Food Allergy Network, 10400 Eaton Place, Suite 107, Fairfax, VA 22030-2208 (703-691-3179 or www.foodallergy.org). Ask for their booklet Learning to Live with Food Allergies or their bimonthly newsletter, The Food Allergy News. Tracking Down Hidden Food Allergy, by William G. Crook, M.D. (Professional Books, 1980) Resource for testing for food allergies: Immuno Laboratories, 1620 W. […]
Burping Baby
The Many Ways of Burping Baby Besides the pat on the back, effective burping requires two actions: holding baby in an upright position and applying pressure on baby’s tummy (parents often forget this latter step). You seldom see a baby being burped in non-Western, breastfeeding cultures. The need for burping baby after feedings, or help […]
Chokable Foods
Tips to Avoid Choking in Toddlers Be careful of big globs of food, such as golf ball-sized, pasty globs of white bread or spoonfuls of peanut butter. Even though these foods are soft, babies can choke on them. Don’t spread peanut butter too thick, and monitor how quickly the bread gets packed into the mouth. […]
Cup Feeding
You can save yourself a lot of spills by not being in a hurry to introduce the cup. Most babies can’t master drinking from a cup independently until around a year of age. Expect a lot of liquid to dribble out the sides of baby’s mouth until she learns to form a tight-seal between lip […]
Feeding at a Glance: Birth to 24 Months
The chart below offers helpful suggestions for feeding an infant from birth through 24 months of age. It also indicates the stage of physical development and explains why certain foods may be preferable at specific stages of development. Age Food Sequence Food Presentation Developmental Skills, Implications for Feeding Birth to 6 months Breastmilk and/or iron-fortified […]
Feeding the 7 to 9-month-old
Babies’ food preferences and feeding skills go through stages, just like other developmental skills, and other areas of development influence how babies attack their food. First came the introducing solids stage where parents’ main goal is to get baby through the transition from liquids to solids and from sucking to mouthing and chewing. In this […]
Getting Enough to Eat
How to Tell if Your Child is Getting Enough to Eat Most mothers and all grandmothers worry that children aren’t getting enough to eat. While few infants and children pack in enough food to satisfy their parents, the more important question is whether your child is eating enough of the right kind of foods to […]
Grazing
We have noticed that children’s behavior often deteriorates in the late morning and late afternoon, or three to four hours after a meal. Children simply run out of fuel. When blood-sugar levels go down, stress hormones kick in to raise it up again, but this can cause behavioral problems and diminished concentration. To smooth out […]
Juice
When, what, and how much juice to give your infant depends a lot on your feeding philosophy and your infant’s individual tastes. Here are some healthy starter tips: When? Resist the juice temptation until your infant is at least six months of age, preferably nine months. Introduce juice when your infant is able to drink […]
Self-Feeding
Around one year of age babies enter the “do it myself” stage and may want to feed themselves with a spoon. Most parents find it much easier to feed a baby themselves rather than let baby take over the job with her own utensils. Compromise is needed here. A trick we have used with the […]
Shaping Young Tastes
The first three years of a child’s life are a window of opportunity for forming lifelong, healthy eating habits. Just as you teach proper behavior to a child, you also want to teach a child what good food is supposed to taste like. If a baby begins solid food life from the can or jar, […]
Vitamin Supplements
Consider vitamin supplements a drug to be prescribed, incorrect doses, by your doctor. Megadoses of vitamins, touted as cure-alls for many adult diseases, should not be given to children. Unless their doctor determines otherwise, exclusively breastfed term infants do not need extra vitamins. Human milk contains all of the essential vitamins. As long as your […]