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Feeding and Weaning Tips – Part III Just Desserts

In the last part of feeding and weaning tips for your baby, BabyCare suggested 3 important rules in Just Desserts (Your Toddler):

Just Desserts (Your Toddler)

She’ll start snacking

There will be times when all your tot wants to do is eat biscuits and she’ll refuse the spinach porridge you spent all afternoon preparing. The key here is not to make a big fuss of it. Continue to offer your toddler her normal meal and, if she refuses it, just take it away. Don’t make a fuss and don’t offer any substitutes. You’ll be tempted to give her biscuits just so she’s filling up on something, but if you stick to your guns, she’ll soon get the message that there’s nothing to be gained from refusing food.

Mealtime is fun time

Your child should grow up learning that sharing a meal is a social event, so sit down and eat with her when you can. If she’s easily distracted, always have at least one thing on her place that she likes, and praise her when she eats it all up. Be imaginative; make faces on the place with her food. Don’t overwhelm her with lots of food. Your pediatrician can weigh your child and assess her growth if you’re concerned that she’s not eating enough.

Treats are fine

Don’t worry if she eats the odd piece of chocolate or small bag of chips at pre-school or at a birthday party – once in a while will do no harm. Give the treat straight after her meal, and don’t behave as if it’s something special or a reward – that’s a sure-fire way to get her demanding it on a daily basis!

We found another useful links on how to wean your child from Food Standards Agency. Mumsgather talks about Weaning baby from breastfeeding – baby led weaning is much easier than mum led weaning.

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Related Articles:

Weaning Your Baby
Weaning baby from breastfeeding – baby led weaning is much easier than mum led weaning

Posted by Surfingmama on 29 Nov 2006 | Tagged as: child-food, BabyCare, weaning | Trackback

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Bringing up an optimistic child

Parenting articles has a great write up on how to raise an optimistic child:

Step 1: Learn to think optimistically yourself. What children see and hear indirectly from you as you lead your life and interact with others influences them much more than what you try to ‘teach’ them. You can model optimism for your child by incorporating optimistic mental skills into your own way of thinking. This is not easy and does not occur over night. But with practice, almost everyone can learn to think differently about life’s events ‘ even parents!

Step 2: Teach your child that there is a connection between how they think and how they feel. You can do this most easily by saying aloud how your own thoughts about adversity create negative feelings in you. For example, if you are driving your child to school and a driver cuts you off, verbalize the link between your thoughts and feelings by saying something like ‘I wonder why I’m feeling so angry; I guess I was saying to myself: ‘Now I’m going to be late because the guy in front of me is going so darn slow. If he is going to drive like that he shouldn’t drive during rush hour. How rude.'’

Step 3: Create a game called ‘thought catching.’ This helps your child learn to identify the thoughts that flit across his or her mind at the times they feel worst. These thoughts, although barely noticeable, greatly affect mood and behavior. For instance, if your child received a poor grade, ask: ‘When you got your grade, what did you say to yourself'’

Step 4: Teach your child how to evaluate automatic thoughts. This means acknowledging that they things you say to yourself are not necessarily accurate. For instance, after receiving the poor grade your child may be telling himself he is a failure, he is not as smart as other kids; he will never be able to succeed in school, etc. Many of these self-statements may not be accurate, but they are ‘automatic’ in that situation.

Step 5: Instruct your child on how to generate more accurate explanations (to themselves) when bad things happen and use them to challenge your child’s automatic but inaccurate thoughts. Part of this process involves looking for evidence to the contrary (good grades in the past, success in other life areas, etc).

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Feeding and Weaning Tips - Part II Enter The Entrée

We have more information on Weaning You Child and an interesting entree at The Lactivist Breastfeeding Blog about Early Weaning Suspected in Higher Infant Death Rates in Africa.

Here’s the part II of the Feeding and Weaning Tips from BabyCare.

Enter The Entrée (your older baby)

It will get messy

You may wonder why you bother preparing all that food when none of it ends up in your baby’s mouth. She’s prone to eating little, spitting food and wiping it on herself, but your baby’s having fun while learning a new skill. Teach her table manners later on.

You can’t give up the sterilizing yet

You need to keep sterilizing your baby’s bottlers until she’s 12 months old, as milk residue, which can cause tummy upsets, get easily stuck in the teats. If your baby drinks her water or juice from a sippy cup, you can get away with washing and rinsing it. Sterilize her bowls and cutlery for the first few months too.

