How to Feed A Baby

For a lot of parents how to feed a baby can be quite stressful. As a parent you have a couple of quick decisions you have to make before you feed your baby with solid foods. In this article, you’ll learn about how to feed a baby.

Step #1: The Weaning Table

The first thing you need to consider is where your baby is going to eat the solid food. For most families, the traditional set – up is placing the baby into a high chair during their mealtime. However, if you are trying to approach how to feed a baby from a different perspective, you might want to consider feeding them on the weaning table from day 1. If you are not familiar with a weaning table, it’s just a child – size table with a child – size chair, preferably something that your child’s feet can reach the floor while sitting. The chair also has arms so that your baby doesn’t fall out of the chair especially when they are still at a stage where your baby is just trying to maintain his/ her balance. Of course, you don’t want your baby to fall off the chair.

Hybrid Approach

You can also do a hybrid approach: the traditional high chair set – up and the weaning table set – up. You can keep you baby in a high chair at the table or near the table with the tray for at least a couple of months; or until your baby starts to crawl. And when they start crawling, you can start transitioning to a weaning table because at this point, they can learn to get out of the chair on their own. Also, by this point, your baby is already better at balancing so there’s less chance that they will fall off the weaning chair.

Step #2: Cutlery Utensils

The next part of your baby’s environment that you should consider is using cutlery utensils. There are a lot of options out there for this kind of utensils that comes in all shapes and sizes. I don’t recommend you buying a plastic cutlery because they tend to be slippery for a baby trying or learning how to stab pieces of food using a fork. This will make it quite frustrating for your child, and what you would want to do is to set them up for success. You can buy a set of toddler size cutlery preferably made out of metal. But there are tons of options out there you can choose from. Some have a grip handle while some are ergonomically shape on how babies handle it. Nevertheless, it’s best to buy a cutlery that has metal tips.

Step #3: Drinking in an Open Cup

 You would want to introduce your baby to drinking out of an open cup from as early an age as possible. Lots of parents are wondering if you can teach a baby how to drink from a cup, and the answer is yes! When your baby reaches around 6 months old, you can start practicing him/ her to drink from a real glass with your guidance of course. You can even introduce your child from drinking out of a real tempered glass or cup instead of sipping cups with handles or plastic cups. You would want to use a shot glass for your baby, and just increase the size of the glass as your child gets older. In this way, he/ she will learn how to handle a real glass and get use to the weight of it. It won’t be hard for them to transition since you will be skipping sipping cups. I highly recommend using a tempered glass which you can easily and cheaply buy at Amazon because they are sturdy and doesn’t easily break if in case your child throws the glass away. It’s a great all – around cup that can really teach your baby how to drink.

Adult Preparation

Your role as a parent in this entire process involves mentally preparing yourself so you can successfully learn how to feed a baby.

Step #1: Choose an Approach

How to feed a baby involves deciding on what approach you would want to use with your child or if you want to use a combination of approaches. One of the approaches you can do is starting them on rice cereals as well as fruits and veggies that are puree and comes in jars or pouches. You typically hand – feed your baby with these foods. This is something that a lot of pediatricians will recommend to you.

Step #2: Baby Led Weaning

An unconventional approach you can do is baby led weaning. But the most basic explanation is that you skip the cereal foods and purees and go straight to offering them soft finger foods making it easy for them chew and also swallow especially when they don’t have teeth yet. You can feed them bananas, sweet potatoes, avocados, pears and the likes. Your role in the baby led weaning approach is basically hands – off because you just prepare the food and place it in front of your child on their tray. And you basically just let them decide what to pick up or what to bite. It’s a natural and gradual process, and for your baby you are encouraging independence and self – sufficiency.

Your job as a parent is to decide what healthy options to offer your child and to set some sort of a lose schedule or mealtimes for your baby to ensure that he/ she is eating on time. Otherwise, the rest of the learning process is on your child – that is the baby – led weaning approach.

Your Baby’s Role

There are three things in your baby’s life that is something that’s totally out of your control. These are learning to use the toilet, sleeping and eating. You just can’t physically force your child to do any of those three things.

When it comes to how to feed a baby your child’s role is to decide what they food that you offered will they eat and how much. If they choose not to eat anything, it’s okay. Your pediatrician will tell you that your baby won’t starve himself. Needless to say, if your baby is truly hungry then they simply will eat.