Introducing Baby Food - Question

I can only answer this according to my own opinions and beliefs so please take what you want and use the advice.

I got some baby food given to me and it was right at the expiration date. I called the company, either Del Monte or Gerber, and they told me to toss it. That it started out having minimal nutrition in it and by the time it even got close to the expiration date it was only flavored goo, with no nutrition in it what so ever.

She said that they expect parents to know that formula or breast milk is total nutrition and that it comes first each and every feeding. Then supplementing that with baby food is how to teach a child to chew and swallow food. Not for nutritional purposes.

So the baby food company themselves say that formula and breast milk is needed for complete nutrition until the child is a year old. They make baby food so that older baby's will get a taste for different textures and flavors. They will learn to chew and swallow their food.

If your baby is only 4 months old you are taking away it's nutrition to feed it flavored goo that is not expected to be used for food/nutrition. Everything they need is in that bottle, feed them that first each and every time and you'll have a baby that is not overweight and not starving for nutrients.

When I worked child care I figured out this is why so many baby's seem to be starving and "eat so well", they are starving, they get fed jars and jars of baby food that don't feed their growing bodies and when they get an actual bottle they gulp it down. Then they want more. They have had little food all day because they aren't being fed nutrients that they need.

I would see this over and over. I'd have parent's bring in jars and jars of baby food and only one bottle or two for the whole day with an infant. I'd ask them where the formula was and they'd say the baby eats food now. Then the baby would cry all day because they were hungry. Even after eating their body was still starving even though their tummy had stuff in it, it wasn't food they needed. They'd be getting fat and roly poly ( I had to look up how to spell that...lol) but starving for nutrients.

I would try to tell the parents this was not good eating but they'd say "If I don't feed the baby baby food they starve all the time and I want them to eat right". The baby's that used mostly formula didn't starve all the time. They ate their bottles and got to taste baby food the right way. They were healthy normal sized baby's that ate just fine when they were older.

So my advice is your baby is still really really young. She needs her nutrients right now while she is growing her body and brain. So feed her the nutrients she needs, not the baby food you want her to have.

Let your baby lead. Food before 12 months isn't for nutrition, it's for introducing flavors and textures so really it doesn't matter in what order or combination they eat as long as you are careful about introducing new things slowly (to look for reactions and sensitivities).

With my youngest, I didn't do boxed baby cereal at all (that rice stuff has no nutritional value whatsoever and is disgusting, I wouldn't eat it either) but I did make thinned oatmeal, which tasted a lot better. I used to just serve some thinned oatmeal with pureed fruit or veggies (starting at around 7 or 8 months old - was really lazy about starting with him). I would put both in a bowl and spoon feed some cereal, then some fruit/veggie, or mix them together. Sometimes it was just fruit or veggies. Because we started late, he moved on to table foods pretty quickly and by 10-12 months was eating what the rest of us ate, just cut up or with more liquid (so chicken or beef with a bit of broth to moisten, etc.).

I remember being a little crazy about worrying about the details when feeding my first (who I gave conventional baby food and even that awful toddler food to) and he's the worst eater of them all. I relaxed a lot with my youngest (8 years older, wiser and more tired) and he's the best eater of them all, having grown up on real food from the get-go.

Wholesomebabyfood.com is a great resource for ideas on what to feed babies.

I started with a mashed up avocado at 6.5 months. DD ate rice cereal because she didn't know better. Rice cereal tastes like cardboard and is just filler. Oatmeal is better. And some babies never like manufactured food. (Friend's kid tasted exactly 2 jars of food before they figured they'd rather give him what he really wanted.) Smell those bananas lately? YUCK! Mash them up yourself and your baby might be happier. When she was doing finger food, she might reach for my food and I thought "alright then" and offered her some. We held off on meats til 9 mo. and cow milk til after 12 mo. but other than that most things were fair game.

I was always told breastmilk or formula is primary til 1 year minimum. So give the bottle first and solids second. Since DD was nursed, she didn't get both at the same time, but more like milk at 10 and snack at 10:30 and then lunch at 12:30 with snack...etc.

Well, I breastfed and used no supplemental milk until mine was over a year, but I gave him baby food sort of randomly every day starting at 6 months. I got the impression that the idea was just to get him used to the taste, so I tried to give different flavors every day (despite the advice to wait a a week until introducing a new fruit in case of allergies- that seemed unnecessary to me.) I think babies self-regulate their food intake under normal circumstances and you can just let them eat when they are hungry. I also used the Dr. Sears baby book for guidelines; I liked that book because it's pretty relaxed and doesn't insist on rigid schedules.

i tried doing the "reccommended feeding schedule" that gerber has.. it was way too much food for my daughter (shes a week away from being 6months old).. she also prefers me to make the cereal and then mix it with a little fruit/veggies, but will eat it either way and will eat just fruit or just cereal.. so heres how our schedule goes.. she wakes up n has a bottle.. a little later she has fruit&or cereal with a bottle.. a little later a bottle.. then for lunch has fruit/veggies &or cereal with a bottle.. then in between lunch and dinner she has 2 bottles.. then at 5 she will have veggies &or cereal .. then at 6/630 depending on how tired she is that day has a bottle with an extra ounce in it and goes to bed
most of the time i give her both, a small bowl or cereal and a small bowl of fruit or veggies, if it seems like shes not too hungry then i just concentrate on getting her to eat the veggies or fruit and save the cereal for the end if she still seems like she wants to eat it

- ive also noticed that if i give her just fruit of just veggies it doesnt really hold her, the cereal fills her up way more so its better if she has both or has her fruit/veggies mixed with the cereal

I never give bottles and food at the same time. This way, they can't reject the food and then get the bottle. Also, when first introducing a food, I never mixed with cereal so they can get used to eating it by itself. And start with veggies first. If you start with fruits, it maybe harder to get them to eat the veggies. This is what our schedule looks like:

Wake Up Bottle
1-2 hours later Food
Bottle before nap
1 hour later Bottle
1-2 hours later Food
Bottle Before Bed

My boys are almost 1 and have only ever really taken one nap. My daughter also followed the same schedule. After my boys got use to a food, I then mixed it, but that was more for my own convenience. Feeding two at a time takes awhile, so if I can combine the cereal and food, it was easier to feed both.

Funny how it leaves your head so quickly! Mine are 20 months apart and I could hardly remember what to do when the time came. : )

Beginning at 6 months, I used the following schedule for feeding my DD who is now 10 months:

7:30 Breakfast: breastfeed first, then cereal (oatmeal) with fruit

11:00 Lunch: breastfeed first, then vegetables and fruit (at 9 months I began meat, cheese, bread)

3:00 Afternoon snack: breastfeed only (at 9 months I switched to solids only-- yogurt or banana)

5:30 Dinner: breastfeed first, cereal and veggies, fruit, (at 9 months I added meat)

7:00 Bedtime: breastfeed only

I don't worry if she doesn't eat much of the solids because the nutrition is coming from the breast milk which is why I always offer it first. Seems like she became more interested in solids around 9 months. That is the point when I began feeding her pretty much whatever we were eating with the exception of nuts, eggs, and fish.