4 Tips for Introducing Food to Babies & Taking Stress Out of the Process

Hi!

So when it came to researching, thinking about and preparing for Nora's first foods.. as a first time parent.. I went a little overboard. Watching YouTube videos. reading Pinterest Boards.. books.. blogs.. government sites.. you name it. Last summer when Nora was just born I even bottled a ton of baby food made out of fresh organic veggies straight from our garden.. wanting her to have the best of the best. I researched how to introduce foods to her, whether I should give her pieces of food, purees, cereal, etc. You get what I'm saying here- I did a LOT of thinking about it when I probably should have just CHILLED-THE-HECK-OUT.

I am writing this post for other mums out there who may be in the position I was in (described above) and to hopefully to ease your minds and to tell you what I've learned. I wanted to (and still do) take an organic as possible, versatile as possible and most flavourful as possible approach when it comes to teaching Nora about food. BUT if someone would have told me that it's not that complicated earlier on.. I would have appreciated that!

Here is a sample of what's in our pantry in terms of food for Nora:

So I'mma break it down for you in 4 main points talking about pre-preparing food, baby cereal, pre-packaged foods and snacks.

1. Having some pre-prepared food is AWESOME and super helpful BUT you don't need to do a ton in advance. Don't stress.

Like I said, a lot of my reading suggested puree-ing and storing a ton of options for your baby in advance of their first food experience. I find that the stuff I made in advance is definitely helpful to have (especially when I want to take food on the go) BUT I actually find it easier 95% of the time just to feed Nora off of my own plate (or leftovers). Now I will say something here.. Nora got two teeth by five months so we had the benefit of her being able to chew a little more than some babies would be able to. I know this isn't the case for everyone. I also find that using the pre-prepared stuff that I made really limits us to what Nora is trying. It felt like we were feeding her the same things over and over again and this didn't feel natural to me. AND I wasn't going to stress myself out pureeing every fruit and veg under the sun to give myself a stockpile/variety.

I know we are a bit different (read: VERY RELAXED) when it comes to feeding Nora. A lot of the sites that suggested preparing in advance also suggested feeding your child specific foods first before moving to other foods .. we didn't follow this. Example: Some of her first foods were curried butternut squash soup and eggs. I found/find it a lot easier to be able to give Nora food directly from my plate.. let her try bites of salmon.. chicken.. various vegetables. And if I find the food we are having isn't soft enough I can quickly throw some in a blender and puree it for her with some water or breastmilk.

In summary- if you eat fairly balanced you can probably feed your baby off of your plate too! I also will typically make larger dinners and then save the leftovers to feed Nora the next day(s).

DISCLAIMER: Ben and I both don't really have any allergies to food so we didn't have to worry too much about Nora having any serious reactions. I know introducing foods to babes whose parents have allergies can be a different story.

2. The Controversial Rice Cereal - To Feed or Not to Feed.. "That is the question?"

I was originally against feeding Nora rice cereal. I think this stemmed from me reading "Bringing up Bebe" on french parenting styles. In the book they talk about skipping cereal and feeding babies tons of different fruits, vegetables and proteins to give them a diverse palette. I liked that approach.

Fast forward to real life..we had issues with Nora sleeping and I was willing to try just about anything to try to get her to sleep longer through the night. Someone suggested rice cereal with her night bottle to help. I did some research and learned about two cereals- Oatmeal/Chia and Buckwheat/Chia by the brand Love Child Organics. These were very natural options, had flavour and packed a punch in terms of nutrients. We started giving this to Nora with her night time bottle. I can't say it did anything (Read: It did nothing to help her sleep) BUT I did learn that we like this cereal. It's packed with iron which after your baby turns 6 months you have to feed them foods with iron in them because your breast milk doesn't produce enough. So now I typically will feed this cereal to Nora as her "breakfast" with some sort of fruit. She loves it and I like knowing she is getting the iron she needs.

