Cautions on Feeding Your Baby

Parents should take great care when it comes to feeding their babies, especially when the time approaches for solid foods. The manner in which your baby is fed will directly influence its health, and below are some cautions parents need to take into consideration:

Keep your baby on breast milk or formula until the age of 12 months. Babies placed on cow’s milk before this age tends to develop an allergy to the protein it contains.

Prevent from feeding a baby honey or corn syrup before the age of 12 months. Studies found that these products cause a form of food poisoning called Botulism, which may in certain cases be fatal.

Prevent giving a baby under the age of 12 months chocolate, shellfish, citrus fruits, egg whites, peanut butter, tomatoes and strawberries as these products often induce future allergies.

Prevent giving your baby foods with added salt, sugar or spicy foods. Also prevent your baby from developing a taste for soda, sweetened drinks or punch.

In order to avoid choking, prevent giving your baby any small and hard foods, such as nuts, seeds, small candy, peas and popcorn.

Keep offering your baby a variety of foods. Do not allow your baby to become accustomed to one or two types of food. If this does happen, keep offering a variety, but do not give into your baby’s demands. Leave the food and your baby will start to eat what you have offered when he/she becomes hungry.

Do not give your baby food or bottles every time he/she utters a noise suggesting displeasure. The results will be non-stop eating and drinking by a baby who is in fact not that hungry or thirsty.

Start implementing eating routines between the age of six and nine months.

Refrain from putting your baby to bed with a bottle of milk or juice. Anything, with the exception of water, will cause bad incoming teeth.

Refrain from laying your baby flat in bed with a bottle. Your child may be more prone to middle-ear infection.

When your baby eats before bedtime, ensure that all food has been swallowed when laying him/her down.

Attempt to hold off juices to your baby until he/she can drink them from a cup. Babies tend to prefer the sweetened taste of juices above milk and will lose on the nutrients offered by it.

Prevent giving orange juice to your baby before the age of 12 months in order to prevent the provocation of allergic responses.