Food Before One is Just for Fun: True or False?

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And this idea that the foods that we offer our baby, like you know, flaming hot Cheetos are not an ideal first food for your baby because we as parents, our job is to choose what the baby eats and where they eat and when they eat. That's Ellyn Satter's, Division of Responsibility of Feeding. It's her theory in practice, your baby is ultimately in charge of how much or even whether they eat. But that part there about what the baby eats it is important because we all know your baby doesn't magically wake up on their first birthday and know how to safely eat a hundred different foods. It's on us, the parents, the caregivers, to utilize that weaning period between six and 12 months of age. When your baby's going from six months of age, a hundred percent of their nutrition is coming from infant milk. Fast forward six months down the road at 12 months of age, most of your baby's nutrition can be coming from food.

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So there's a lot of work for us to do and yes, I want you to have fun doing it, but the foods that we select when we're starting solid foods, and if you wanna do that safely, those foods do matter. Hey there, I'm Katie Ferraro, Registered dietitian, college nutrition professor and mom of seven specializing in Baby-Led Weaning. Here on the Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro podcast. I help you strip out all of the noise and nonsense about feeding, giving you the confidence and knowledge you need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods using Baby-Led Weaning. Food Before One is Just for Fun, true or false, depends on who you ask.

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And this controversy over whether or not food before one is just for fun. It's certainly as old as the internet. And this statement has been confusing parents for a long time. So today I wanna weigh in and share my thoughts on the statement, Food Before One is Just for Fun. Now I'm a Registered dietitian specializing in infant feeding and Baby-Led Weaning And I like to start out these mini training episodes with a Baby-Led Weaning tip of the day. And today's tip is, heck yeah, you should be having fun feeding your baby. I get it. A lot of things related to raising children can be a total drag and the reality is that you're a six month old baby.

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If you look ahead in the future, you are going to have to feed this small person for at least the next 17 and a half years of its life and multiple times a day at that, right? So I would maintain that. You might as well have a little bit of fun doing it. And I don't want you to stress out about feeding your children and parents come into the second half of infancy, incredibly stressed out. They're anxious, they're confused. They're overwhelmed by all of the misinformation and the noise that they hear about the "best way to start solid foods with their babies". So I get the attraction with the statement, oh, Food Before One is Just for Fun. This is something I can glom onto. I would finally like to have some fun feeding this baby because learning how to breastfeed is not fun or having to bottle feed or needing to switch formulas or stressing out about starting solid foods.

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'Cause you're scared that your baby's gonna choke or they're not getting enough nutrition. At the end of the day, food is a universal theme that ties us all together. And I would say without exception, all the parents that I work with say, I just want to raise a child who likes eating real food. That's the ultimate goal here. We want our babies to grow up being able to safely eat food, but to actually enjoy it because let's be honest, it's gonna make our life a lot easier if we all can eat, you know, relatively the same foods. So let's break down that statement, Food Before One is Just for Fun. My tip to you is yes, definitely have fun with it. One thing I love about that statement is that feeding your baby should be fun.

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I want you to enjoy watching the reactions as your baby tries a sour food like a lemon for the first time. Or when they have a taste of something sweet like a strawberry or they try a bitter vegetable like a brussels sprout, watching those reactions and watching them explore food. This is an important part of your baby's development. And, I do hope that it is something that you cherish and eventually can get to a point where you have fun with it. But what I don't love about that statement is that Food Before One is Just for Fun implies that the foods that we feed our baby that they don't matter. I teach a free online video workshop called Baby-Led Weaning for Beginners. And one of my favorite images inside of that workshop is a picture that my sister-in-law sent me.

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So my oldest is as old a week older than my youngest brother's oldest. So like I know that's confusing, but there's six kids in my family and I'm the oldest and my number six, my youngest brother, we had our first babies within the first week of each other and we're nine years apart. So I'm like, dude, you're like not even, you're not old enough to have kids if I'm just having my kid. So those two cousins grew up super close together. And I, remember when they were starting solid foods? I was so stressed about spoon feeding and my daughter was rejecting all the foods. And, I was like, I'm a terrible mom 'cause I can't food my baby. I remember the girls were just starting to kind of crawl around, stand up, sit up on their own. My sister sent me a picture of her feeding them flaming hot Cheetos and she's like, I don't know why you're stressing about feeding your baby. This is so easy, Katie, you're a dietitian.

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Like you're doing it all wrong. The flaming hot Cheetos. It's like, okay, obviously I'm not condoning that as a food for your baby, but the point is, Food Before One is Just for Fun implies like, oh, flaming hot Cheetos are just totally fine to feed your baby. And as we know for a number of reasons, those are not an ideal first food. So I do take a little bit of issue with that statement in that a lot of parents are so laissez-faire and like I'm as laissez-faire hands off as they can come at this point with having had seven kids in a very short period of time. But I still do believe that the foods that we offer our baby matters. Hey, we're gonna take a quick break, but I'll be right back.

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And the reason why is because starting at six months of age, right halfway to the one year mark, 100% of your baby's nutrition is coming from infant milk. That's breast milk or formula. And if you fast forward six months, so at the 12-month mark, most of your baby's nutrition can be coming from solid foods, right? That's when we transition to cow's milk. That's when the amount of milk decreases. You are welcome to continue breastfeeding if that works for you and your baby beyond age one. But at that point the breast milk is and the breastfeeding, it's for bonding. It's for winding down your day. It's a little bit for nutrition and nourishment. But by the 12-month mark formula-fed babies are transitioning to cow's milk.