3. Store Bought Food : Check your labels and STOCK 'EM UP!

Such a life saver! Honestly, from the first day we started feeding Nora I had a variety of pouches of food in our pantry. Again, I have been sticking with the brand Love Child (and another all natural brand I found at Costco - just can't remember the name.. packaging is yellow). This has taken a huge pressure off of me. We like being out on the go so I can keep these pouches in my diaper bag and have them on hand for Nora if she's hungry or we decide to stay out longer than planned. I can feed the food to her directly from the package or with a spoon so there is no heating up, bowls or mess to be made. Or HECK there are days when Ben and I might get take-out and we don't want to feed that food to Nora.. so we use these to get her trying new foods. It also allows me to feed her natural foods through the winter that we can't get locally in season here in Ontario. Honestly- so worth having these in my pantry and diaper bag!

One final thing to bring up on this topic (and with the recent recalls on PC Organics baby food) is buyer beware- if you want your kiddies to be as natural as possible - read the ingredients on whatever you are buying. When I read PC Organics labels I wasn't overly impressed with the ingredients so we luckily hadn't purchased any of this brand anyway. If you can't pronounce the ingredient -- do you really want to be feeding that to your baby?

4. Snacks - (or should I say distraction technique?!)

Again- Love Child for the win! Can you tell I love this brand?!

Our mums gave us cheerios, arrow roots, etc. BUT I don't love that there is added sugar in a lot of the options out there so again I stick to giving Nora Love Child. We buy the Teefies (a teething wafer) and the Pat-A-Cakes (Rice Cakes). I always keep these packets in my diaper bag as snacks for Nora. Most of the time she barely eats half of them but they are good for her to learn to chew and a good distraction technique (did I say that out loud?!). Again, I like that I know all of the ingredients when I read the back of these packages and that there are no added sugars. I may sound really granola in this post with all my anti-sugar talk.. but honestly, it's not that I will never give Nora sugar (and not that she hasn't already had it) I just don't see the value in pumping it into her system when she is first learning to eat and explore the world of food.

Love Child also has some other options for when Nora gets a bit bigger too (a cheerios knock off, other snack bars, etc.) - I will definitely be trying these out!

Before I close off I will just mention a feeding schedule. I started off mostly breastfeeding Nora and I would feed her real food (quite small amounts) at lunch time and dinner time because theses tended to land between breast feeds. Now, Nora is 7 months old and on most days we follow the following schedule;

Wake-Up (approx 7am): Breast Feed

Play, Nap

Breakfast (approx. 10am): Cereal and/or Fruit

Play Lunch (approx. 12pm): Food- whatever I have on hand until she won't take anymore

Play, Nap * depending when she goes down for her nap sometimes I breast feed one other time between AM and now. Snack (approx. 3pm): Breast Feed Play Dinner (approx. 5pm): Food- whatever I have on hand until she won't take anymore

Play, Nighttime Routine Night Bottle/Breast Feed (approx. 6:30pm) - typically Ben will give her a full 8-9oz of expressed milk and sometimes if she is still hungry I will breast feed her until she is full.

I hope you enjoyed this post! These views are my own, I know everyone has a different approach- but hoping I can be helpful to any mamas out there that are looking for advice on feeding their kids and who may want to adapt a similar approach. Morale of the story.. if you've got a newborn that doesn't sleep and you are struggling adapting to motherhood.. don't stress about your babes first foods because there are LOTS of options out there for making it easier on you!

Have any questions? What were your babies first foods, or what are you planning to feed your babies?

xo

The #YGK Mom

If you are looking at where to buy Love Child Organics Products you can get them a TON of places or check out their website for a list of retailers. I typically buy them at Wal-Mart, Shoppers Drug Mart, the Glenburnie Grocery Store, Tara Foods (a little more expensive here but they are one of the only places in Kingston I can find the cereal) and when I'm in Oshawa at the Canadian Superstore (they sell the cereal there for a great price so I stock up!). OR if you are online shopper like myself you can check out Well.ca

#babyfood #firstfoods #puree #LoveChildOrganics