Kids Dish

This is in no way groundbreaking research but yet another study, this time published in Pediatrics, says that the way to raise children who like fruits and vegetables is to eat them yourself while pregnant and nursing to pass on the preference.

Repeated exposure to fruits and vegetables in infancy is key, said study senior author Julie Mennella, a biopsychologist and member of the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. “They need to taste them to learn to like them.”

Mennella’s advice: “Eat the fruits and vegetables you enjoy while you are pregnant and lactating, because your baby is going to be learning about those foods. Whether you are breast-feeding or formula-feeding, once you start introducing a food, make sure you offer your baby opportunities to eat fruits and vegetables. They need to taste them to learn to like them.”

From my limited personal experience I have to say this is true. Sam loves fruits and veggies and won’t touch cows milk, a beverage I’m won’t drink either unless disguised by espresso and sugar. Yesterday the freak picked all of the broccoli off of his, ate it, and left the pizza itself untouched. He did ignore all of the tomatoes though. He’s a chip off of the old block.

(I’m double posting this at Nursing Your Kids)

My husband Bob wrote a guest post after taking Sam to a party at his brother’s house.

For the first ten months of Sam’s life I didn’t possess many concerns regarding his eating until my mom ruined it for me. Other than feeding the baby the food Jackie told me to feed the baby food wasn’t something in which I was involved. Then one day my mother was at the house, Jackie was out, and my mom was feeding Sam cereal. My mother started in on this concern she had, that Sam wasn’t eating all that he should be eating. Like, “Don’t you feed him baby food from a jar?” And the high-pitched questioning, “You just give him a whole pear ? How can he eat a whole pear?”

I don’t know if it’s a problem with men in my family that they just can’t tolerate people telling them things they don’t want to listen to, or if it’s a problem with the women in my family that they just can’t stop telling people over and over and over again things they don’t feel like hearing. On that particular day one of the two dynamics surfaced and remains with me today.

The irony regarding the day my mom wouldn’t shut up about how Sammy wasn’t eating enough was that Sammy wanted nothing to do with the cereal she was feeding him. He ate a little, but lost interest. While Sammy struggled to get off her lap, swatted the spoon away from his face, and expressed his general discontent my mom hammered away with her concerns. I kept saying, “Mom, this is absurd, look at him, he’s not even hungry, you’re argument isn’t valid. If he couldn’t get enough of that food you’d have a strong point.” But she didn’t stop.

I thought of this discussion again today while at a party at my brother’s house. Jackie was out with some friends and Sammy wouldn’t eat much of anything besides chips and pretzels. He ate a stalk of asparagus and an ear of corn, which I considered a great victory, but nothing else to make a parent proud. While I presented options galore: fruit, cheese, meat, bread, vegetables, he wanted nothing and I felt that odd self consciousness reemerge from that day my mom argued Sammy wasn’t getting enough to eat. It sort of makes me dread when Jackie is out and I’m solely responsible for making sure Sam eats.

self-feeding, baby led weaning, guest post, dad in charge,

After he’d been exposed to a variety of fruits and vegetables and some different kinds of whole grain cereals Sam’s grandmothers were both distressed that he wasn’t eating enough proper baby food. When he was ten months old they both hinted that he was nursing too much and not eating enough from jars. Despite the fact that the foods he ate were soft, they seemed to be convinced that he was going to choke. When I told them that babies chewed with their gums since many don’t even get molars until well into the first year they didn’t believe me. They didn’t understand that he refused to eat when he wasn’t hungry and enjoyed nursing both before and after meals. They made me incredibly tense and defensive. Even though I knew that Sam was doing fine, I felt like I was constantly forced to defend my decisions.

My mom was constantly asking me if she could feed Sam totally inappropriate foods like steak, lollipops and hard candies. Not understanding the concept of proper nutrition, she kept asking me why I wouldn’t let her give him what she wanted to give him- cheesesteaks and ice cream. At parties my mother in law gave Sam crackers and he couldn’t get enough of them. She thought it was because he was hungry. It was really because they were salty, and salt was something he didn’t get much of at home. One day she asked Bob if Sam was eating enough. She was concerned that we don’t have any jarred baby food in the house. I didn’t understand why the jarred stuff is so much better than the real stuff. Why would I buy a jar of pears instead of giving him a pear to eat? He was ten months old and had a ton of teeth. He was fine with small pieces of food and didn’t need purees anymore. Just because I wasn’t shoving food in his mouth didn’t mean he wasn’t eating.

I understand that breastfeeding and self feeding are things that were completely foreign to my mother and mother-in-law. Their experience was that babies got formula on a three to four hour schedule for a month and were expected to sleep through the night with no nighttime feedings by six weeks. As early as one month cereal was added to the bottle to help with sleeping through the night and pureed solids were started in earnest at four months with meats by six months. I’m sure by the time their babies were ten months old they were eating a full breakfast, lunch and dinner with snacks and desserts. But my baby didn’t.

