[Island Mommy]

So, my sister gave me this lovely looking cookbook "Organic Baby & Toddler Cookbook" by Lizzie Vann. Lots of great info about the benefits of eating organic, what it actually means, etc.

However, it also says the following:

"By 4 to 7 months of age milk alone no longer meets a baby's body's demands for nutrition and energy as she grows. This is why you need to wean your baby onto solid food."

Wean!?? At 4 - 7 months!

Her recipes for 4-7 months old include:

Corn - I thought you were supposed to hold off on corn?
Berries - again, aren't you supposed to wait?

And these recipes
Potato and Cheese dinner - with onions? cheese?
Tomato and chicken casserole - chicken? tomato paste? lima beans?
Vegetables and Chicken - zucchini? red pepper? tomato?

Then in her Q&A section it says:
"How much milk should I give to my 7-month old baby?"
Her answer...Once your baby has established a pattern of eating, offer breast or fomula milk as an after-meal drink only. This is particularly important at breakfast time.

Her 7 - 10 month old recipes include pasta, cream cheese, beef, coconut, beans.

The only things she suggests avoiding are:

salt
sugar
wheat and rye until 6 months
soft eggs
soft cheese
honey
nuts

She does say some good things, like "The ultimate superfood, breast milk is produced to satisfy your baby's specific needs". I guess she thinks it's only superfood for the first few months.

So, cathe and others, what do you think?

 

[OhMel]

Wow, I thought even pediatricians (those nutrition experts!) recommended waiting until one for most dairy products.

 

[lilirose]

sorry, having to remove all posts with personal info due to an online stalker.

 

[cathe]

Those food choices surprise me too. I guess Lilirose's answer makes the most sense to me. Different cultures have their own ways of feeding and weaning babies. I guess in some ways, we have gotten really paranoid about things - you figure 30 or 40 years ago, people just fed their kids whatever they were eating. But there are so many children with food allergies now so we have to be more careful. I definetely wouldn't give my 4 to 7 month old things like onions and acidic foods - they can be hard for adults to digest and why cause a baby distress.

The one statement I do disagree with is about babies needing more than breastmilk at 4 months. There has been much information in the last couple of years that babies can do fine on breastmilk alone for at least six months or longer and starting solid foods later can decrease chances of allergies.

I guess that you need to do (as with any book) take the good things from it and just ignore what you don't agree with.

 

[Teresa]

I have a collection of vegetarian/vegan cookbooks for babies and children.

Not a single one of them says (as they should): "Anything besides breatmilk given during the first year is purely for fun and to be given only at your baby's clear insistence upon her showing the common readiness signs of: sitting up stably and unsupported, loss of tongue-thrust reflex, development of pincher-grip and ability to place small morsels of food into her own mouth, and the presence of molars."

Of course, if they did say that, in essence they'd be saying, "Ya know what? You don't really need this book you just bought. Ha! Gotcha!"

(full disclosure: both my children were exclusively breastfed for their entire first year and only given 'solids' after turning one and displaying all readiness cues but one--no molars!)

 

[Teresa]

In LLL and LC circles 'weaning' begins when you give your baby anything besides breastmilk. I think many use the word to refer to the End of the process (i.e. "She weaned at 3 years.") but really it is used to refer to the Beginning of the process--the introduction of solids.

 

[BusyMommy]

Interesting about the definitions of "wean."

Slightly OT, but my 10 mos old eats simply everything. We still hold off on eggwhites, milk, PB and a couple of other allergenic foods. But, he loves spicy food and really odd things. He had a bowl of chili last night and a whole salmon fillet for dinner tonight. Oh, and he loves salsa.

: I think it's just whatever they've grown accustomed to perhaps.

 

[*LoveBugMama*]

ITA with lilirose.

I live in Norway and it is pretty much as lilirose describes it.

But there is no salt and no sugar in Norwegian babyfood.

We also don`t give our kids juice until they are ATLEAST 6 months old. Most don`t until 1 year, I think.

And ofcourse, we don`t give our babies honey until atleast 1 years of age.

But other than that, we are told that when they start eating solids, they can eat pretty much everything. Unless there are lots of allergies in the babies family...

 

[bebe luna]

When was the book published? I think decades of the past have had very different ideas about feeding babies.
I also have a book called "Keeping your Child Healthy With Chinese Medicine". It is a wonderful book in many, many regards, and written by a highly knowledgable and successful doctor of Chinese Medicine. But he also has some suggestions about nursing and feeding babies that I disagree with. His suggestions are modeled after the traditional Chinese ways. For example he suggests "training" the baby to a schedule of breastfeeding. Only nursing baby once every four hours. He says that babies rarely need more than that and that the excess milk will only ferment in their stomachs and cause digestive issues (colic, gas, etc). I see some validity and mostly do not agree with him. He also talks about after introducing solids (he says introduce solids when the baby can sit up and also begins grabbing food off your plate) for a few months to give the baby bits of chicken, pork, etc. I disagree with meat for a baby this early. He does have other good dietary advice though, like avoiding bananas, dairy, wheat, etc
I have yet to find a baby food book I completely agree with. I liked Super Baby Food but did disagree with several of her suggestions, same with Dr. Sears. I guess it's important to be well-educated in healthy eating and have the sense to figure out what is best for our babies on our own. And to remember that different cultures do have different attitudes and practices in regards to babies and food.

 

[Island Mommy]

Interesting info. The cookbook was published in 2000, so it's not old. It probably does just reflect the different cultural perspectives. And even more interesting, that babes in the UK likely suffer from less allergies than North American babes.

We have no food allergies in my family, so last night I sauteed up some carrots and potatoes in a bit of olive oil. Then I put it through the food processor. DD gobbled it up. She loved it.

What's the worry with bananas? DD eats them every day.

I agree with holding off on juice for babes. I see so many kids who just want to drink juice....they don't want to eat. We're going to stick with BM and water for a long time. I rarely drink juice myself, just water. Now if I could just get DH to switch to water. He hates it and never drinks a glass on its own. He says he gets enough with his organic apple juice and beer!!

 

[sassitap]

I'm finding this thread really interesting. My husband is a chef who also majored in nutrition in college. His focus was on women and infants from 6 months before conception through the first 2 years after the baby is born. We both study cultural foods as a hobby.
When we were in Spain during my first pregnancy I was very interested in what they fed babies there. Until recently with mad cow disease one of the first foods for babies was cooked calves brains--- it's soft, very nutritious, has all the right fatty acids... Other organ meats like liver and kidney were also used and still are. Also mashed egg yolks. Otherwise just mashed up table foods. My grandmother fom Ireland swore by some of the same things.
My 10 month old also eats everything, and is an avid nurser. Dh has many allergies, but they only act up if he eats too much of something for a while-- potatoes more than 1-2 times in a week, Strawberries more than a few times in a week, etc. Because of this we eat a pretty varied diet. I'm keeping milk from dd, but she will have small amounts of yogurt with fruit. She doesn't eat p-nuts or egg whites and I really limit tomatoes. People are shocked to see my 2 year old ask for more broccoli rabe or my 10 month old reaching to get my beet greens. I haven't found any food that they consistently don't like. Either one may not want some particlar thing on a certain day, but we don't make anything out of it and invariably the next time we have that item it's no problem. It just seems odd to create a whole separate menu, just because someone is a baby.
I'd be very interested to find out other things mamas from different cultures have traditionally given their babies--- not as recommendations that we should give, just to learn