First food - salmon?

[jess5377]

Would you? Did you?

I'm thinking I'd mash it with some breastmilk (with a fork) and serve it up? Then what, I give that to her for a few days and then try something else, like yams? Is that how this goes?

[wombato]

Yes, we never had a problem with salmon, you'll know it if you do...though what kind of salmon? For scariness, check out the book Having Faith. But for reassurance, check out Nina Planck's book Real Food for Mother and Baby (or something like that title).

[jess5377]

wild King?

And thanks for the book recs, I'm going to check them out.

[blizzard_babe]

It wasn't DS's first, but it was darn close. He teethed by chewing on smoked salmon strips .

We started with veggies, but I know many Native women around here start by giving their babies broth from soup, and salmon is a common soup component hereabouts.

[j_p_i]

Not the first for us, but probably the first meat she had was salmon. She loved it and still does! We have it probably 1-2 times a week.

[Norasmomma]

DS has had it and LOVED it, I mean in Japan there is baby food made out of sardines, so why not? I'm not a freak about food though, I'm way lax.

[candelaria80]

DD loves salmon, it was one of her first accidental foods (she grabbed it off DH's plate at 6 months ). Now we offer it at least once a week.

[Rico'sAlice]

DS loves salmon and has since he was pretty small. And you live where you can get the good stuff w/o too much hassle.
But honestly, I can't imagine eating/serving it smushed up with breastmilk. Why not just give baby a chunk of it and let her feed herself? Fish is already tender (assuming you won't overcook it). If she can't manage to pick it up with her hands and chew it herself, she doesn't need solid foods yet.

[mckittre]

My 15 month old has been eating salmon since he started solids, and it's one of his favorites (he was crying the other day because the chunk we'd taken from the freezer wasn't ready to eat yet). I figure it's one of the healthiest things he eats (wild salmon, always). We always just cooked the fillet, and give him chunks to eat with his fingers, or popped them in his mouth for him occasionally. It's too soft to choke on. I never did the introduce one food at a time and wait thing, so I wouldn't know about that.

[tzs]

the only thing about salmon is that it's a fatty fish so it has the potential to be harsher on the tummy. b/c of that i personally wouldnt do it as the very first food but i'd for sure go for it pretty soon after. but i also wouldn;t bat an eye if somebody told me it had been the first food.

it really is great b/c it is already so easy for them to eat and soft enough that you don't have to bother with it. just give them chunks or bites.
we went to our WIC "first foods" appointment where they supposedly tell you how to feed from a jar of gerber etc etc.... but as the worker was telling me that at 1 year-old we would have a "toddler foods" visit i'm thinking that my then 6.5 month old had just had a lunch of salmon and sushi rice and gobbled it up. so much for that!

[Gimme Pineapple]

I may be late chiming in, but I was thinking about this while I was in the shower. I personally wouldn't. If a tummy has only had breast milk, it may be a shock to the system. Like when a vegetarian has meat after a long time without.

[hildare]

we did! last night! she LOVED it.
however, dh mashed it up with a fork- he wouldn't "let" me chew it for her and the chunked flakes were a little more than she could handle. no BM added, using the fork worked pretty well.
she liked it enthusiastically.
this wasn't her first first food, we've done peas, sweet potatoes (loved those), regular potatoes, different fruits, and.. bread.
.. and, yes, space it a little with each introduction, that way if your lo reacts, you can figure out what it was.

[Auraji]

We're Pescatarians and we basically only eat salmon and tuna for fish. DD loves salmon, we have it every weeek. She did wake up throwing up one night, but this was a couple months after she started eating, so I dont think it was an allergic reaction or anything like that.

[marsupial-mom]

No way. Even if I fed my kiddo animal products, I'd be really really wary of any kind of fish. I don't thinks it's safe to eat these days, not for kids anyway.

[FeminineFigure]

It is an excellent food. Wild caught, it is great. Very high in Omega 3s.

Personally, I think it is a much better choice than cereal, grains, and even a lot of vegges (full of antinutrients, phylates, etc.). But that's just my Primal/Paleo bias .

[karika]

I like avocado as first food. Steamed carrots with peel removed. raw peas that you take the seed cover off each individual pea. homemade applesauce. If meat will be in the child's diet, salmon is good. But, with all the pollutants in the ocean now (the trash island in the pacific that is larger than texas, the BP oil spill, chemicals leached into ocean) I am not so sure about the safety of even wild caught fish anymore. I do like the salmon wild caught in our local rivers that are tested for PCBS and mercury. I do feel they are safe. and you wouldn't have to prechew it since it is so tender... for a pp, I did prechew all my childrens meat to heck with what a partner thinks. It helps break it down and makes it easy for them to chew with their gums. We both break off her bites of something like an apple or melon with our teeth also

[mckittre]

Wild-caught salmon are actually very very low on pollutants, mercury, etc... This is because they eat low on the food chain (mostly krill), and are short lived (maximum of 5 years or so, 2 years for pink salmon), so they do not have time to bioaccumulate toxins the same way longer-lived fish can. This does not apply to farm-raised salmon, which are significantly worse for you (as well as worse for the environment where they raise them). Speaking purely from a health and environmental perspective, fish are definitely not all equal, and salmon is one of the best. I feel better about feeding my kid wild Alaska salmon than a lot of what's in the grocery store.

[hildare]

Originally Posted by karika

and you wouldn't have to prechew it since it is so tender... for a pp, I did prechew all my childrens meat to heck with what a partner thinks. It helps break it down and makes it easy for them to chew with their gums. We both break off her bites of something like an apple or melon with our teeth also

I do that with everything else.. not sure why he balked at the "meat."
it makes total sense to me. you know, though, sometimes it's just easier to go along with partner quirkiness rather than question.. but i totally agree..
and even though it was tender and it would seem easier to not premush it, she did do much better with it once it was macerated. who knows?