The first big transition: Starting Solids Part 2

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

In the first part of this series, I spoke about the strategic elements in the context of starting the solids journey for the little ones. With the big picture in place, let's get down to the details.

What do I need to get started?

An entire industry of baby stuff thrives on creating FOMO and making parents feel inadequate for any of the baby transitions. Let me group my recommendations on this into three categories: Must-haves, good to have, and not worth buying

# Must-haves:

1. A baby who meets the readiness criteria
2. A caregiver who understands their goals, boundaries, and the intent of the process.
3. A copy of the book “My Child Won’t Eat” by Carlos Gonzales. This is recommended reading before embarking on this adventure. I have a summary of the key messages at the end of the post too.
4. Lots and lots of patience, good spirits, and love
5. Knowledge of basic first aid
6. Simple, non-distracting utensils: your regular steel bowl, a small glass, and a spoon that is not too big for the baby’s mouth.
7. A big plastic mat or sheet under the baby’s seat helps catch all the experiments that the baby does with food and gravity. Alternatively, a loving pet also helps keep the floor clean!

#Good to have

1. A dedicated space for the child to have their meals. It could mean a booster chair or a high chair for some, or it could mean sitting on a mat on the balcony for others. If you have a center table at the baby’s waist height, a small chair could also work. Choose whichever version works for you.
2. A bib, preferably something that covers the baby from the neck to the waist and is easily washable. These also come in handy for other activities like painting and tactile play. If you don’t have these, plan for a change of clothes after meal times, and you are sorted.
3. Baby-sized utensils: You can get a small plate and a trainer cup in addition to things listed in the must-haves section.

#Not Worth Buying

1. Utensils with suction: Babies figure out very quickly how to get the suction to loosen, and the utensils don’t get used as much.
2. Baby food processor: Babies transition fairly quickly across a range of textures and foods. A dedicated baby food processor has an extremely short usable life in the solids journey.
3. Fruit feeders/juice feeders, or any other type of dedicated food feeder for babies: We want babies to experience food in all its glory. Putting a layer between them and the food takes away from their experience. A bib does a much better job at keeping the baby clean, and a mat does a better job at keeping the space clean than any of these fancy buys.

Which approach do I use?

There are two popular ways of introducing solids: traditional weaning (TW) and baby-led weaning (BLW). Think of these as two roads that reach the same endpoint. One isn’t necessarily better than the other. Both lead the baby to self-feed most foods from the family pot by one year of age, and both rely on respectful and responsive feeding.

Traditional weaning refers to introducing solids through purees and hand-mashed food fed by the caregiver. There is a gradual progression in texture and self-feeding opportunities. If you want to go this route, here is a support group dedicated to this approach.

Baby-led weaning refers to offering family food as is to the baby in age-appropriate-sized pieces. Starting with fist-sized pieces, the baby gradually moves to smaller bites and pieces as their dexterity in handling food increases. If you want to go this route, here is a support group dedicated to this approach.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Some families choose one of these two, and others do a combination. Choose what works for you.

We chose to go the BLW route for my elder one and a combination for my younger one. BLW tends to be slightly messier than the TW route, so we chose a combination the second time around to limit the mess we were managing.

Photo by Edouard Gilles on Unsplash

How much mess are we talking about?

Mess is an inevitable part of the process, irrespective of which method you choose. So embrace the mess and dive in!

At this point, babies (being natural scientists) are running experiments on things and gravity. They want to see what things they can grasp and what happens when they throw things around. They make a mental note of where things fall, which things make noise, and which things, when thrown, elicit a strong reaction from the people around them. Then they repeat these experiments, again and again to see if their conclusions need to change with time.

This means that food (and the utensils it gets served in) will also become part of this ongoing experimentation journey. For the caregiver, these could mean messes that need to be cleaned, and hence a mat and bib come in handy.

Do we need a schedule and a detailed meal plan?

I would say a detailed meal plan is great to have — so do it only if you have the bandwidth. If you are someone who thrives on structure, it could be a very calming exercise for you. Starting solids can be as much or as little work as you make the process out to be.

Some mothers like to go clinical on it; they keep detailed notes on solids introduced and reactions noticed. They repeat the same foods for a fixed number of days and then tick them off as safe or unsafe for their child’s consumption. There are other mothers who prefer to wing it and go with the flow.

My approach was a middle path. We introduced food items in a mixed batch (say, a mix of rice and lentils along with some veggies thrown in). If the baby accepts it well and all looks good (no adverse reactions), all those items are "safe." We then moved on to the next batch of items. We would do a detailed root-cause analysis only if there was any indication that something was off. We did not do a detailed meal plan. We instead focused on offering the baby what we ate as a family.

Photo by Isabella Fischer on Unsplash

How do we get started?

