Ask Dr Nerenberg | Health and Fitness

Any Weaning Tips for my 27 Week Old?

I’ve only just started introducing my baby daughter to solid food this past week as she is now six months. First I gave her a banana and she held and ate a good portion of that. (Her first food! I was so proud!) We’ve tried cucumber sticks, courgette sticks, slices of pepper, chunks of tomato and fat granary toast fingers.

Iron and zinc together are actually the key, and the key to both is meat sources. Heme iron which is found in meat, poultry and fish is much easier for the body to use than non-heme iron which is found in vegetables. And the iron in infant cereal is not only non-heme, it is also synthetic and basically not usable by the body. The most generous statistic I have seen is the baby utilized 10% of the iron in infant cereal.

Adding a vitamin C source can make it easier for the body to absorb iron. So apples, citrus fruit (depending on your beliefs about offering citrus to babies, but if you offer tomato I assume you are ok with the thought), and leafy greens. Also heme iron makes non-heme easier to absorb so meat with beans is better than beans alone.

Organ meat is one of the richest sources of iron, I know some people are put off by it, but liver in particular makes a great puree for toast. Other organ meats such as the heart which are tougher can be made much softer by first cooking them in water with ginger. I don’t know what it is about ginger but it works.

Only the dark meat of turkey is high in iron, and turkey is one of the least allergenic meat sources, it is less allergenic than chicken. Chicken, beef, pork, cod, salmon, and tuna are all high in heme iron. Tuna is of course a concern due to the mercury so use your best judgment. I also know some people avoid fish as a potential allergen but it is also an important source of DHA, and to me it is more shellfish that are allergenic but I didn’t withhold those past 9 months. Shrimp is also high in heme iron, however it is also high in cholesterol and fat.

Also I gave my son thinly sliced steak when he was only 7 months old because he was bugging for it (he is used to eating off my plate) I thought it would be one of the things he gummed and spit out. Ha-ha-ha he ate 7 or 8 pieces, they were just GONE!

Congrats, you really are doing the best thing for your baby by avoiding not only commercially prepared baby food, but pureed food in general. Spoon feeding increases the risks of choking, increases the risks of allergic reactions (as one of the first signs of some allergies is an unpleasant feel in the mouth so a baby will spit out rather than swallow), and gives the baby complete control over how much of what. Also you will not have to teach your toddler at some point that food = chewing, and to like texture.

None of the moms I know that use baby-led introduction to solids have picky eaters. I know my son eats EVERYTHING from asparagus, to jerk chicken, to pineapple, to spinach.

If you want some scientific information in baby-led introduction to solids:

http://www.borstvoeding.com/voedselintroductie/vast_voedsel/rapley_guidelines.html

And I repeat, not for the asker, but the other answerers and readers SOLIDS UNDER ONE YEAR ARE FOR FUN NOT NUTRITION. Breastmilk has more than enough iron and zinc for almost all babies, though a few require additional sources of iron by one year. However the main problem causing zinc and iron deficiencies is the addition of solids that are nutritionally poor, particularly those that are protein poor as protein is absolutely vital to growing babies.

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