Nutrition and Feeding Guidelines for Your Baby
By Sue Gilbert

During your baby's first year he will triple his birth weight and increase in length by 50%. To fuel that amazing development, eating will be the top priority of his day. Since his tummy is tiny compared to his needs, he'll have to eat often. And, since his needs are large compared to his capacity, that means the food he eats has to be nutritionally rich.

Besides growing physically, your baby is also developing socially, emotionally, and cognitively. Food plays a role in all these areas.

Your little baby starts out as a tiny being with little control, getting his nourishment from reflexive sucking and who, by age one, will have turned into a solid little person, crawling with speed and determination, eating selectively, probably from your plate, and deliberately using a precise pincer grasp to feed themselves food they bite, chew and swallow.

Starting out with breast milk or formula in the early months, offered to baby when he requests, and served in a supportive, loving environment lays the foundation. Following this up with a progressive addition of solid foods that add increasing texture and consistency will give your baby the important nutrients he need to grow plus the developmental stimulation necessary for oral and motor development.

Newborn to 4 months, Breast or Bottle

At this age, the best and only food for your little one should be mother's milk, formula, or a combination of the two. Each baby should be allowed to determine for himself just how much and how often he needs to eat. Some babies will eat every two hours, day and night, others will go for longer stretches. At this age, it is best to feed your baby 'on demand'. He is much too young to know how to manipulate. All he knows is that he's hungry. When you feed him, he feels secure and learns to trust you.

Average, normal daily intakes for babies this young can be anywhere from 16 to 32 ounces. You needn't worry much about what specific nutrients your baby needs. Getting them all is like one stop shopping when they are served breast milk or formula. (One nutrient of caution for nursing moms in dark, northern climates...vitamin D. Check with your pediatrician to see if a supplement is necessary).

4 months to 6 months: A Solid Start

Sometime during these two months most babies are introduced to solid foods. Although for the most part breast milk and formula can continue to supply all their nutritional needs, adding some semisolid foods seems developmentally appropriate. Baby can control his head better, he sucks stronger, he can now mimic what he sees, and may even have the beginning of a palmer grasp, bringing objects to their mouth to bite. In fact, by 6 months, it seems like everything goes into his mouth! To your delight and amusement, your baby also has an improved ability to communicate. You've certainly had plenty of 'conversations' by now. Being able to communicate is important for starting solids. Now he can show his hunger by opening his mouth and leaning toward the spoon, and he can show his disinterest by leaning back and pushing away. Without these skills you could unintentionally force-feed your baby. Dr. Sears can help you figure out if your baby is ready for solids: read his article "Starting Solid Foods: A Common-Sense Approach".

The food you offer your baby now, must be both nutritionally and developmentally appropriate. It should offer the nutrients he needs with the consistency and texture that will help his eating skills. For this reason, an iron fortified rice cereal, such as Earth's Best Whole Grain Rice Cereal, whose consistency you can change, is a good choice for a first food. By four months, those birth stores of iron are depleted, and an outside source is necessary. Because at this age baby will gradually be drinking less formula or breast milk as solid intake increases, you will need to replace their iron source. Establishing baby on an iron-fortified cereal early on will help secure their iron status throughout infancy and toddlerhood when it is most critical. Rice cereal mixed with breast milk or formula also provides a good balance of calories amongst protein, carbohydrates and fat. Start with rice cereal since it is the grain least likely to cause an allergic reaction.

As you progress in the addition of solids in your baby's diet, keep in consideration three things:

1. Nutrient needs
2. Developmental readiness
3. The need to detect and control allergies

Soon after adding an iron rich rice cereal, the next most important nutrients to add are vitamins C and A. Offer a vitamin C enriched fruit puree like applesauce, and a dark green or deep orange vegetable, such as pureed carrots or squash. Earth's Best wide variety of first fruits and vegetables will ensure you baby gets those nutrients.

Adding solids between 4 and 6 months helps to desensitize the gag reflex. Adding foods one at a time, with three days or more in between will help you detect any specific food allergies or sensitivities. Learn more about food allergies, and how to detect them and prevent them.

Begin at this stage to shape these foods into a meal pattern. Have cereal and fruit at breakfast with the rest of the family. Pull the high chair up to the dinner table for baby to eat his cereal and vegetables while you enjoy your dinner and his company. By the end of this stage, the wider variety of Earth's Best fruits vegetables and fruit blends and dinners can be a part of your baby's diet.

