We all feed our babies by instinct. The most natural thing is to feed our own preferences, or foods that we were fed when we were young. If we refer more to common sense and avoid those foods to which we are instinctively drawn, we could avoid many future feeding problems.
For instance:
Do not automatically start giving your baby cereal if he/she is inclined to be plump.
Another food we give by sheer instinct is sweet foods. We enjoy sweet foods so we give it to our babies.
We also like to flavour the food with flavours to which instinct draws us.
Solid Food
When you introduce solids for the first time you are in the unique position of cultivating taste. Your baby has had no food previously, so introduce tastes that are known to be difficult to introduce later in the baby’s life.
Many toddlers and small children reject vegetables and food that are ‘healthy’.
I believe that it is because we introduced sweeter foods too early and the baby developed a taste for sweeter foods.
I always recommend to start with vegetables as early as possible.
Bland Food First
Do not flavour the vegetables and do not add salt sugar or butter. Give them as bland as possible. Liquidise the vegetables to start. If you do not a have a liquidiser you can grate them, mash and then push them through a sieve to get the food smooth.
Fruit is naturally sweet, so delay the introduction until you have introduced a variety of vegetables.
Preparation
To simplify the preparation, I recommend that you cook enough vegetables for a few days. Then freeze them in small containers. Label and date the containers so that you can use the oldest first.
Never introduce more than one new item into the diet at the same time. The reason for this is that if baby has a reaction to any ingested item you will be able to identify the culprit immediately. Avoid introducing a new food at night because stomach cramps could result in a sleepless night for both you and baby.
Trust yourself, but use common sense.
Happy feeding.
March 2013
Teresa Denton (1941 – 2014)
Teresa’s baby clinics in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg, South Africa, were very popular. She has also written a booklet on ‘How to deliver a baby in an emergency’.
