How do you encourage your baby to eat solid foods?
You want your baby to be able to eat solid food properly from a young age.
But it can be so hard to get your baby to accept solid food. And your baby may be so scared of everything that he or she does not even try to eat anything. You may also find that your baby seems to prefer drinking milk or formula rather than eating solid food.
Your baby may cry every time you try to feed him or her solid food. And you will find yourself constantly apologizing for the way you try to feed him or her. Your baby will be frightened and insecure.
To help you avoid all that…
In this article, I would like to reveal 3 important tips you can use to encourage your baby to eat healthy solid food without causing a huge fight or making your baby feel insecure. The first tip is to gradually transition your baby from a milk-based diet to one based on solid foods. The second tip is to make sure you always talk with your baby and give him or her an explanation about what you are doing. And the third tip is to make sure you always have a backup plan in case your baby refuses to eat.
Sounds good?
Let’s dive in…
Top Ways to Transition Baby from Puree to Table Food
Baby has been eating baby puree for almost a month now and I have just put him in his highchair to start eating finger foods
I am really worried about what he is going to eat when I take him out of his chair
How do I make sure he is eating the right things at the table?
First of all, this is a really good idea. It’s important to mix things up a bit so that your baby gets used to different tastes.
You should start to put table food in his highchair, first just a spoonful or two at a time. If you’re worried that he will not be able to chew the food, try this:
Cut the food into small pieces, so that you can give him a bite here and there. Also, make sure you keep lots of foods to hand so that he can easily find something he likes.
As you go along, you can increase the amount you are giving him. Start with a little bit then increase it by a little bit each week. For example:
You might start with half a teaspoon and then increase by a teaspoon every few weeks.
You’ve got to get baby used to things like beans, veg, pasta, etc. If you do this right, you will be able to feed them to the baby at the table without too many issues.
If he seems to struggle with eating these things, take some time out and think about it.
Step-by-Step Process to Introduce Table Food to Baby
The biggest problem that I have seen with my clients in the past is that they introduced table food to their baby all at once.
They had all the food available for him to try as soon as he was ready. However, if they did that, it created a lot of stress and tension in the house, because it was so early.
This is because we do not want our baby to go through a period of hunger, where he feels that he doesn’t have enough to eat.
So if we are going to introduce table food, we want to do it gradually. We want to show our baby a few different types of foods, to get his taste buds accustomed to eating them so that by the time we actually do introduce him to table food, he is already used to eating it.
What I have found works best, is introducing one new type of food, every other day.
You should first introduce your baby to food that comes out of the refrigerator or freezer, like ice cream, yogurt, cheese, etc
Once your baby is used to eating those types of foods, you can slowly introduce more and more cooked foods.
So for example, if your baby is eating yogurt on day 1, you can then introduce cottage cheese. Or if he is eating yogurt and cheese, then you can introduce cottage cheese and avocado. And so on.
You need to make sure your baby has enough to eat, as you want him to be satiated, not hungry.
However, you don’t want him to be so stuffed that he feels sick. So when you introduce a new food, it is very important that you introduce it gradually.
Start with a small amount. If he likes it, then increase the amount.
In time, your baby will start eating more and more of the new foods you introduce him to.
Final Word
If you have ever held your baby on your lap and given them a spoonful of cereal or a sip of milk, you know that there is a distinct moment when your baby goes from having a soft, warm, sweet, velvety spoonful of pureed food to having a dry, hard, chalky, flavorless, and often, an unpleasant mouthful of food. It is a moment when a baby might protest, gurgle, spit it out, or even cry out in a mixture of disgust and anger.
A similar transition happens when you are trying to give your baby solid food. There is a transition from the soft and delicious spoonful of puree to the dry and bitter taste of baby table food.
It is not easy to get your baby to accept the new, more demanding, and demanding taste of baby table food. But you can ease the transition by putting baby foods in small, easy-to-handle amounts. As they get used to these new tastes, your baby will be able to increase the amount of food they will eat.