Food to add at 4 to 6 months:
Iron fortified single grain cereals
Vitamin C and A rich fruits and vegetables

The following table highlights some of the important nutrients and their daily requirements for the 0 to 6 month old.

7 to 9 months Chunkier Chews:

The move to solids progresses rapidly now. Baby begins to chew with an up and down movement of the jaw, replacing the predominately sucking motion of earlier. This, plus the ability to grasp and the direct propulsion of grasped objects to the mouth, tells you he is ready for finger food. To begin with, he has a palmer grasp (e.g. smashing fistfuls of cereal somewhere in the vicinity of his mouth!) so the shape of the finger foods you offer is important. Teething biscuits, like Earth's Best Teething Biscuits as well as toast strips, bagels and crackers are easiest for him to hold. It's doubtful he'll get too much down yet, so don't count it as contributing to his nutrient intake. By the end of this stage his grasp will be more digital and he'll be able to better manipulate little things like Cheerios and green peas.

Now he is ready for, and needs, thicker, chunkier foods. Earth's Best Chunky Blends are perfect for this age. Soft mashed, but not strained, food can be offered too. In an important study by two researchers, Illingworth and Lister, it was shown that it was critical to offer harder to chew foods at this developmental age. To not do so resulted in real difficulties in their acceptance later on.

Once your baby seems to be getting more and more of his nutrition from solids and less from you or formula, it becomes important to replace the nutrients they are no longer receiving from those liquids. Food to introduce now should offer some protein and calcium.

Foods to add at 7 to 9 months:
Chunkier blends
Mixed grain infant cereals
plain yogurt
tofu
finger foods
vitamin C rich 100% juice

9 to 12 months: Table transition:

Foods to add at 9 to 12 months:
Appropriate table foods
dry cereals
Protein foods- egg yolk, lean meat, fish or poultry, dried cooked legumes,
peanut butter
cow's milk, soft cheese

The following table highlights some of the important nutrients and their daily requirements for the 7 to 12 month old.

Finger Foods

Some babies insist on feeding themselves, in which case you'll need to be clever in picking appropriate finger foods that offers the right variety of nutrients. Remember to choose from all the food groups. Here are some suggestions from each:

The Bread and Cereal Group: teething biscuits, Earth's Best Whole Grain Bars, dry, unsweetened cereal without nuts, honey or dried fruit, bagel (stale ones make good teething rings), toast, graham crackers, whole grain crackers, pasta, mini sandwiches filled with mashed banana mixed with peanut butter, or filled with cottage cheese and grated apple

Fruits and Vegetables: banana slices, ripe papaya sticks, avocado slices, soft cooked apple wedges, soft cooked sweet potato sticks, orange sections with membrane removed

Protein Food: chopped cooked egg yolk, shredded cheese pressed into a ball for easy pick up, cubes of soft cheese, tofu sticks, pieces of tender cooked flaked fish, scrambled egg

Dairy foods: grated cheese, cubes of soft cheese, lumps of cottage cheese

The Earth's Best Suggested Feeding Schedule concisely summarizes all this information, but remember, it is general, and is to be used only as a flexible schedule for introducing solids into your baby's diet.

On the matter of how much:

Each baby is different so leave the decision of how much to eat up to them. Because only they know when they are hungry and when they are full, and because they can't communicate that too clearly, what you must do is provide a good variety of wholesome food on a regular basis then let them decide how much they will eat. Over the course of the day they will eat what they need, although their intake from one meal to the next may vary dramatically. At the minimum a one year old should be getting the following to meet those nutrient needs:

• 2 cups of milk (full fat) or equivalent dairy product
• 4 servings of 1 to 2 tablespoons each of fruits and vegetables (one with vitamin C and one with A)
• 2 servings of meat or equivalent of 1 to 2 tablespoons each.
• 4 servings of breads or cereals, each about 1/4 an adult serving, and one must be an iron fortified cereal

On the matter of fat:

Although low fat diets are recommended for adults, the American Academy of Pediatrics, The American Heart Association Nutrition Committee and The National Cholesterol Education Program agree that fat and cholesterol should not be restricted in the diets of children from birth to two. Dietary fat supplies concentrated energy, provides the essential fatty acids, linoleic and linolenic (necessary for proper neurological development) and is a carrier of fat soluble vitamins. Infants have a difficult time eating enough low fat foods to meet their caloric needs because their stomachs are so small. Allow your baby to enjoy the full fat varieties of dairy foods, meats, oils, nuts and seeds. Hold off on starting a lower fat diet until somewhere after the age of two.