How’s Alice? Introducing Solids

When Alice was around 6 months old we introduced her to solid food. Up until that point she’d been exclusively breastfed. It was a slow process, offering her only a tablespoon of brown rice cereal once a day for a few days before slowly increasing the amount over a few weeks.

Before introducing Alice to solid food, I did a lot of research to find out which foods should be introduced and when. I knew that premature exposure to certain food groups may be one of the reasons why people have hypersensitivities or allergies to these foods and I wanted to do as much as I could to limit the chance of Alice developing any food intolerances. So far we’ve been lucky as Alice hasn’t had any reaction to the food that we’ve given her.

From the research that I’d done, some of the first foods that I introduced included avocado and pureed vegetables and fruit such as pumpkin, zucchini, peaches, pears and plums. She now eats a wide variety of fruit and vegetables.  I’ve been extremely lucky that Alice has always eaten everything I’ve given her with one exception – peas. Alice shares her dislike of peas with me and no matter how I cook (or disguise them) Alice will not eat peas!!

Alice is now 10 months old and eats 3 meals a day with a small afternoon snack. An example of what I feed her includes:

• Breakfast: Brown rice cereal with a steamed fruit such as apple, pear, mango or 
  nectarine
• Lunch: Steamed vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower or beans with a second
  course of fruit such as banana or peaches
• Afternoon tea: A hard-boiled egg yolk (I discard the white as it contains
  difficult-to-digest proteins and should not be given before 12 months)
• Dinner: A mixture of baked vegetables such as pumpkin, sweet potato, carrot
  and zuchinni

I’ve just introduced small amounts of chicken once a week and will soon introduce other meats as well. On top of this, I still breastfeed Alice 3 times a day and will hopefully continue to do so for another few months.

Joel and I have asked family and friends not to feed Alice any food without checking with us first. This may seem over protective but we are very careful not to feed her anything that is likely to cause food intolerances or sensitivities (for example wheat or cow’s milk if introduced too early).

During my pregnancy I read the book Well Adjusted Babies, by Dr Jennifer Barham-Floreani, from cover to cover several times. There is a great chapter on introducing solids towards the end of the book and another fantastic resource is her Which Foods When brochure. This brochure includes a handy chart showing which foods to add to an infant’s diet, and when to add them and my copy lives on the front of my fridge for me to be able to refer to easily.

How to introduce solids:

• Introduce foods one at a time
• Allow at least 3-4 days before introducing another food
• Give larger amounts of a single food rather than small amounts of several foods