She might go off milk

Your baby might go off her milk as she’s in the mood for new flavors. But milk is a source of calcium, as well as vitamin B2 (riboflavin), and vitamins A and D, and she should be drinking around 570ml (1 pint) a day. If she’s falling below that, give her two daily portions of calcium-rich foods, such as cheese or yogurt. Cheese sauce and custard are also a source of milk. Beans, chickpeas, lentils and spinach are all full of calcium too.

She likes it smooth

At first, you baby’s purees should be smooth but, at eight months, you need to get her used to lumps. Do it slowly by mixing a few lumpy bits in with some finely pureed food. At this stage, she also likes to hold on to things, so give her finger foods, such as cooked carrot sticks or baby breadsticks. Never leave her alone in case of cooking.

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Competitive siblings. Good or bad?

Your children are always in competition with each other, from who’s the fastest in finishing their dinner to who scores the highest marks in Math. You are worried that they end up hating each other. What do you do?

Teach your kids that the real competition is with yourself, and not with others. This is the key to being successful in life anyway. Instill this lesson early in their lives.

Teach them that while it’s good to compete, it’s OK to lose as long as they have tried their best and learnt from it. And they shouldn’t cry over it or be mean or be a spoil sport.

Teach them that sometimes, instead of breaking each other’s neck, working together yields better results and both will become winners. Tell them the adapted tortoise and hare story - where the hare carried the tortoise on land, and the tortoise carried the hare on water, and both ended up tops in the racing competition.

I’m sure they’ll grow up to appreciate these valuable life lessons! Happy educating.

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Feeding and Weaning Tips

What is Weaning? According to Bupa, weaning is “the process of introducing solid foods into your baby’s diet in order to fulfill their growing nutritional needs.”

When is the right time to weaning your baby? BBC’s Parenting column suggests that you can try solid food when

your baby is still hungry after a milk feed
he wakes in the night to be fed, after sleeping through for a period of time
your baby demands more feeds more often

Weaning your child from the bottle or the breast can start from six months onwards. BabyCare has three levels of weaning your child: The First Course (young baby), Enter the Entrée (your older baby) and Just Desserts (Your toddler)

[source : Anna’s New Parent Pages]

The First Course (young baby)

Tiny tastes

Your baby’s first solids should be the smallest of tastes. He needs time to get used to the texture of the food, as well as swallowing, so his first few tries are more about that than getting any nourishment!

Keep it simple

Your baby is used to formula or breastmilk, which is bland, so don’t overload his taste buds. Stick to baby rice cereal as it’s plain and you can mix it with your baby’s milk. When you move on to veggies, only give one at a time and the same one for a couple of days so he becomes used to it.

The amount doesn’t matter

He’ll probably spit out more than he swallows – most of it over you. Don’t worry, it’s normal and he’ll be chomping away before you know it.

Her poo will change

As the saying goes, ‘you are what you eat’, and never will you notice this more than when your baby’s weaning! If your baby’s been breastfeed exclusively up to now, you’ll notice that her poo becomes more smelly and solid. And when you move on to fruit and veggies, watch out for carroty-orange poo, and the broccoli delight – bright green. These changes are normal, so don’t panic.

Tip:

Uneaten baby food should always be thrown away; never re-freeze anything once it’s been defrosted, to avoid food poisoning.
It’s important to maintain your child’s daily milk intake. Until he’s 12 months old, he should have 570ml (1 pint) every day to ensure his healthy growth. And, while cow’s milk is fine to add to his solids from six months, it shouldn’t be used as his main drink until he’s 12 months old.

Bickers has a weaning diary.

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Surfingmama
(Stuff that matters. For mums)

Feeding and Weaning Tips – Part III Just Desserts

Bringing up an optimistic child

Feeding and Weaning Tips - Part II Enter The Entrée

Competitive siblings. Good or bad?

Feeding and Weaning Tips

Tags

Surfingmama(Stuff that matters. For mums)

Feeding and Weaning Tips – Part III Just Desserts

Bringing up an optimistic child

Feeding and Weaning Tips - Part II Enter The Entrée

Competitive siblings. Good or bad?

Feeding and Weaning Tips

Tags

Surfingmama
(Stuff that matters. For mums)