Pediatrician recommends introducing solids per Gerber website?!

I just took my baby for her four-month pediatrician visit, and we were
given some reading material on what to expect in the upcoming period.
Among other things, a schedule on introducing solids that was printed
off the Gerber website. Listing all sorts of Gerber products,
naturally.

Is there not a natural alternative to commercial rice powder etc? And
a schedule that isn't provided by a major baby food manufacturer???

Thanks!

In article .com,
"Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward" wrote:

I just took my baby for her four-month pediatrician visit, and we were
given some reading material on what to expect in the upcoming period.
Among other things, a schedule on introducing solids that was printed
off the Gerber website. Listing all sorts of Gerber products,
naturally.

Is there not a natural alternative to commercial rice powder etc? And
a schedule that isn't provided by a major baby food manufacturer???

Thanks!


With my twins, I ignored it all. They were exclusively nursed until 8
months, then ate whatever they could feed themselves, starting with
stuff like cheerios ond pieces of banana. (This wasn't just laziness on
my part: my son refused to eat from a spoon that someone else put in
his mouth -- really hated it -- and my daughter wasn't all that
interested, so I just stopped trying until they could feed themselves.)
Even with my older child, the vast majority of what she ate was the same
food her dad and I were eating, just mashed up.

Babies survived for many, many years without commercial baby food:
there really is no need for it at all. Cook food (overcook -- cook
until it's easy to mash) then mash it up, or puree it) and feed it to
the baby.

--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care

Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward wrote:
I just took my baby for her four-month pediatrician visit, and we were
given some reading material on what to expect in the upcoming period.
Among other things, a schedule on introducing solids that was printed
off the Gerber website. Listing all sorts of Gerber products,
naturally.

Is there not a natural alternative to commercial rice powder etc? And
a schedule that isn't provided by a major baby food manufacturer???

The general recommendation is to wait until 6 months
to introduce solids. As far as what you introduce, aside from
allergens it really doesn't matter much. Breastmilk or
formula will still be the mainstay of nutrition for quite
some time after introducing solids, so the beginning solids
are just for experimentation. There is no magic about
starting with cereal (of any sort). It's easy, in that
you can make up as much or as little as you want and it's
easy to mix with the familiar flavor of breastmilk or
formula, but you could just as easily start with fruits
or veggies. You want to keep to single foods in the
beginning so that if there's a reaction, you have some
chance of figuring out what caused it. You can make
your own babyfood easily, but on the other hand, as long
as you're reading the ingredients, there's nothing wrong
with jarred foods either. Goodness knows most of them
have less crap in them than many of the foods we eat ;-)
And if you wait until 6 months, you likely won't need to
spend much time with pureed foods of any sort anyway.
By that time, they're usually darned close to finger
foods.
So, in my opinion anyway, you don't really need
much of a schedule, commercial or not. Wait a couple
more months and then feed her whatever you please
that isn't a likely allergen or a choking risk, introducing
foods one at a time in the beginning. Start with cereals
or fruits or veggies (probably not meat, but jarred meats
are vile anyway), as you please. If you feel like pureeing
your own foods, go for it, or just look for jarred foods
without anything you disapprove of in them. For myself,
after the first baby we didn't do much of either. Maybe
a little cereal for practice, and then I'd just mash
up a little banana or avocado or put something suitable
we were having through a baby food mill (I'd fish whatever
out before adding spices or sauces or whatever for the
rest of the family). Aside from the first, mine didn't
really like being fed by someone else and didn't like
pureed foods much anyway, so it was a very short
transition period before moving on to finger foods.

Best wishes,
Ericka

Ericka Kammerer wrote:
Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward wrote:
I just took my baby for her four-month pediatrician visit, and we were
given some reading material on what to expect in the upcoming period.
Among other things, a schedule on introducing solids that was printed
off the Gerber website. Listing all sorts of Gerber products,
naturally.

Is there not a natural alternative to commercial rice powder etc? And
a schedule that isn't provided by a major baby food manufacturer???

