones. And they need to eat the same way as other breeds - not purees like "Tyoma", but a balanced diet. Slices of canned Lamb with Salmon, Beef with White Fish or Turkey with Duck soaked in fragrant sauce will please your gourmet much more than baby food, and they will be a hundred times more useful.

Blitz dog food is produced in Russia using European equipment. They are developed taking into account the recommendations of leading veterinary organizations and regulatory authorities, from high-quality raw materials, without the use of preservatives and dyes.

Nutrition for debilitated dogs

In most cases (except for liver diseases) during the recovery period and in old age, dogs do not need diet food (as we understand it), but easily digestible nutritious food. If your dog was recommended a temporary liquid diet after surgery, or if your pet has oral problems, it is not necessary to opt for baby mashed meats. The correct choice would be to use any of Blitz's complete wet or even dry foods, bringing them to the desired consistency with water. Learn how to properly soak dry food here.

Blitz – available to everyone

Blitz wet food can be found on all major online trading platforms (Ozon, Wildberries, YandexMarket), ordered on the official website of the brand or bought at the pet store of our distributor partners. A complete list of them, with addresses and phone numbers, you can see on this map. We supply our products to all regions of Russia.

Due to Russian production, transparent logistics and focus on quality, Blitz wet food boasts a competitive price. You can give them to your pet every day, and it will certainly not be more expensive than feeding him baby food, but it is guaranteed to be more beneficial for his health and development.

Infant nutrition: formula feeding, complementary feeding, combination with breastfeeding | Allure

How do I read a baby food label? What ingredients should you pay attention to first? What ingredients should you never buy with?

Baby food labels are designed to provide all the necessary information for its safe use in accordance with the requirements for baby food.

All baby food products are subject to the strictest control of all ingredients, so you can be sure you are buying a safe product.

See label for advice on how to prepare and store formula or complementary foods.

If you have a question about any ingredient, you can contact your paediatrician or the baby food hotlines.

When selecting baby food, you should be guided by the doctor's recommendations and the characteristics of your baby. There are children with special nutritional needs, special formulas have been developed for such babies.

Is it possible to produce purees and juices for children at home? Or is it better to buy ready-made?

The question often arises - what to prefer: home-cooked food or ready-made baby food? Of course, mom's food can be very tasty, but special food for babies has many advantages:

- strict control at all stages, from selection of products to packaging, guarantees the safety of finished products;

- the latest technology allows you to maximize the preservation of vitamins and taste of products, while most of the vitamins and minerals are lost during home processing;

– in canned purees and instant cereals, vitamins and minerals necessary for the baby are added exactly in the amount in which the growing body of the child needs them;

- the consistency of the product corresponds to the age capabilities of the baby;

- after all, it's convenient and economical - the size of the jars increases with the age of the baby, and ready meals allow you to spend more time with your child.

There is an opinion: the more expensive food is, the better it is. It is a myth!

There are many brands of baby food on the market today. How do I know which one is right for my child?

First you need to consult a doctor. This is especially important when it comes to the use of infant formula.

You can contact baby food manufacturers directly to learn about the benefits of a particular product. Parental counseling phone numbers are usually listed on product packaging.

If you choose complementary foods, you can additionally focus on the taste preferences of the child.

What are the most common mistakes young mothers make about baby food?

Breastfeeding: All mothers know that the best nutrition is breast milk, and mothers often underestimate the amount of milk and rush to introduce supplemental formula. Babies quickly learn that it is easier to get food from a bottle than from a breast, and they may refuse the best food - breast milk.

Use of mix: Frequent change of mix. Colic, intestinal malfunctions are often associated with the immaturity of the child's digestive system. When a baby is worried about something, mothers often rush to change their diet, believing that changing the mixture will magically solve all difficulties. At the same time, parents often change their diet abruptly and forget that the body may need time to adapt to a new diet.

The rapid introduction of new complementary foods is also a common mistake, because the child's body does not have time to adapt to a new type of food.

How soon can complementary foods be introduced?

There are different opinions about when is the best time to introduce complementary foods. WHO recommends exclusive breastfeeding up to 6 months, and from 6 months, the introduction of complementary foods and continued breastfeeding. Russian standards allow the introduction of complementary foods in the diet of children from 4 months. This is due to the fact that at 4-6 months there is an optimal readiness of the intestines, the functional state of the kidneys and the gastrointestinal tract of healthy children for the assimilation of new types of food.

In any case (whether breastfeeding or bottle-feeding), we recommend discussing the timing and procedure for the introduction of complementary foods with the pediatrician who observes the child. The specialist will be able to assess all the features of the baby and his readiness for complementary foods.

When introducing a new food, it is important to follow some rules:

1

start the introduction of a new food only when the child is healthy

2

avoid introducing a new food in hot weather and during preventive vaccinations

3

each new product is recommended to be introduced gradually, from small amounts (juice - from a few drops, puree and porridge - from ½ teaspoon), increasing daily by 2 times and carefully monitoring its tolerance