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Saturday, December 12, 2009

All-Natural Parenting: The Importance of a Healthy and Organic Diet For Newborns

By Damian Papworth

One of the major events in your child's maturation process is the introduction of solid food instead of breast milk or formula. For most children, this occurs sometime around six months mark, but children aren't ready for table food until around the age of two years. Thus, baby food must be specially prepared, made so that a young child can easily eat and digest. While fast food and convenience are more a part of households now than ever before, that approach should not be taken with something as important as introducing children to food and nutrition, especially since those first years are a time of so much learning and development.

The first years of a child's life are crucial for getting the proper start, especially while so much growth is taking place. Babies are growing and maturing at a rapid rate, developing their coordination and learning about the world, and it is important that children receive the right kind of fuel to take on each new and exciting day. Therefore making the right choices in nutrition is a crucial component of parenting, just as important as ensuring that your child has a safe and healthy environment for playing and sleeping.

Many parents have bought baby food in a pinch, but traditionally, baby food was prepared just in the same way that a regular dinner would be prepared, too. It's not just hippy granola parents who make their children's food, but well-informed parents, too, as well as those on a tighter budget. Making baby food is helpful in a number of ways: it is often affordable, it is relatively quick compared to cooking a meal for the whole family, and more importantly, it allows parents to control what their children are consuming. This is especially important with growing rates of allergies across the globe amongst young children. By knowing exactly what is in the food, it makes it easier to determine at a young age if a child is sensitive to a particular type of food.

The economic benefits of making your own baby food cannot be overstated. In tough economic times, spending the extra money for brand-name goods for babies in the hopes that there is something better in those cans or jars is a practice that should be avoided or forgotten. There's nothing more nutritious in store-bought baby food. Usually, the actual difference is merely additives!

Parents, however, shouldn't get too eager to start on solid foods, as most children are not physically ready to begin until after six months of breast-feeding. Both the World Health Organization and a variety of accredited pediatric associations recommend six months of breast-feeding before deciding to start with solids. Doing so too soon can have a detrimental effect on health.

It's relatively simple to determine whether or not your child is prepared to make the switch. If your child has control of his or her head, can sit upright with little help, and seems to recognize things and be on the way to developing solid motor skills, it's a good time to begin. The tell-tale sign is whether or not solid objects introduced to your child's mouth prompts the tongue reflex in infants where they immediately try to spit things out.

An important thing to remember regarding babies and food is that their bodies have not yet been introduced to more complicated foods, so that digestion is another factor in choosing what to prepare first. Many parents start out with pureed apples, bananas, and pears, as they are easy to digest and provoke few allergic reactions. Popular vegetables for children include sweet potatoes, pumpkins, and carrots, for much of the same reasons.

When it's time to get babies started on their solid food diet, an excellent first choice for food is pureeing bananas. This is also particularly easy for parents, since there is no steaming or cooking involved. With a great deal of vitamins and minerals, as well as lots of potassium, bananas are a super-food in their own right. Be sure to peel the bananas thoroughly before pureeing them, and start with small spoonfuls, so that your child has time to adjust to the change. It's often best to choose organic bananas, too, for even more health benefits. - 17274

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