recipe booklet

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The rst stage of weaning (around 4-6 months) is all about exploring new tastes
and textures for the very rst time. Because your baby will only be used to the
taste and texture of milk, the trick here is to introduce new foods gradually.
Although it may take a little time at rst, with a little patience your baby will be
eating his/her own food in no time.
Stage 1:
First tastes
Up until now your baby will only be used to
suckling milk from the breast or drinking formula
from a bottle, by pushing the tongue forward to
drink. Therefore, when starting to spoon feed for
the rst time they will automatically do this with
their tongue, meaning that any food going in will
be pushed back out the mouth with the tongue.
Learning to eat food involves developing a whole
new set of oral motor skills. For example, your baby
will need to learn to use his/her lips to pull the food
o the spoon and tongue to push the food to the
back of the mouth and to swallow. Before this they
had only ever used their jaw and cheek muscles for
sucking – so it’s a completely new experience. Once
your baby can swallow food, along with the other
two signs for weaning (sitting up, picking things up
and putting them in its mouth) they’re well and truly
ready to embark on an exploration of food.
First foods can include puréed cereals, such as
baby rice, oats, millet, corn noodles or well mashed
cooked rice mixed with your baby’s usual milk. You
can also purée fruit or vegetables. Purées should be
very smooth and still quite runny, using very mild
(bland even) avors at rst. Start by oering your
baby just a few teaspoons once a day, either during
or after the usual milk feed (breast or formula). It’s
also a good idea to oer one food at a time so you
can see how they respond to individual foods. As
time progresses, you can then start oering solid
foods before their usual milk and gradually increase
the frequency of feeds and the amount given. You
can also experiment with dierent consistencies
by adding less milk or water (cooled boiled) to
thicken it up. After this you can start to oer dierent
types of food and gradually increase meals from
two to three times a day, so that baby can begin
to experience lots of new tastes. In terms of your
baby’s uid requirements, continue with normal milk
feeds (breast or formula). If it’s a very hot day oer
formula-fed babies cooled boiled water if you think
they are thirsty between feeds (breast fed babies
don’t need any water).
Purées should be very smooth and still
quite runny, using very mild (bland even)
avors at rst.