Saturday, April 4, 2009

Baby Begins Solid Food

I was given this baby diet by my very wonderful clinic sister in Pretoria, South Africa.
I used it for both my children as I have so many allergies and I wanted to do everything in my power to prevent allergies in my babies. It is quite hard to follow between 9-12 months as everyone just wants to feed your children biscuits/cookies and for some strange reason, ice-cream, but it is very worth the effort. Both my children are overall very healthy, neither of them have had a course of antibiotics up to now (aged 6 & 2 1/2), they both have their tonsils and if they do get sick they generally recover quite quickly. I must add that I keep them off dairy as much as possible as they inherited that allergy from mama.

Baby Begins Solid Food

"The intestine of the infant during the first 6 months of his life is very porous. This means that foreign proteins in allergy producing foods are easily absorbed from the intestine into the blood. This allows the early process of allergies to begin.
Ideally, depending on your baby's weight, no solids should be introduced during the first 6 months of life. Baby should be weighed regularly at your clinic. After 6 months of age, the step-wise and gradual introduction of relatively non-allergenic solid foods is allowed. Whatever else, your baby should not be allowed to starve."
Dr Matt Haus: Understanding Allergy Prevention

List of potential allergy-producing foods:
Vegetables: Tomato, carrots, potato, garlic, onion, peas
Fruit: Oranges, strawberries, apples, bananas
Nuts: Peanuts, hazelnuts, Brazil-nuts
Cereal: Wheat, Rye, Barley, Oats, Maize/corn, Rice buckwheat
Meat: Beef
Dairy: All dairy
Egg: Eggwhite
Sundry: Sesame seeds, soybean, yeast, coconut, white bean
Fish: Crab, shrimp, blue mussels, tuna, salmon

Try to prevent introducing the above foods until the child is a year old…especially dairy and wheat. In other words - avoid the above foods until the child is 1.

Introduction of solid foods:
General rules:
- Snacks can spoil your baby's appetite for important antibody building foods and can make your child overweight.
- Start with a small amount, 1 tsp (teaspoon) at a time and build up gradually.
- Only one new food a week to determine if there is an allergic reaction.
- No added salt, sugar or fat.
- Read labels - no preservatives or colourants.
- Give your baby milk before the solid feed until 9 months.
- Introduce PROTEIN after 9 months. Too high a concentration of protein can place strain on the baby's kidneys.
- Grains are difficult to digest.
- No fried foods, butter or chocolate.
- Start with very pureed food, gradually increasing the coarseness of the food.

6-8 Months:
Week ........10:00.....................14:00....................18:00
1 ................1 tsp sweet potato
2 ................1 tsp pear..............1 tsp sweet potato
3.................1 tsp butternut.....1 tsp pear..............1 tsp sweet potato
4.................2 tsp butternut.....2 tsp pear.............2 tsp sweet potato
5.................3 tsp pawpaw........3 tsp butternut....3 tsp sweet potato
6.................4 tsp pumpkin.......4 tsp pawpaw......4 tsp butternut
7 If there were no allergic reactions or sign of poor digestion, the appetite can lead.

New foods to try:
Papaya, avo, different pumpkins, peaches, mango, prunes.

8-9 months:
Broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, **spinach (fresh - no frozen)**

After 9 months:
Coarser foods and different textures, baby must try finger foods. Introduction of protein.
Lamb, chicken, yellow of egg, rice cakes.

After 10 months:Maize, oats.



Baby Food Tip #1
Steam or bake a big batch of veggies and once cooled and pureed, freeze portions in ice trays.
Once frozen, pop out into freezer bags or tupperware - ready to heat and serve!


Baby Food Tip #2
Once they were eating a variety of veggies, I would slow roast the veggies in the oven with a little olive oil, this process really brings out the sweet flavour of the veggies, and my kids loved them alot more than the steamed or boiled veggies.

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