Is Your Baby a Picky Eater? Here's How to Help Your Infant
Once you start with solid foods, you'll notice if your baby tends to be a picky eater.
Some babies just love eating. They want to try everything from early age and love everything they are allowed to try (at least until they become toddlers…) Other babies, like our youngest seem to think that anything that isn't liquid is not eatable… Actually, he didn't approve of anything but breast milk for a long time.
There are however a few tips you can try to help your picky eater. Check the list below.
Does your baby think that the breast or bottle is really the food he'll ever need? Many babies are quite reluctant to trying anything else for a long time.
For a start, don't try giving your baby solid foods until he seems to be ready, when he is showing some interest in what you're eating and in putting things in his mouth. At some point between 4 and 6 months old, babies tend to start showing interest. While the general recommendation now is to only breastfeed for 6 months, if your baby is approaching this age and seems interested, you can always give it a try. Sometime after 6 months old, babies tend to become more picky eaters again.
Start with very liquid foods, e.g. mild vegetables or fruits mixed with lots of breast milk or formula. Actually, most recommend starting with vegetables to not get your baby used to eating only sweet things, but I'm sure if that's really true. Breast milk is very sweet, so your baby actually already has a sweet tooth.
So, my tip is to try vegetables first, but if that absolutely does not work, try mixing it with some fruits, like banana that is both very nutritious and sweet.
After a while, you can try vegetables again or slowly reduce the share of fruits you added.
This was, by the way, the only way I could get our youngest started on solid foods; he absolutely refused to eat pure vegetables, even mixed with a lot of breast milk.
Some babies like their food hot, others like it cold. And most don't care much… What no one likes is of course to get burned, that can put even the most enthusiastic eater off. So always stir the food and taste it before feeding your baby. And experiment a bit with warmer and colder food, if your baby is a picky eater.
However, if your baby seems to be indifferent to the food's temperature, don't heat it too much. It is very convenient to have a baby that is used to eating room temperature food now and then, for example when travelling.
Some babies simply won't eat anything but canned baby food. Others will have nothing to do with it. All our three kids started rejecting canned baby food when they were approaching their first birthday. (Before that, two of them liked the canned food better than my homemade…)
So, if your baby is picky with canned baby food, try offering some homemade foods.
Babies are also very different with how much spices they prefer. While I don't think any baby likes hot chili, herbs can be much appreciated. Dill, for example is an herb that many babies seem to like.
If your baby spits out your mashed potatoes, try seasoning it a little bit.
At around 8 months old. or so, babies start practicing their pincer grasp. Now is an excellent time to offer the picky eater (and all other babies too) some safe and healthy (and fun) finger foods.
Being allowed to use their own hands instead of being spoon fed, can really help some picky eaters to become interested in eating.
Just make sure you don't give your baby anything that can be a choking hazard or some foods that should be avoided under the age of 1 year.
The closer your baby gets to his 1st birthday, the more likely it is that he will start refusing to be fed. If you can cope with the mess, give your baby his own spoon or at least let him use his hands to try and feed himself. You can always feed him at the same time.
Our daughter started grabbing the spoon furiously already at 7 months old and refused to gape. When she got her own spoon, she'd let me feed her without fussing.
Colorful food and funny shapes can make some babied interested in putting it into the mouth - hopefully to discover that it tastes good. This is probably why so many babies enjoy eating green pees - surely it can't be the fantastic taste... ;-D
So be creative! Cut tiny pieces of red bell pepper, serve corn and pees and small pieces of soft boiled meat, for example.
How would you like being force fed? Having someone shove a spoon into your mouth? Even the most delicious ice cream wouldn't taste that great, right. Babies are just the same.
While it can be very frustrating when your baby refuses to even taste something, pressing the spoon into his mouth is never a good idea.
What you can do, is to put a little chunk of the food on his lip (with the speed of light). if you're lucky, your baby almost didn't notice what you did, licks his lips and discovers that it tastes good.