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Most babies are getting most of their nutrition from food. So there's a lot of things we need to accomplish between the six and the 12-month mark. Lucky for us, we get six months to practice. That's what the weaning period is, right? Your baby doesn't wake up on their first birthday and magically know how to eat a 100 foods. Okay? We need to practice and I always say practice makes progress. And that's why we start solid foods at six months of age plus when when your baby's showing the other reliable signs of readiness to eat. And we offer a variety of different foods and we're working towards helping our babies achieve diet diversity. 'Cause we want them to get nutrition and get pleasure and get taste and have experience with different textures. Food represents all of these things.

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And so the foods that we choose, it certainly does matter. So as a dietitian, I would maintain that, yes, I'd love for you to have fun feeding your baby, but the foods that you select do matter. And then parents will inevitably say, okay then fine. What foods should I feed my baby? And I'll remind you that there's no right or wrong food to start solid foods with. Okay? Baby food and commercial baby food companies would historically have you believe that all you need to start with iron fortified white rice cereal. And and we've certainly dispelled that myth here on the podcast talking about the risks of regular use of rice containing foods because of the potential for arsenic toxicity. The reality that babies do not need to be force fed iron fortified foods.

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They can safely learn to eat naturally occurring foods that have iron, like plant and animal proteins and different whole grains. And while some families like to start with foods like avocado and banana and sweet potato, if that doesn't work for your family or those aren't foods in your family food culture, it's totally fine to pick other foods that do work for you. Now, I created the 100 First Foods approach to starting solid foods in 2016 as a way to help parents who are struggling with like, oh my gosh, what food can my baby eat? And I realized with Baby-Led Weaning after having struggled so much with spoon feeding with my oldest, that with my quadruplets who came next, they had eaten a hundred different foods by the time they turned one. And that babies can eat so many more foods than we give them credit for.

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But as we all know, as parents, caregivers or healthcare providers, wholesome real foods don't just magically appear on the table, it's on us as the parents and the caregivers to make those foods and to make them in a manner that's safe and age appropriate for our babies. So you have a lot of responsibilities as a parent, but providing the food, right? We're in charge of what the baby eats and where the baby eats and when the baby eats, right? That's Ellyn Satter's, Division of Responsibility in Feeding Theory. Okay? We have parents, again, we have three jobs, what the baby eats, where they eat and when they eat, but your baby is ultimately in charge of how much or even whether they eat. And so whenever you're feeling pressured like, oh my gosh, my baby's not eating enough, or we're not getting enough, or they're not eating enough iron, remember back up, zoom out.

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Remind yourself it is not your job to make your baby eat. You are however in charge of what the baby eats and when they eat and where they eat. And so we do want to be offering a variety of foods so that when they wake up on their first birthday, they do know how to eat a wide variety of foods and flavors and tastes and textures and they can be getting most of their nutrition from food. But don't sweat it. You've got six months the weaning period to practice. Keep up the great work offering a variety of foods. If you want grab a copy of my original a 100 First Foods list. I give that away to everyone for free on that video workshop called Baby-Led Weaning for Beginners, complete with the picture of babies eating flam and hot Cheetos.

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You can sign up at babyledweaning.co/workshop. I'll also put the link to my Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro program inside of the description where you're listening to this. If you want the done for you 20 weeks of meal plans for how to get your baby to eat a hundred different foods. I know you don't have time to go hunting and pecking all over the internet to pick out and figure out how to make these foods safe for your baby. That's why I did it for you to hopefully take one thing off of your plate. No pun intended. You've got a lot of things going on as a parent. My job, my mission is to make starting solid foods safely with your baby, easier and stress-free.

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I want you guys to have fun feeding your baby. Good luck and happy feeding. Like a lot of moms out there, I will totally admit I am quite Type A. I am a total task master and one of my weekly work tasks is to review the feedback forms that are new students in my program, which is called Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro that they leave for us. So basically this form asks a lot of questions about you and your baby and your baby's feeding and medical history, any concerns that you might have or fears about starting solid foods. And all of this data helps me when I'm answering parent questions inside of our weekly live office hours so I can then tailor my response to your particular baby and situation, right? Because it's not a one size fits all approach when it comes to what your baby's eating, right?

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Because maybe your baby has an egg allergy or another mom in the program, she might really be struggling with how to make meat safe 'cause she doesn't like to cook. So this week on the form, there's a new mom named Janine and she wrote, and this is her, "I researched a lot on the internet, And I have a lot of books. I saw a lot of other Baby-Led Weaning programs. But in the end, this is the one that I realized is what I'm really looking for as a new mom. I love that Katie's program has a community and that there are videos for everything you need to know and how to make the foods. And what I love the most is that there's already a meal plan ready". And this just like stopped my heart because this is exactly why I created the Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro program.

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I wanted to literally put everything that you need to know about starting solid foods safely in one place with a super easy to follow 20 full weeks meal plan. Okay, there's 20 weeks 'cause it's five foods a week. I want your baby to get to those a 100 new foods before they turn one. 'Cause I also know you have a lot going on as a new mom and hunting and pecking all over the internet to try to figure out what am I gonna feed this baby that is not the solution. So if you want to check out the Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro program, I would be honored to work with you and your baby. You can head to babyledweaning.co to get started and hopefully I'll be reading your feedback soon too.