When Do You Start Feeding Your Baby The 2nd Foods, Especially The Meat.?
24 December 2009
Should you go through all the 1st foods, before you start the 2nd foods? or can you mix them up?
And why should you wait a week before introducing a new food? What are the signs of allergies in a baby?
You don’t have to wait a week, that advice is outdated.
Look, “1st” “2nd” and “3rd” foods are all *marketing* There is no reason to listen to a baby food company about how you should feed your baby. It’s way simpler than they would have you believe.
Your baby is ready for solids when he can pick up the solid and feed himself–that includes soft meats.
Signs of allergies in babies is the same as adults–an immediate reaction: hives, rash, screaming, baby is having a hard time breathing. It’s *very* rare for a baby who is allowed to feed themselves to develop an allergy to what they are eating.
From the link below:
Ditch the rice cereal and mashed peas, and make way for enchiladas, curry and even — gasp! — hot peppers. It’s time to discard everything you think you know about feeding babies. It turns out most advice parents get about weaning infants onto solid foods — even from pediatricians — is more myth than science.
That’s right, rice cereal may not be the best first food. Peanut butter doesn’t have to wait until after the first birthday. Offering fruits before vegetables won’t breed a sweet tooth. And strong spices? Bring ‘em on.
“There’s a bunch of mythology out there about this,” says Dr. David Bergman, a Stanford University pediatrics professor. “There’s not much evidence to support any particular way of doing things.”
Evidence for Preventing Allergies:
“No good evidence for strategies other than breast-feeding”There is no convincing evidence that delaying the introduction of foods such as eggs, fish or peanut butter to children prevents allergies. Babies should not get solid food before 4 to 6 months of age, however.
You absolutely SHOULD wait the week between new foods. Allergies often do not show up on the first exposure to an allergen! Allergy symptoms can be almost anything unusual to your baby. Stools change, hives, simple rashes, behavior changes, anaphylactic shock…ANYTHING out of the ordinary for your baby that you can not find another cause for.
We went through a long ordeal with our son, trying to figure out what his allergens were. (It ended up his are chronic hives and will show up whenever for no apparent reason, as well as being brought on my excessive heat, cold or stress)
I have talked to my Dr a lot about solid foods. He told me that I should first introduce most of the 1st foods. Then move onto some of the 2nd foods. The only difference between the two is that stage 2 is a little bit thicker and there is more of a variety. You don’t have to wait a week, food allergies will show up within minutes to 2 hours after the food is eaten. “Symptoms usually show up within minutes to two hours following the ingestion of a specific food protein.”
“Do not introduce your baby to too many new flavours at a time. Introduce one food at a time and wait at least 24 hours before adding a new one. This way you can identify any particular likes or dislikes, as well as giving your baby a variety of tastes to try.”
Edit- Reaction to a food- “In many infants, an allergic reaction to a food causes hives or swelling, chronic eczema, or trouble breathing. Sometimes the symptoms are gastrointestinal — your baby may have vomiting or diarrhea. If your baby has a severe allergic reaction, it can be life threatening.”
“Remember that your baby can have a reaction to a food even if she’s eaten it before without any problem. ”
When to introduce meats- “For babies, the age of seven to eight-months or older is the best time to introduce straight meat, or other high protein foods”
“Dr’s advise introducing solids at about 6 months”
I didn’t wait a week between new foods, but still gave it a few days (usually 3 or so).
I waited to give meat until my son was old enough to handle more textured foods and could try some simple boiled chicken. He was around 9 months. I made all of his food anyway, but those jarred meats totally gross me out. Would you want to eat that?
Why not cereal?http://www.kellymom.com/nutrition/solids…
Cereal is not at all necessary, particularly the baby cereals. Regular (whole grain) oatmeal is more nutritious for your baby.http://www.askdrsears.com/faq/ci2.asp
The truth is, there is nothing special about these foods that makes them better to start out with. Babies don’t actually even need rice cerealhttp://www.llli.org/llleaderweb/LV/LVDec…
Meat provides additional protein, zinc, B-vitamins, and other nutrients which may be in short supply when the decrease in breast milk occurs. A recent study from Sweden suggests that when infants are given substantial amounts of cereal, it may lead to low concentrations of zinc and reduced calcium absorption (Persson 1998). Dr. Nancy Krebs has shared preliminary results from a large infant growth study suggesting that breastfed infants who received pureed or strained meat as a primary weaning food beginning at four to five months, grow at a slightly faster rate. Dr. Krebs’ premise is that inadequate protein or zinc from complementary foods may limit the growth of some breastfed infants during the weaning period. Both protein and zinc levels were consistently higher in the diets of the infants who received meat (Krebs 1998). Thus the custom of providing large amounts of cereal products and excluding meat products before seven months of age may not meet the nutritional needs of all breastfed infants.
Meat has also been recommended as an excellent source of iron in infancy. Heme iron (the form of iron found in meat) is better absorbed than iron from plant sources. In addition, the protein in meat helps the baby more easily absorb the iron from other foods. Two recent studies (Makrides 1998; Engelmann 1998) have examined iron status in breastfed infants who received meat earlier in the weaning period. These studies indicate that while there is not a measurable change in breastfed babies’ iron stores when they receive an increased amount of meat (or iron), the levels of hemoglobin circulating in the blood stream do increase when babies receive meat as one of their first foods.http://www.westonaprice.org/children/nou…
Finally, respect the tiny, still-developing digestive system of your infant. Babies have limited enzyme production, which is necessary for the digestion of foods. In fact, it takes up to 28 months, just around the time when molar teeth are fully developed, for the big-gun carbohydrate enzymes (namely amylase) to fully kick into gear. Foods like cereals, grains and breads are very challenging for little ones to digest. Thus, these foods should be some of the last to be introduced. (One carbohydrate enzyme a baby’s small intestine does produce is lactase, for the digestion of lactose in milk.1)
[...]
Babies do produce functional enzymes (pepsin and proteolytic enzymes) and digestive juices (hydrochloric acid in the stomach) that work on proteins and fats.12 This makes perfect sense since the milk from a healthy mother has 50-60 percent of its energy as fat, which is critical for growth, energy and development.13 In addition, the cholesterol in human milk supplies an infant with close to six times the amount most adults consume from food.13 In some cultures, a new mother is encouraged to eat six to ten eggs a day and almost ten ounces of chicken and pork for at least a month after birth. This fat-rich diet ensures her breast milk will contain adequate healthy fats.14
Thus, a baby’s earliest solid foods should be mostly animal foods since his digestive system, although immature, is better equipped to supply enzymes for digestion of fats and proteins rather than carbohydrates.1 This explains why current research is pointing to meat (including nutrient-dense organ meat) as being a nourishing early weaning food.http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content…
The results indicate that in a group of healthy, well growing 12-month-old Swedish infants one-quarter is iron-depleted, although iron deficiency anaemia is rare, and one-third may be zinc-depleted. The high cereal intake of Swedish infants from 6 months of age may have limited the bioavailability of both iron and zinc from the diet.http://www.jpgn.org/pt/re/jpgn/abstract.…
Conclusions: These results confirm that meat as a complementary food for breast-fed infants can provide a rich source of dietary zinc that is well absorbed. The significant positive correlation between zinc intake and exchangeable zinc pool size suggests that increasing zinc intake positively affects metabolically available zinc.