The general recommendation is to wait until 6 months
to introduce solids. As far as what you introduce, aside from
allergens it really doesn't matter much. Breastmilk or
formula will still be the mainstay of nutrition for quite
some time after introducing solids, so the beginning solids
are just for experimentation. There is no magic about
starting with cereal (of any sort). It's easy, in that
you can make up as much or as little as you want and it's
easy to mix with the familiar flavor of breastmilk or
formula, but you could just as easily start with fruits
or veggies. You want to keep to single foods in the
beginning so that if there's a reaction, you have some
chance of figuring out what caused it. You can make
your own babyfood easily, but on the other hand, as long
as you're reading the ingredients, there's nothing wrong
with jarred foods either. Goodness knows most of them
have less crap in them than many of the foods we eat ;-)
And if you wait until 6 months, you likely won't need to
spend much time with pureed foods of any sort anyway.
By that time, they're usually darned close to finger
foods.
So, in my opinion anyway, you don't really need
much of a schedule, commercial or not. Wait a couple
more months and then feed her whatever you please
that isn't a likely allergen or a choking risk, introducing
foods one at a time in the beginning. Start with cereals
or fruits or veggies (probably not meat, but jarred meats
are vile anyway), as you please. If you feel like pureeing
your own foods, go for it, or just look for jarred foods
without anything you disapprove of in them. For myself,
after the first baby we didn't do much of either. Maybe
a little cereal for practice, and then I'd just mash
up a little banana or avocado or put something suitable
we were having through a baby food mill (I'd fish whatever
out before adding spices or sauces or whatever for the
rest of the family). Aside from the first, mine didn't
really like being fed by someone else and didn't like
pureed foods much anyway, so it was a very short
transition period before moving on to finger foods.

Best wishes,
Ericka

Thank you very much for that. I view introducing solids as the most
daunting task in my career as a new mum, and of course there's no
reason it should be. I guess the thing is that I don't feel secure
about knowing what foods contain allergens.

And of course I don't plan to give her anything before six months
unless she really seems ready.

The most common allergens are gluten (found in wheat products such as bread
and cereals), milk (milk proteins and lactose), eggs (particualrly egg
whites) and peanuts and other nuts. Generally, bread and cereals and milk
products such as yoghurt are recommended to be delayed until after 8 months
old. Eggs (start with yolk, then, after no reaction for a few days in a row,
give the white) after 10 months or even 1 year old. Peanuts, being the most
dangerous, are generally recommended to be delayed until 1 year old. If your
daughter has atopic eczema then you might want to delay the eggs and
particularly peanuts quite a bit. Matt has eczema but I tried him with egg
at almost 11 months old because I wanted to see if he could have birthday
cake - unfortunately the answer was "no".

If you buy any ready-made products, just read the labels. In Australia, most
products have common allergens listed in bold in the ingredient list as well
as containing warnings about possibly containing traces of egg or nuts if
the product was made on the same equipment as egg or nut containing
products.

I find these fact sheets useful in that if you find that your daughter
reacts to something, these fact sheets contain a list of keywords to look
out for when shopping for ingredients:

http://www.cs.nsw.gov.au/rpa/Allergy...infosheets.cfm

I know they are Australian and the statistics wouldn't apply to your
situation but it's the keywords and lists of products to avoid that are the
really useful bit.

"Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward" wrote in message
oups.com...
Thank you very much for that. I view introducing solids as the most
daunting task in my career as a new mum, and of course there's no
reason it should be. I guess the thing is that I don't feel secure
about knowing what foods contain allergens.

And of course I don't plan to give her anything before six months
unless she really seems ready.

In article .com,
"Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward" wrote:

I view introducing solids as the most
daunting task in my career as a new mum, and of course there's no
reason it should be. I guess the thing is that I don't feel secure
about knowing what foods contain allergens.

Some people have listed common allergens for you, but I'll add

-- no strawberries or shellfish until 1 year (allergens)
-- no raw root vegetables or honey until one year (botulism risk)
-- nothing they could choke on -- corn chips, crisp vegetables, raw apple etc

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"Parenthood is like the modern stone washing process for denim jeans. You may
start out crisp, neat and tough, but you end up pale, limp and wrinkled."
Kerry Cue

Chookie wrote:
In article .com,
"Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward" wrote:

I view introducing solids as the most
daunting task in my career as a new mum, and of course there's no
reason it should be. I guess the thing is that I don't feel secure
about knowing what foods contain allergens.

Some people have listed common allergens for you, but I'll add

-- no strawberries or shellfish until 1 year (allergens)
-- no raw root vegetables or honey until one year (botulism risk)
-- nothing they could choke on -- corn chips, crisp vegetables, raw apple etc

And don't rely on jarred baby foods not to have
any of these things. Wheat and strawberries in particular
aren't uncommon in jarred baby foods, once you get past
the earliest foods. Some would also put citrus fruits,
tomatoes, and fish on the list of fairly common allergens.
If you have a history of atopic disease (asthma,
allergies, eczema, etc.) in the family, you want to be
more cautious about possible allergens, as one does not
inherit specific allergies but rather a tendency towards
atopic diseases in general. If you don't have any history,
you can likely get away with being a little looser. If
you look it up, you'll see that age ranges for potential
allergens are all over the map. Some don't mention wheat
at all, some say wait until a year, and some say wait
until two or three years! (Yikes, that's a long time to
go gluten-free!) Same with most of the other potential
allergens. So, just pick where you want to be on that
spectrum from very conservative to pretty liberal depending
on your family history.

