Moving Through Girlhood

The first three months are quite an adventure for both you and your daughter. This is a time of getting to know each other, learning how to live peacefully together, and of course, for falling in love. You’ll find the time passes very quickly, and before you know it, you’ll be moving into the next stage of babyhood—the four- to seven-month period when your newborn turns into a social little being full of giggles, smiles, and surprises.Watch Her Grow: Your Daughter from Four to Seven Months Iwish I had taken more pictures of Colleen, during the time she was four to seven months old. In the few frozen moments of time that I have, I see this chubby, little, dimpled face full of smiles. These photos remind me that it doesn’t take much to amuse and even enthrall a baby girl through this amazing period of rapid growth. These months are filled with new adventures. Your daughter is becoming more aware of you and her own role in the world. She is now ready to “talk” to anyone willing to listen, to laugh at funny faces, and giggle with anticipation as you prepare her bath. This is a wonderful time to get to know the little person inside your daughter and smother her with love.Feeding a Growing Appetite I had planned to breast-feed Colleen for the entire first year, but she was so little and wasn’t gaining as much weight as I hoped. So at about three months, I began to supplement her feedings with formula. At about six months, I offered an occasional teaspoon of baby cereal. The American Academy of Pediatrics wouldn’t agree with my decision (it says that most babies need only breast milk or formula for the first six months, or even longer if food allergies run in the family), but to calm hungry babies, many parents introduce solid foods between four and six months, when their child seems ready to handle it. Although your daughter isn’t yet ready for Whopper sandwiches, you might introduce some solid foods after talking to her doctor when you see these signs of readiness: She can sit alone or hold her head up when propped in a sitting position. She can turn her head to avoid something unpleasant. She shows interest in food (she may try to grab your lunch or track each forkful with her eyes as you move it toward your lips). She has lost the tongue-thrust reflex. This reflex leads a newborn to push out foreign matter that enters her mouth. If your daughter still has it, you’ll know it after a few tries at feeding because the food that goes in will come right back out. If that happens, you should wait a few weeks and try again. So your little girl is finally ready for a solid meal! This is a big step, so take it slow. Your daughter’s doctor will tell you that you shouldn’t make an abrupt switch from bottle or breast milk to solid food. At first, continue to nurse or bottle-feed your daughter while you offer small amounts of solid food only once or twice a day. When babies first start eating solids, they will often eat only a teaspoon or two at a meal. Even after a month or two they may be taking in only three to four tablespoons of food a day, with the rest of their calories coming from breast milk or formula. Most doctors agree that until your daughter approaches her first birthday, solid food will supply some extra calories, but she should get most of her calories and nutrition from breast milk or formula. Doctors recommend that you introduce solid foods with small amounts of a single food, and offer only that food for several days. Then, you can add new foods one at a time, serving each one a few times before adding the next. This slow introduction will enable you to watch for possible bad reactions and allergies. If the baby gets a rash or diarrhea, for example, after eating one food for two consecutive days, it’s easy to tell which food caused it. Once a food has been introduced for three to five days with no problem, you can move onto another. Typically, the first food offered is a single-grain, iron-fortified baby cereal (usually rice cereal), followed by baby oatmeal or bar ley cereal. Baby cereals come ready to eat or as dry flakes, to be mixed with breast milk, formula, or water. (Don’t mix them with cow’s milk until your daughter is a year old.) If you get the readyto-eat kind, you’ll waste a lot of it because your daughter will eat just a little at first and you shouldn’t keep the leftovers, even in the refrigerator, for more than a day or two. In either case, you should thin the cereal—in the beginning it should be the consistency of thickened milk. You can follow up the cereal with pureed fruit (such as banana, peach, apple or pear, but not citrus fruit) or pureed vegetables (especially carrots, peas, squash, sweet potatoes, or green beans). Then you might start giving her pureed meats or chicken. (Some babies seem to dislike meat until they are older. A vegetarian diet for infants is just fine.) You might introduce finger foods when your daughter has developed enough fine motor control to hold foods and bring them to her mouth, chew (or I should say gum), and swallow. This will probably happen sometime between six and