What are the inappropriate complementary foods for babies?

When babies reach the age of six months, they should start to eat complementary foods, but not all complementary foods are suitable for babies. Today, let's talk about which common complementary foods are suitable for babies.

What complementary foods are not suitable for babies?

1. Fish floss

Fish floss has high nutritional value, is easy to eat, and there is no need to worry about fish bones. Parents may think this is the best way for babies to eat fish.

Therefore, some parents let their babies eat a lot of fish floss: mix it with porridge, noodles, or give it to their babies as snacks.

However, studies have shown that the fluoride content in fish floss is relatively high. Long-term consumption of fish floss will cause fluoride accumulation in the body, leading to food fluoride poisoning.

Therefore, fish floss can be eaten, but it cannot be taken as a nutritional supplement for a long time, and it cannot be the only source of fish for babies.

2. Vegetable Soup

In order to let babies eat more vegetables and ensure balanced nutrition, many mothers will choose to chop various ingredients and put them in a pot to cook soup for their babies.

But this practice is not very good either, because there will be residual pesticides and oxalic acid on the leaves, which will dissolve in the water. Not only are they not nutritious, they will also affect the baby's health.

Moreover, if the baby often drinks vegetable soup, he will get used to the taste over time, which will affect his drinking of boiled water.

3. Clear rice porridge

In order to prevent their babies from getting angry, mothers usually choose porridge, rice paste, rice noodles and other complementary foods for their babies.

Why is it not recommended to feed babies clear porridge? This is because this type of complementary food has low nutritional content, just starch and water, which cannot meet the nutritional needs of babies.

Moreover, this type of food is very bloating and will make you feel very full after eating it, which will affect your baby's intake of other foods.

If you want to feed your baby porridge, it is best to add some egg yolks, vegetables, mushrooms, etc. This porridge tastes better and can meet the baby's needs.

4. Fruit juice

Many mothers like to squeeze fruit juice for their babies when they have nothing to do. I want to tell you that fruit juice can be drunk, but not too early or in excess.

This is because fruit juice is a concentrated food, and it takes several fruits to squeeze out a cup of juice, so the sugar content is relatively high.

Next, if your baby drinks fruit juice frequently, he or she will easily become picky and may not like to drink plain water in the future.

It is recommended that mothers feed their children fruit puree, among which apple puree is commonly used. Apples contain multiple nutrients needed for the baby's growth and development, and are easy to digest.

What are the inappropriate complementary foods?

1. Nuts

Nuts have very high nutritional value and are a rare brain-boosting food, but they are also considered to be one of the foods that are prone to cause allergies. Therefore, it is not recommended to add nuts to baby's complementary foods.

After the age of one, you can grind the nuts and add them to porridge, cakes or other snacks, and pay attention to observe whether there are allergies.

2. Salt

Baby food may seem tasteless to adults, but it tastes just right for babies. Therefore, no additional salt should be added to food before the baby is 1 year old. Adding salt to baby food too early will lead to excessive sodium ion intake, increasing the risk of hypertension and cardiovascular disease in the future. Eating too much salt may also affect the baby's future eating habits.

3. Honey

Honey is a natural nutritious food for adults, which is good for beauty and bowel movement, but not for babies. Babies have weak intestinal function and weak liver detoxification ability. Honey may contain botulinum toxin, so it is not recommended for babies under one year old.

4. Sugar

Although sugar tastes good, it should not be added. Babies like the sweet taste of sugar, and some mothers will add a little sugar when cooking. However, adding sugar too early will increase the risk of tooth decay in babies. Mothers can try to use the taste of different natural foods to stimulate their baby's appetite.

5. Rice water

Rice water tastes very good, and some mothers may give some to their babies when cooking porridge. In fact, the nutritional value of rice water itself is very low, and drinking it will only occupy the baby's stomach capacity and affect the absorption of other nutrients.

6. Juice

Some mothers may say that the freshly squeezed juice at home is clean, hygienic, high in nutritional value, and very healthy. However, this is really not suitable for babies. Because the juice is too sweet, babies may refuse to drink boiled water after drinking it, which is not conducive to tooth protection; in addition, after being squeezed into juice, the original dietary fiber is lost.

7. Egg white

When it comes to supplementing nutrition for babies, many mothers first think of eggs. Eggs have high nutritional value and are one of the foods that babies love to eat. However, egg white is not suitable for babies to add to complementary foods because the protein molecules in egg white are small and can sometimes pass through the intestinal wall directly into the baby's blood. Babies are easily resistant to foreign proteins, which can lead to allergies.

8. Seafood

Seafood is also not suitable for inclusion in baby's complementary food too early. Crabs, shrimps and other shellfish can cause allergic symptoms in babies, so you can wait until your baby is older before giving them to him.

Principles of adding complementary foods

1. Prioritize the introduction of iron-containing complementary foods

According to the latest Australian infant feeding recommendations, iron-rich pureed foods should be introduced as a priority for babies over 6 months old.

This includes iron-fortified cereals (rice flour), meat paste, fish paste, tofu, etc. Of course, the baby’s first complementary food may not be iron-fortified rice flour or meat paste, but the initial complementary food needs to be rich in iron.

Subsequently, try introducing root vegetables, melons and legumes puree (such as pumpkin puree, carrot puree), and fruit puree (such as cooked banana puree, apple puree).

2. One by one

Each complementary food needs to be tried multiple times, even 10 to 15 times before the baby can accept it. This requires parents to have enough patience and give the baby enough time to learn to accept new food.

3. Increase the variety gradually

If a baby who is 6 months old starts to add paste-like complementary foods, babies aged 7 to 9 months can no longer eat only paste-like foods. They can try eating minced foods, such as soft noodles, chopped vegetables, chopped fruits, egg yolks, minced meat, minced fish, soy products, etc.

Babies aged 10 to 12 months can eat chopped foods: broken steamed buns, soft rice, minced meat, wontons, and fruit pieces (strips).

Babies after 12 months can slowly transition to an adult diet. If you can breastfeed, you can continue breastfeeding. If you can't breastfeed, it's best to have a certain amount of milk to meet the high nutritional needs of the baby.