Feeding Schedule / Calories FAQs

• My baby is eating pretty much everything but I don't know what she should eat for lunch? I need some ideas. NEW!
  
• When can my baby (7mo.) change from 5 feedings a day to only 4?
• What to do when my baby is a good eater and still seems hungry?
• Should solid food come before, or immediately follow bottle-feeding, or should they be separate?
• My baby is 8 months old and weighs only 14 pounds. What types of food should I give him to improve his weight?
• Do I need to introduce chicken and potato separately before giving baby the Sweet Potato and Chicken Dinner?
• At what age is it safe to give baby food from the table?
• Do you feel that an eating schedule is necessary for my five-month-old?
• What is the recommended amount of calories for babies and how much should be from breast milk and how much from food?

My baby is eating pretty much everything but I don't know what she should eat for lunch? I have been giving her cereals w/ fruit and a veggie but should she be eating something like a meat and veggies meal like dinner? I need some ideas.

Cereal with fruit and vegetables is a very good lunch for a baby in the early second stages of eating. However, if your baby is getting at the upper end of that stage, and is about seven or more months, lunch would be a good time to add some other foods, such as mixed dinner foods, for example, Earth's Best Chicken and Sweet Potatoes . Older babies are ready for protein from meat, poultry, pork, and fish. Also, try scrambled egg yolk, tofu, and mashed legumes. All would be good lunch items and would add variety- both nutritionally and in flavor.
 

When can my baby (7mo.) change from 5 feedings a day to only 4? She is being weaned from breastmilk (in a bottle) to all formula, currently half and half. Then would she need to take more than 7 fl oz? She started solid foods at 5 1/2 months, and takes only 1TBS or so at a time, once or twice a day.

At seven months, babies are generally making a sporadic, and not to smooth transition from bottles or breast to a diet based more on solid foods. Until your baby’s intake of solids increases, however, you need to keep up the amount of formula she is getting so as not to short-change her nutritional intake. I recommend that you begin to offer her solid foods at three meals, serving the solids before the formula. Then, you can adjust the formula amount she takes based on her solids intake. You must be careful, however, to make sure that you offer her nutrient rich solids for example- fortified cereal mixed with formula, egg yolks, and fruits and vegetables. The cereal mixed with formula and the egg yolks are foods which closely mimic the carbohydrate/protein/fat ratio in formula and so are a good replacement for it. The vegetables and fruits are excellent sources of vitamins and minerals to complement that. Be careful that she doesn’t fill up too much on vegetables or fruits just yet, since they tend to be very low in calories relative to her needs. I think you can make the switch at any time to four feedings, just so long as you stay tuned in to her signals of hunger and satiety, so that if it isn’t working for her, you can make adjustments. In fact, you may want to start a three meal a day schedule at this point in time, adding in two small snacks, one mid-morning and one mid-afternoon. Also, a nighttime bottle may still be necessary from a nutritional and a comfort standpoint.
 

My daughter is 7 months and always seems hungry, despite eating cereal with formula 2x a day, 3-4 jars of food, and about 6 to 8 4.5 oz of bottles (she has reflux). When do we move to stage 2 foods, and is there anything else I can give her?

Your baby is more than ready for stage 2 foods. http://earthsbest.com/products/veggies.php">http://earthsbest.com/products/veggies.php

 

Should solid food come before, or immediately follow bottle-feeding, or should they be separate?

It depends where your baby is in his or her stage of development with eating solids. For a baby just beginning to learn, who is not yet experienced in eating from a spoon or satisfying hunger with solids, it’s best to first take the edge off his hunger by allowing part of his liquid feeding. Then, while he is still pleasantly hungry, try offering the solids. He will be motivated yet patient enough to try them. Also, for a baby whose main source of nutrition is still formula or breast, it’s best not to fill them up on solids but to first make sure they are getting the nutrients they need. Then once eating solids is no longer just for practice, allowing solids before the bottle at mealtime is a good idea. It will encourage the transition to solids but will still be making a nutritional contribution to his diet. A good time to serve a separate bottle-feeding is snack time or bedtime for the baby who is already well established on solids, but who still needs the additional nourishment provided by breast milk or formula.
 

My baby is 8 months old and weighs only 14 pounds. What types of food should I give him to improve his weight?

I get many questions from parents whose children are small for their age, are poor growers, or who lack a healthy appetite. For these children, what is very important in their diet is ‘nutrient density'. In other words, each calorie they take in must have as concentrated an amount of nutrition as possible. Because they eat so little food, what they do eat must squeeze in all the vitamins, minerals, protein, and calories that they need each day. There is not room for ‘empty calories', or high bulk foods. While fruits and vegetables have lots of vitamins and minerals per calorie, they have so few calories, baby may fill up before getting the calories they need to grow properly. Therefore, you need to focus on both calorie dense and nutrient dense foods. Some examples are formula, breast milk, eggs, full fat dairy foods, meats, nuts, and seeds. For a baby that is small, meal times must be frequent since they can't consume much at each feeding time. Six small meals are better than three large meals. Also, a bedtime feeding is important. For an eight month old, some good food to add to her diet to help her put on some weight and to encourage optimum growth would be egg yolks, tender and moist cooked and pureed meats like beef, dark meat chicken and lamb. If there is no family history of food allergies, then some full fat dairy products like whole milk yogurt, cottage cheese or ricotta cheese is appropriate to offer. Avocados are a marvelous baby food for this purpose as they are full of healthy fats and are loaded with good nutrition. For older babies, adding some oil to baked goods, or cooking vegetables in butter is a good idea. Spreading some peanut butter onto fruit slices or veggie sticks is also adding concentrated nutrition and calories. For babies under one, a diet that is based on plenty of breast milk or formula will help. For older children, whole milk will be important to add calories. Using caloric beverages instead of water will also add calories and nutrients.