seven months. Start out with small cereal pieces (like Cheerios) and let her explore the fun of feeding herself. Wait to introduce finger foods like fruit or hotdogs—right now her ability to chew is not firmly established and these foods pose a choking risk.later years for the commercial, sweetened foods that I had hoped my first two would be spared. So choose whichever is best for your lifestyle regardless of what friends and family say. Many parents find it’s best to use both kinds—buying some baby food for convenience, especially for meals away from home, but making other meals by pureeing or grinding regular food (this is explained a bit later in this chapter). Do whatever makes mealtimes more pleasant for you and your daughter. Commercial Baby Foods: Commercial baby food is convenient and consistent in taste and nutritional value. It’s very safe in terms of being canned without bacterial contamination, and doesn’t need refrigeration unless the jars have been opened. Like other processed foods, baby food tends to be lower in pesticide residues than some fresh produce. These days, most baby foods for the youngest children (labeled “Stage 1” foods) are single foods without added salt, sugar, or fillers. Some baby foods even taste pretty good. If you buy commercial baby food, follow these guidelines: Read the labels. Baby food is formulated for babies of varying ages. Choose ones that match your daughter’s age. Avoid baby-food desserts. Your daughter is better off without a lot of added sugar and without coming to expect a sweet finish to every meal. This is one situation when homemade may be better. Serve pureed or mashed fruit, either straight or mixed with a bit of plain yogurt. Juices marketed for babies cost more, but most doctors say they aren’t necessary. Your baby’s doctor will probably agree that she can drink any 100 percent juice that has been pasteurized. When you open a jar of baby food for the first time, you should see the center of the lid pop up, as the airtight seal is broken. If it doesn’t, don’t use the jar. Homemade Baby Food: If you prefer to make your own baby food, you’ll find it is less costly and usually tastier than commercial baby food. If you make it each day, your daughter will get used to the livelier tastes of fresh vegetables and may learn sooner about the pleasures of healthy eating. However, you should be careful about the fruits and vegetables you choose—when possible, go organic. Regular produce does not have to meet the same standards as produce grown for baby food manufacturers. So if you’re not careful, you may end up feeding your daughter more pesticides than if you spooned food from the jar. If you make your own baby food, follow these guidelines: If you want to prepare more than one day’s worth of food at a time, freeze the extra portions rather than trying to can baby food yourself. (If you freeze pureed food in an ice-cube tray, you can easily pop out one cube at a time.) Choose raw ingredients and peel or wash them thoroughly. If you plan to puree or chop processed adult foods, such as canned fruit or frozen vegetables, read the labels to be sure they are not high in salt (sodium), sugar, or other ingredients you don’t want to feed your daughter. Canned soups and canned or jarred pasta with sauce, for example, often contain large amounts of salt. You can use a blender, food processor, or food mill to chop up food to the proper consistency for babies. Many parents swear by small, plastic food mills that are portable for grinding on the go. It seems that the logical advice here would be: put food on a spoon and place the spoon in your child’s mouth. But like so many new adventures with a baby, it’s usually not that easy. We all have to find the best feeding method, but here are some tips that might make it easier for you. In the beginning, nurse or bottle-feed your daughter a little bit before offering her food so she isn’t overly hungry. Show her the food and let her touch it, even smear it around if she wants to. Then take a small infant spoon (the rubber-coated kind are gentle in the mouth), a demitasse spoon, or a half-teaspoon from a measuring-spoon set. Put a tiny bit of food on the spoon and place the spoon between her lips. Do not put it far back on her tongue or she may gag. Once your daughter tastes the food, she may suck it off the spoon and open her mouth for more. She may spit it out but still seem interested. She may gag, cry, or become upset. She may reach for the spoon herself. (Let her play with it. After a while, you can try to guide it to her mouth or you can feed her with another spoon while she hangs on to the first.) As long as your daughter seems interested, you can keep trying. Talk to her in a pleasant tone throughout this process, explaining what you are doing. After your daughter has had a few spoonfuls or seems tired of the process, finish up the feeding by offering more breast milk or formula. In the beginning, very little food will actually be swallowed, but the goal in the beginning is to teach your daughter to eat, not to meet her nutritional needs with solid food.