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It would seem that teaching babies to eat semi-solid or solid food would
be easy, since food is one of our basic needs. However, some babies are
fussy about what goes in their mouths and mom and dad can get easily
frustrated. Another aspect of this issue is making sure baby learns to
eat fruits and vegetables to keep him healthy throughout life.
And unfortunately many toddlers do not eat the recommended five fruits
and vegetables a day. The Feeding Infant and Toddler Study (FITS)
looked at 3,000 toddlers and half of them did not receive any vegetables
for lunch and one third had none for dinner. Similar results were
reported concerning fruit - it was absent from about half the
breakfasts, half the lunches and 60 percent of dinners.
Learning to eat solid food can be difficult for baby and cause stress
for parents but there are some suggestions that can make it easier. The
first is defining the jobs of parent and child. Child feeding expert
Ellyn Satter has maintained for years that it is the parent's job to
provide a pleasant atmosphere and nutritious food for the child to eat.
It is then the child's job to learn to eat. It is best for parents to
stay out of the eating process and let the child do what he needs to do
to learn to eat the food provided, Satter says. Staying neutral,
positive and relaxed is the best way for parents to deal with the
dilemma of a child learning to eat.
Most parents do not realize that it may take multiple exposures to a
food before a child might actually put it in his mouth, chew it and
swallow it. Some children may need 15 to 20 exposures to a new food
before they eat it. According to the study mentioned earlier, more than
60 percent of parents give up after three to five times of serving a new
food to baby.
It is important to understand that babies, especially if they have been
bottle-fed, must become familiar with new flavors before they'll readily
accept them. A mother's breast milk often contains flavors of the food
she has consumed, but bottle-fed babies have a whole new arena of tastes
they must become accustomed to.
Babies must also get used to the texture of a new food. If you watch TV
shows that use home videos, they sometimes use clips showing babies
reactions to foods they have just eaten. Babies are making faces,
gagging, rolling their eyes and so forth, and we all laugh. But the
babies are reacting to new foods that taste or feel strange in their
mouth. It shows how sensitive babies can be to a new sensation in their
mouth or even on their lips.
One of the nutrition worries feeding experts have concerning young
children is the use of French fries as a common food. When FITS counted
French fries as a vegetable, they were in the top three vegetables
served to children age nine to eleven months. They were also the most
common vegetable for children fifteen months and older. Approximately
23 percent of children in FITS ate French fries at least once a day.
French fries are high in fat and calories. They can be part of a
healthy diet but should not be considered a vegetable and should not be
fed to young children every day.
The study also showed that parents were substituting fruit juice, fruit
drink and carbonated beverages for milk. The American Academy of
Pediatrics recommends juice not be fed to babies until six months of
age. The group also recommends that children from ages one to six years
be fed only four to six ounces of juice a day. Whole milk should be
served to a child until the age of two. A young child should drink
three, eight-ounce servings of whole milk a day.
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