Best wishes,
Ericka

Chookie wrote:
In article .com,
"Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward" wrote:

I view introducing solids as the most
daunting task in my career as a new mum, and of course there's no
reason it should be. I guess the thing is that I don't feel secure
about knowing what foods contain allergens.

Some people have listed common allergens for you, but I'll add

-- no strawberries or shellfish until 1 year (allergens)
-- no raw root vegetables or honey until one year (botulism risk)
-- nothing they could choke on -- corn chips, crisp vegetables, raw apple etc

One thing that I don't think many people are aware of is that you
should never make your own pureed or mashed cooked carrots. It isn't
botulism - it has something to do with some chemical in commercial
carrots that becomes toxic to babies under a certain age once you cook
the carrot. This is the only food you should always buy in a jar. I
think it's important information to know, considering pureed carrots
are typically one of the first items the food manufacturers suggest you
introduce.

I don't know if this applies to organic carrots, but if it were me, I
would stick with jarred carrots just in case, because "organic" today
can mean all sorts of things and you just can't be sure.

It's been a long time since I faced this daunting task, but I also seem
to remember that there was a way you were supposed to introduce food -
it's not quite as simple as just giving them a taste here and there of
whatever the family is eating, particularly if food allergies run in
your family. I remember introducing one item at a time, waiting a week
or so before introducing the next new item. This allows you to more
easily identify any food the child might be allergic or sensitive to.

Lady Penelope, if you don't want to go the Gerber route, look around
for a book on making your own baby food. I had one - it's been years so
I don't have it anymore otherwise I'd look up the title for you. This
book had schedules to follow and detailed directions about how to make
the food, advice about food mills and food processors etc, and tips on
how to freeze batches into ice cube trays for later (which is highly
convenient - just plop a frozen cube into a container, and take it with
you wherever you are, same as a jar). It also had recipes for soups
that could be sipped through a cup, and suggestions on finger foods.

The "how to make the food" part is really very obvious and simple: just
cook, and then mash with a fork, or puree with a food mill to the right
consistency. Advantage of doing it yourself is that you can gradually
increase the lumpiness over time. You don't need such a book to tell
you all that. But I found the book helpful anyway, because it made me
think far beyond the usual veggie-selection-in-a-jar stuff of carrots,
peas, green beans. I think the jars only offer something like 4 or 5
veggie choices, which is silly.

I introduced veggies first before fruits (with the exception of banana)
because the acidity in fruit gave my kids a sensitive butt. I
introduced quite a range of veggies. Both my kids ended up loving
broccoli - they'd sip finely pureed broccoli soup through a cup - and
still love it today, yes, even my picky eater. She'll eat most veggies
- it's the other stuff she's picky about. I often think that it's
because I made the food from scratch, because as others point out, the
stuff in jars is really gnarly tasting, cooked and overheated until
there's no taste left. No wonder so many people grow up to hate veggies
as adults!

jen






jen

Engram wrote:
Peanuts, being the most
dangerous, are generally recommended to be delayed until 1 year old.

Probably best to hold off on any and all nuts. My DD13 developed an
allergy to pistachios after eating too much of them over the years.

I think mango and papaya are also more apt to produce allergic
reaction. Something about a chemical under the skin that is similar to
poison ivy. DD13 has to steer clear of those, because she has a severe
allergic reaction to poison ivy (more severe than what other people
get).


jen

"shinypenny" wrote in message
oups.com...
One thing that I don't think many people are aware of is that you
should never make your own pureed or mashed cooked carrots. It isn't
botulism - it has something to do with some chemical in commercial
carrots that becomes toxic to babies under a certain age once you cook
the carrot. This is the only food you should always buy in a jar. I
think it's important information to know, considering pureed carrots
are typically one of the first items the food manufacturers suggest you
introduce.

I don't know if this applies to organic carrots, but if it were me, I
would stick with jarred carrots just in case, because "organic" today
can mean all sorts of things and you just can't be sure.

I'd never heard of this, so I just had to look it up :
http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/nitratearticle.htm