To make everyone happy I kept yogurt, a few jars of baby food, and cereal in the house so the grandparents could feed him with a spoon. The rest of the time he fed himself with some help from us. Now that he’s a full-fledged toddler Sam refuses to eat unless he’s hungry. Sometimes he’ll let someone feed him but most of the time he’d rather feed himself. He’s a picky eater when he wants to be and eats almost anything the rest of the time. At sixteen months his weight is still low, but he’s met all of his developmental milestones, many of them a full visit early. I’m glad I let Sam wean himself onto solid foods. He’s never struggled with textures and never choked. If fruit has a seed or if he can’t chew the skin he’ll pick it out of his mouth and either throw it on the floor (a habit I’m trying to break) or hand it to me. It’s a shame that being nagged by the grandparents, the people I would have liked to have turned to for support, was the only negative to baby-led weaning.

baby-led weaning, solid foods, starting solids, breastfeeding, self-feeding

Avocado, while fun to play with, wasn’t as delicious as breastmilk, but he ate what we fed him and swallowed any bits that ended up in his mouth. Sweet potato he played with a little, but most of it was smeared on his shirt. Sweet potato mixed with breastmilk he completely refused. But at six months old, Sam couldn’t get enough of peaches. Inspired by the picture of the cute baby eating a pear on the Borstvoeding site, I didn’t mash, chunk or puree, I gave him a peach and let him eat. He loved it. Soon after came bananas cut in half and whole pears. Steamed broccoli florets, large enough for him to grasp with his uncoordinated little fingers were followed by steamed green beans and hunks of whole grain bread.

One of the benefits of baby-led weaning is that there are no extra meals to prepare. No steaming, pureeing or running food through a mill, the baby eats whole foods, the healthiest kinds of foods there are. What could be easier?

first foods, starting solids, baby-led weaning

Yesterday I wrote about baby-led weaning, the philosophy that allowing your child to feed himself, rather than spoon feed him traditional purees, is the healthiest way to begin solid foods. I struggled with when to start solids with Sam. Here’s a bit about our early experiences last summer.

When I finally got breastfeeding under control I had grand visions of nursing exclusively until Sam was old enough and developed enough for finger foods. Why start with cereal when I could wait a bit longer and start with something yummy like avocado or sweet potato? Why try to spoon feed when I could let Sam experiment and control what goes into his mouth?

While the AAP recommends starting solids between four and six months most of the breastfeeding literature I’ve read suggests that the longer you wait, the better off your child will be. Starting at four months is fine, but waiting until six is better for exclusively breastfed babies. Babies are less likely to develop food allergies, their digestive systems will be more mature, and they’ll have more protection against illness if starting solids is delayed.

But at our four month appointment when the pediatrician gave us the green light to start solids I began to wonder if my grand visions were too grand. Nursing exclusively, while incredibly rewarding in more ways than I can count, was a huge pain in the ass. Even though Bob was home for the summer, I still only had two hours at a time to myself. Bob could go out alone with a friend for a day, but I couldn’t because Sam was still eating every two to three hours and even if I left a bottle I’d have to pump and what fun is that? Solids started to sound appealing. And it suddenly seemed like Sam was interested in what we were eating. Right around five months he started to watch everything that went into our mouths and grab for whatever it was we were eating or drinking. It looked like he was ready for some real food.

I decided to split the difference and offer Sam cereal. In preparation, I went out and bought a couple of rubber tipped spoons and a box of rice cereal. But then I got home and read the ingredients. I was completely grossed out. At the time I was aware that I’m an adult and when I have an urge to eat something bad for me, like candy bars or cheetos I know exactly what I’m doing. But more often than not, I try to eat foods that only contain ingredients I’ve heard of. Sure, many of the ingredients on the box of rice cereal were vitamins and minerals, but some of them, higher up on the list were not, and if I wouldn’t want to eat it, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to feed it to my son.

I chickened out. I waited for a few days, I bought the book Super Baby Food and I returned the nasty box of rice cereal to the store and gave Sam the spoons to play with. I knew that there are better commercially prepared rice cereals, like this one, but if I’d already waited five months, so I decided that he could wait another month to start solids for real. Despite my moment of hesitation I stuck with my vision. I waited.

We didn’t wait for much longer though. Tomorrow I’ll write about some of Sam’s first foods.

starting solids, breastfeeding, baby-led weaning, rice cereal

According to a BBC article, feeding your baby pureed foods might be unnatural. Gill Rapley, the director of Unicef’s Baby Friendly Initiative says that feeding your baby pureed foods can cause health problems later in life. Giving your child breast milk or formula for the first six months then weaning onto solids could prevent your child from becoming a picky eater.

Her approach, baby led weaning, is described more fully in an article about implementing a baby-led approach to incorporating solid foods. The basic idea is that babies who are ready to begin eating solids are capable of taking food into their own mouths and chewing it. Allowing your baby to feed himself soft foods at first puts him at a smaller risk of choking because he’s in control. Larger pieces, like whole fruits are easier for a baby to handle. Giving your baby whole, separate foods allows him to experience flavors, textures, colors and shapes and make decisions about what he eats. Those early decisions will make him open to new foods and flavors as his abilities to self feed develop.

If you’ve had trouble getting your baby to eat foods with chunkier textures, if you’re pregnant or if you’re the mother of a newborn take a few minutes to read about baby-led weaning. This article is a great place to start.