While it is important to encourage your baby to eat more often and more concentrated foods, it is important not to force your baby to do so. This tactic will only backfire in the long run, and will prevent your child from learning to listen to internal cues for hunger and satiety. Such a communication path is important to maintain as a way to grow into a healthy weight adult.
 

All of the books say to offer each new food separately, three to five days apart. However, I have noticed some of the jars have foods that my baby has not been introduced to. Do I need to introduce these foods separately; for example, do I need to introduce chicken and sweet potatoes separately before giving him the Sweet Potato and Chicken Dinner?

If you have introduced one of the two foods, and you know that your baby did not have an allergic reaction to that food, then the second food in the jar will be the 'test' food. For example, if your baby has had sweet potatoes, and he did fine, and then you give him the chicken and sweet potatoes, and he does have a reaction, then you will know the culprit is the chicken. This same procedure can work for up to any number of food combinations, just so long as only one of the foods in that combo is new. If more than one food is new to your baby, and he did have a reaction, you wouldn't be able to identify which of the two foods he reacted to.So, when offering your baby new foods, do so one at a time, but that new food can be in combination with already familiar foods.
 

At what age is it safe to give baby food from the table?

It depends on the food, and your baby's readiness. Every baby has their own timetable, but, in general, most babies will be ready for their first taste of table foods around 6 months of age. But, I must qualify that and say that the table food will most likely have to be modified, at least in consistency, and probably also in texture. By the age of one, most babies are ready to give up baby food and are well established on child appropriate table foods.

So, the time from 6 months, to one year is a half-year of transition, where you will be serving your baby a mix of table foods, baby foods, and formula or breast milk.

The sooner your baby is a part of the family dinner table (and breakfast and lunch table if possible), the greater his exposure to a variety of foods, the more he has to model, and the healthier eater he'll be. So, once your baby is eating solids, pull his high chair up to the dinner table, and have him be a part of the whole social affair of eating together. He can feel a real part of it as well, if you have a food you can modify to put on his plate. For example, some mashed or baked sweet potatoes can be put through a baby food grinder and mixed with a little water or formula to be thinned down to an appropriate consistency for your baby. Even pieces of moist, baked chicken can be put through the baby mill and thinned down a bit to be served to your baby. Essentially, during those first few months of eating at the table, you will be modifying the foods you serve and turning them into an instant homemade baby food. As he grows and develops you'll find he can handle as a finger food many of the foods you serve, if you cut them into the right size. Some tender cooked bits of carrots, 'blobs' of mashed potatoes, tender pieces of pasta, moist cooked flakes of fish, ripe bits of avocado, are all examples of table foods you baby may be eating well before the age of one.
 

My five-month-old daughter is just starting solids. I do not have her on a schedule and feed her only when she is hungry. Do you feel that a schedule is necessary?

Schedules are very Darwinian: they tend to evolve over time, and then change and adapt as the baby grows. During the first few months, babies should be allowed to eat on demand -- that is, when they are hungry. As they get older and begin eating solid foods you can help ease them into a schedule.

As soon as your baby can sit unsupported in a high chair, have her join you at the dinner table. Or, even before that, prop her baby seat on the table so she can join you for the family evening meal.

Because eating schedules tend to evolve, they shouldn't be strict. In fact, babies and children often hit growth spurts that appear to make them hungry all the time. In those cases, you may have to let the schedule fall by the wayside, and then return to it as soon as you can.

Schedules serve a couple of purposes. For one thing, they are convenient. It makes life easier for caregivers so they can plan meal preparation. Also, meals will ultimately be nutritionally superior: It has been shown that kids who eat at set meal and snack times are slimmer and do better nutritionally than those who don't. "Grazing," eating small amounts of food all day long, is also a nutritionally superior way to go, but only if the person pays careful attention to food choices. Grazing times should be set like mini-meals, as opposed to eating all day long.

Whether your child consumes a regular three meal per day pattern with small snacks in between, or six or seven mini-meals, scheduled eating times that allow for some flexibility are the best choice for older babies. Your daughter's age is an excellent time to start.
 

What is the recommended amount of calories for babies and how much should be from breast milk and how much from food?

From birth to 4 months, a baby needs about 52 calories for every pound, so a 10-pound baby, for example, would require 520 calories. Until the age of 4 months all of these calories should come from breast milk or formula. For the rest of the first year, a baby needs 45 calories per pound. A fifteen-pound baby, for example, over the age of 4 months, needs about 680 calories.

There is no rule about how much should come from breast milk or how much from solids. The younger the baby, the larger the percentage will come from formula or breast milk. What is important is to make sure that as a baby transitions away from formula or breast milk to solid foods, that the proper balance of nutrients is maintained.

Introducing cereal with iron first, is a good way to make sure iron intake stays up. Adding fruits and vegetables while formula intake is still high results in a diet with a good balance of vitamins, minerals, protein and fat, but as formula intake drops off, it's important to add some protein and fat rich foods.