Cooking for Babies & Toddlers [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION For the first few months of life a mother's own milk is the perfect food for her baby. Some years ago it was fashionable to start mixed feeding at a very early age. Many babies were given solid food, usually a little cereal mixed into their evening bottle of milk, when they were only a few weeks old. Unfortunately, many of these babies became overweight as a result and nowadays it is considered healthier to delay mixed feeding until the baby is at least four months of age. Human milk, or baby milk powders formulated to resemble mothers' milk as closely as possible, contain the right balance of nutrients for a baby to double or even treble his birth weight. But there comes a time, usually between four and six months of age, when a baby who is growing rapidly, and becoming more active, needs the nutrients from other foods in addition to those from milk. Enriched baby cereals with their bland, milky flavour are popular as first weaning foods. They are readily accepted and help to overcome the first hurdle in the gradual transfer from breast and bottle to spoon feeding. However, cereals should be given in small quantities only as they have a fairly high calorific value. Nutritionists advise giving babies puréed fruits and vegetables which contain iron and vitamin C, the two nutrients which are in short supply in milk, Bone and vegetable broth, puréed in a blender with lightly cooked vegetables and tender, lean meat, poultry or white fish provide a wide variety of savouries to give a baby a growing taste for solid foods. Yogurt, mild cheese, tender hver and kidney, and egg yolk are other excellent foods for babies from six months old. To begin with, a young baby finds it difficult to swallow food from a spoon. He is used to having milk squirted to the back of his mouth. He hasn't yet learned to use his tongue, as older children do, to transfer food from the front to the back of his mouth for swallowing. If he appears to spit out everything to start with, this doesn't mean that he dislikes the food he is given. He just needs a little practice to learn to swallow. To avoid confusing a young baby, introduce new foods slowly. Offer a small taste of a new food to begin with and then offer a httle of the same food at different meals over the next few days. This helps a baby to become familiar with one food at a time and to build up his confidence in the new method of feeding. Generally, it is better to give the solid food first and finish with the breast or bottle feed. But if a baby is very hungry or distressed, it does no harm to reverse the procedure once in a while. If he does react unfavourably to one particular food, don't insist that he eats it. Offer the same food again a few weeks later. There is a greater chance of his liking it at a second try if no fuss is made at his first rejection. This is also true for toddlers and even older children. Making a child eat something he obviously doesn't like does more harm than good. After all, most CHICKEN FRICASSÉE (page 47) Q (Photograph: British Poultry Meat Association)