Putting together a list of dos and don'ts based on my research and experience:

DOs:

1. Start with one meal per day for a month. Then, for each following month, we added a meal or a snack to the schedule. It could look something like this:
   1 meal (say, lunch) at 6 months;
   2 meals or 1 meal + 1 snack at 7 months
   3 meals or 2 meals + 1 snack or 1 meal + 2 snacks at 8 months
   4 meals or 2 meals + 2 snacks at 9 months
   5 meals or 2 meals + 3 snacks or 3 meals + 2 snacks at 10 months
2. We introduced a new food item only during the day so that we had enough time to see any adverse reactions. Plus, it is easier to reach a doctor in case of any issues during the day.
3. The food being introduced should be nutrient-dense and preferably iron-rich (to avoid the need for iron supplements). I would say aim to introduce a variety of tastes and textures without masking them with BM, formula, natural sweeteners, processed sugar, or salt.
4. Start with food that is easy on the stomach and helps with gut health. We opted to start with a sprouted grain-pulses mix (called sprouted saathumaavu) and fermented food. Both of these are easily digestible and help the body ease into this new phase.
5. Gut health is an important contributor to building a strong digestive system and boosting immunity. Fermented food items (like idlis, dosas, etc.) are great for boosting it. Similarly, curd can also be introduced.
6. Include a P-fruit (Papaya, Pear, Plums, Peaches, and Prunes) in the baby’s diet. The introduction of solids can cause constipation in a few babies. A P-fruit a day helps keep constipation away.
7. Most spices can be added to food. Nutmeg is best avoided as it is a known hallucinogen and has a drowsy effect. The spice levels can be increased gradually, keeping the baby’s tolerance in mind.
8. A few sips of water should be offered post-meal to cleanse the mouth and aid digestion. However, babies may not drink water easily. This is all right since most of their hydration needs are met through breast milk or formula.

Things to Avoid or Don'ts

1. Packaged food items: These contain a plethora of preservatives, artificial coloring, and taste-enhancing agents, along with generally high levels of salt and sugar. These are best avoided as much as possible (for babies as well as adults). If you are buying off the shelf, do spend some time understanding the ingredients on the label and making an educated choice.
2. Soups, juices, watery things (the ever-popular daal ka paani, chawal ka paani, etc.): They displace milk feeds, have very few calories, and
   nutrients.
3. Animal milk (cow’s milk, buffalo’s milk, etc.) is not a suitable drink for a child under one year of age. However, milk products like paneer, curd, etc. can be offered right from the start. Small amounts of animal milk may be used for cooking.

What should I watch out for?

I would say watch out for three key things:

1. adverse reactions to known allergens, especially if you have a family history of food allergies. Some of these are dairy, eggs, wheat, nuts, soy, and seafood.
2. Stool consistency: With the introduction of solids, the texture and color of babies' stools will change. You will find bits of food you offer in the stool too (sometimes they come out as is), especially if you’re following baby-led weaning. This is perfectly normal, as the baby’s body assimilates milk much better than it does solids. This may continue into the second year of life. We also expect the stooling frequency to change. If the baby seems uncomfortable, gassy, pooping hard pellets, has excessively watery or foul-smelling stools or is generally unhappy, it’s always a good idea to slow down or stop solids till the baby feels better. If you are breastfeeding, it’s great to offer to nurse more frequently.
3. Any signs of choking: When babies start eating solids on their own, it is common for them to gag. Gagging is when your child takes in a bigger bite than they can handle and brings it back up noisily. This is a protective mechanism that does not need any intervention. After the first few times, babies figure out on their own how much to bite at once. Choking, on the other hand, occurs when food enters the airway. It’s silent because the child can no longer make any sounds. This requires immediate intervention. This video by Dr. Shivaranjini and this one by the British Red Cross are very helpful.

Are there any other resources that I can check out?

There is a world of resources that you can tap into on this journey. I am sharing the ones that I found especially helpful in the Indian context.

1. Dr. Hema’s My Little Moppet: This has a world of baby-friendly recipes, sample schedules, and a healthy homemade product range that you could explore.

3. Responsive Feeding: Understanding the baby’s cues for hunger and satiety

4. Truvitals: clean-label products that can also be used as the baby grows older.

5. Slurrp Farm: Clean label, healthy, on-the-go snacks

If you would like to reach out to me to talk more, please drop me a note at sweta[dot]p@gmail[dot]com

Here is a ChatGPT generated summary of the book “My Child won’t eat” by Carlos Gonzales. Think of this summary as a quick way to browse through the key messages. I would still encourage you to read the book cover to cover so that you can soak up the messages.

My Child Won’t Eat is a book written by Carlos Gonzales, a pediatrician, and father of three, who addresses the common issue of children who refuse to eat. In the book, Gonzales presents a comprehensive overview of the nature of children’s eating habits and explores the reasons behind their picky eating behavior. He offers advice and practical solutions to help parents deal with the problem of their child’s picky eating habits without resorting to force or coercion.

The following are some of the most important learnings and insights from the book:

1. Children have an innate ability to regulate their food intake, and parents should trust their child’s appetite and eating habits.
2. Picky eating is a normal phase of childhood, and most children will grow out of it naturally.
3. Pressuring or coercing children to eat can create a negative association with food and lead to more severe eating disorders later in life.
4. Parents should avoid using food as a reward or punishment, as it can reinforce negative eating habits.
5. Children should be allowed to eat when they are hungry and stop when they are full, without being forced to clean their plates.
6. Parents should offer a variety of healthy foods, but ultimately, it is up to the child to decide what and how much they want to eat.
7. Mealtimes should be relaxed and enjoyable, with the focus on socializing and spending time together as a family, rather than on forcing the child to eat.
8. Parents should avoid making separate meals for picky eaters, as this can reinforce the behavior and make it more difficult for children to try new foods.
9. Parents should model healthy eating habits and avoid making negative comments about food or their own bodies in front of their children.
10. If parents are concerned about their child’s eating habits, they should consult with their pediatrician to rule out any underlying medical conditions.

Overall, My Child Won’t Eat is a helpful guide for parents struggling with picky eaters. The book provides practical solutions and advice to help parents create a positive relationship between their children and food, without resorting to force or coercion.