By Terry Reina
When your baby is four to six months old, you can start feeding them little bites of real food. How exciting, your baby is growing up so fast! Before they can eat solid foods, they need to practise with these practise snacks. These snacks do not replace breastfeeding or bottle feeding though. Do you want to know how you can introduce your baby to these foods? We are giving all the information you should know!
When do I start giving practice snacks?
At the age between four and six months your baby will be ready for the practise snacks. Do not start earlier or later. Make sure your baby is ready for it. But how do you know if your baby is ready? Well pay attention to his/her behaviour. Does (s)he keep making smacking noises? Is (s)he studying you when you are eating? Then it may be time to start with the snacks. Just be reminded that every baby has its own pace. With your parental instinct you will notice when your baby is ready.
Why should I feed my baby practice snacks?
With giving practice snacks to your baby, (s)he gets used to flavours other than those of warm milk. Thereby, will your baby learn to bite from the spoon. This is an exercise for the mouth muscles and teaches them how to use their mouth in other ways than drinking. If you start with practice snacks between four and six months, you can reduce the chance of food hypersensitivity in your baby.
Years back it was thought that babies under the age of six months were given a higher chance of developing food hypersensitivity. But through researching this more and more, it is now clear that the chance actually decreases when you start with practise snacks when your baby is this old. Reduce the chance of developing food allergies by offering all kinds of different foods.
What are safe snacks?
Almost all healthy products, such as vegetables, fruit, potatoes and fish are safe to eat. This includes peanut butter and egg. If you feed your baby peanut butter and egg before the age of 8 months, the chances of getting food allergies are being significantly decreased. Start with giving your baby a spoonful of mashed vegetables or fruit. In the beginning, it is preferable to give foods with a soft taste. Then the difference between the practise snacks and breast or bottle feeding is not so big.
Mix practise snacks with bottle milk
As mentioned above it is important to mix the practise snacks with breast- or bottle feeding. HiPP baby formula has a wide range of infant and hypoallergenic milk. But they also offer fruit and vegetable jars when you are starting with mixing different sorts of food.
