“Big boy” foods class…

Well today we went to our “big boy” foods class hosted by our pediatrician’s office. We all sat at tables and they put cut up finger foods on paper plates for the kiddos to eat off of. I’ll bet you can guess what happened next…? Each one got ahold of that plate and yanked/tipped the contents onto us mommas and floor. Oh jeeze. Everybody ended up just dumping the food onto the table (which she had previously scrubbed down knowing this would most likely happen). There were sampling’s of rice puff cereal, mango, pear, sweet potato and avocado. Eli ate everything and asked for seconds. He even took the avocado. She did a little overview about when to start solids, good foods to try, and unnecessary advice given by friends and family that should be avoided. So here are my takeaways:
-Babys can turn orange if given too many foods with beta carotene in them, like sweet potato, carrots and winter squash. (woops!)
-Rice cereal isn’t a necessary “transition” food and certainly shouldn’t be given before 6 months. It has nothing to do with helping the baby sleep through the night.
-As long as the food is cooked enough and of a soft consistency that a baby can gum, they can and should be given what we are eating. No need to make separate meals for the baby. Baby’s don’t need only bland food. They can  have spices and seasonings, provided they are not hot.
-Cows milk given before 12months is a concern not just because of it’s high rate of allergy development but because it can cause stomach bleeding. Babies simply don’t have the ability yet to break down cows milk before 1 year. BUT, you CAN give them foods cooked with milk (or eggs) in it because it typically isn’t in concerning quantities and because it changes its makeup once cooked. Good to know.
-She also said that it wasn’t really necessary to wait 3 days in between introducing new foods unless there is a family history of an allergy to certain foods or food group.
Over all I felt that most of this I had already known based on my own reading and research. My only concern with feeding him foods I’m currently eating is the amount of salt in it. Not that I add a ton, but I don’t always (actually quite rarely) cook completely from scratch where I control the amount of salt put in. From doing my congestive heart failure teaching at work, I know that 90% of the salt we consume on a daily basis is hidden in our foods. The average man consumes over 10 grams of salt and woman over 7 1/2 grams! (Heart healthy recommendations are less than 2 grams, just sos ya knows) Yowza!!! The quicker the food is to make, the higher the preservative content and therefor salt content. So even if I pass on the table salt, he’ll still be getting quite a bit of salt through adult foods if I don’t make them completely from scratch. Because of this, I think I’ll continue to buy organic baby food or make my own unless I know exactly what’s in the food I’m eating. I don’t want to set my child up preferring salty foods like I do :/
-Linds