Getting Your Baby To Eat Foods
Does this scenario sound familiar to you? You serve your
baby some nice finger foods that you have taken great effort to
make and put it on a plate on her high chair. You turn your
back for a minute, and before you know it, the food is on
floor. You give your baby a stern talking to; head back
resignedly and bring over another plate. Your baby smiles
angelically and pours all the food onto her lap from where she
proceeds to smear it all on her face, arms and her chair!
If you have had this happen to you a few times now, perhaps
there is something that you are not quite doing correctly.
Follow the steps we have outlined below to not only get your
baby to eat the food you have prepared but to build a better
relationship between her and the food she eats.
1. Do not make eating a power struggle. It
is more important that your baby eats when she is hungry and
she eats what she likes. Forcing her to eat broccoli when she
has pushed it away a few times is inviting trouble. Give her
something that she likes to eat and reintroduce the food a few
days later. Do not be surprised if she simply wolfs it down
then. Babies are notoriously fickle-minded when it comes to
food tastes.
2. Try to introduce new foods as
many times as you can even though she may keep rejecting it. In
fact, experts suggest that you should try and give your baby a
new food at least fifteen times before concluding that she does
not like it. Do not try to give her the food fifteen times in
one go.
3. Once your baby feels full, do not force
her to eat more just because you feel she should be eating
more. Similarly, if she is hungry she may eat a large portion
of a particular dish – do not stop her then.
4. Keep an eye on when you feel your baby
is ready to eat by herself. By around eight months, most babies
try to get the food into their mouth by themselves. You can
start by giving them soft finger foods like cheese, mushy
bananas, boiled carrots and so on.
5. It is possible that as a new mother you
are having some emotional issues of your own. Or you may have
had problems with food and control issues. All this may have
created a great fear in you of how your baby is going to feel
about food. You want her to have a healthy relationship with
her body and with the food she is eating, which is quite
understandable. However, make sure that your feelings and fears
do not spill over and affect your baby. Seek help for yourself
if you need so that you can help your baby better.
By developing healthy eating habits in your baby from now,
you are ensuring her future health and well-being as well.
|