I just started dieting and I found a yogurt that only has 40-^0 calories per serving. It is the Dannon Fit and Active brand. I am wondering if I could give some of this yogurt to my baby. What is the risk of giving her this yogurt vs, yogurt made with whole milk?
Also, just in general, why do babies always start on whole milk, not 2%, 1% or even skim. We only drink skim milk in our house so it will be sort of a pain to get two different gallons of milk in our refridgerator. I will do it, of course, but just want to know why I am doing this.
I agree with everyone else. Maybe this will make you feel better. I used to buy whole milk for my daughter who was under weight, soy milk for my daughter whose allergic to dairy,2 % for the children I cared for, and skim milk for my husband. Sometimes it was a big pain, but it was what was best for everyone.
Hi D.-
I know you were just asking a simple question and need a simple answer. I know you are going to do the right thing and its so fine to not know things! I got beat up on this site for asking something.
Anyways, YoBaby is really the way to go when it comes to yogurt. Its organic and all natural with all the fat the baby needs. You can find this at any grocer here, you don't have to go to a Whole Foods. (They make a really yummy one called YoMommy too, with less fat)!
Artificial sweetners are so bad for human cunsumption, young and old.
Everyone who responded is correct about the skim milk...
It's very important for young children (not just babies) to get fat in their diets, for brain development. Whole milk plain (unflavored, unsweetened) yogurt is a great choice and both of my children loved it plain. Stonyfield farms makes an organic version. Yummy!
Slightly related, but interesting - I've been reading up on skim milk recently because I was trying to figure out why it gives me a stomach ache to drink it. Skim milk is harder for some people to digest because it has more lactose, but also, most brands use more thickeners in their skim milk. Low-fat yogurt also uses more of the same thickeners. (I don't think there's anything bad in the thickeners, but I thought it was interesting.)
Editing to add a link to an article: http://www.recipestoday.com/resources/articles/nolowfat.htm
10 months feels a little too soon for dairy. After 1 year I gave my daughter whole and found she had tolerance problems. We switched her to soy. Now at age 2 I give her half soy half skim. she gets low fat yogurt and soy yogurt. None of this has affected her brain development, at age two she identifies all her letters capital and small, she can count to 20, identifies her numbers up to 10 and can count to ten in spanish. She plays dress up and pretends all the time and is starting to use her imagination to imitate with her little people to play by herself. I don't feel feeding her this way has had any affect on her brain development.
Your baby needs whole milk for brain development. It is not really that hard to buy two different types of milk...we drink skim at our house too. Also, low calorie yogurt has asparatme and other kinds of processed/fake sweetners in it. Not at all what a baby needs.
Yes, please don't give your baby artificial sweeteners.
Talk to your ped about the milk. I think around age 2 peds are fine with you giving them 2%. Mine was OK with me giving her skim actually, but I don't think that was until she was 2.
You feed a toddler whole milk because they still need the extra fat for brain development. They can switch to 2% around 2-3 years old, and skim a few years after that.
As far as the Fit and Active yogurt, one concern is that you are depriving the baby of needed fat calories. For me, the bigger concern is that you are giving your small child artificial sweeteners. There is no reason whatsoever to give a baby Splenda or Aspartame. Even diabetic children don't need this stuff. I regularly give my 21 month old lowfat yogurt, but it is always naturally sweetened. Horizon organic and YoBaby both make yogurt that is good for the little ones.
Get to Whole Foods for some good yogurt. I have been giving my 10 month old yougurt for months now and he loves it. I've given him some of the exotic flavors made by Rachel's Yogurt because I ran out of the usual flavors and Stoneyfield, and he lapped it up. Whole foods has a wonderful varitey and many are organic so nothing artificial to worry about.
My other son drank whole milk for his second year of life until I switched him to 2%. I order my milk from Oberweis and now I get 2-skim and 2-2%. I am afraid of the growth hormones in conventional milk and hate to run out so I order the Oberweis delivered. You need to do what's best for your family, so if it means 2 or 3 different types of milk in the fridge, do it. My son is such a milk lover that we are fortunate that that is all he drinks besides water or herbal tea(imagine that a 4-1/2 year old sipping tea, without sugar and loves it), so our fridge has plenty of room for the bottles.
Good luck!
J.
Artificial sweeteners are terible....even for adults. And the young children require the fat in whole milk.
BABIES NEED FAT! It's for adequate brain development. It's very important that we don't pass our low-fat diets on to them. It's a baby! It's not like you are feeding it McDonald's cheeseburgers and Taco Bell! It is a pain to buy two different kinds of milk, but the baby only needs a half-gallon. You need to do full fat for baby for one year, then cut it down to 2%. I also believe that skim milk has more sodium than whole milk.
Babies need fat for brain development. That's why the earliest you can switch to a lower fat is around 2-3yo. Also, you want to be careful about all the additives that are in "adult" yogurts. There is a lot of sugar or artificial sweeteners, which DD doesn't need just yet. To avoid unnecessary exposure to antibiotics and hormones, it's a good idea to get organic dairy products for her if your budget allows. Also, regarding the "adult" yogurts, I was just reading an article about probiotics (the "good" bacteria we need in our gut) and the only probiotic that babies can handle is Bifidobacterium until they're around 4, so certain "adult" yogurts wouldn't be a good idea.
HTH
Our pediatrician said no real milk until our baby was 12 months old, and then she said we could do 2% at the minimum. My hubby and I also drink skim milk, so we only buy the half gallon size for our daughter because she doesn't go through it fast enough. We started giving our baby yogurt at around 14 months because she didn't really like drinking milk, and by this time she would refuse formula (about 9-12 months, she totally refused to eat any baby food). I should point out that it's really hard to find any yogurt that isn't made with skim milk and aspartame, but we have found it at Walmart (Land o'Lakes brand).
Aspartame is horrible for human consumption, so we have chosen to just cut all artificial sweeteners out of our diets. It's been especially hard to give up diet sodas and Splenda in my coffee, but we want to be healthier so we're doing it!
