Feeding: Important Points
- Bottles are for water, formula or juice only (no solids such as cereals, Kool-Aid, or sodas).
- When adding new foods to the diet, please only add one new food about every five days. This gives your baby time to adjust to the new food. If there is a reaction, it is easier to determine which food may have caused it.
- Offer small amounts at first. Remember that babies are not small adults; they have few teeth and are generally not capable of grinding their food well, so please help them out by:
- Making the food thin and smooth by mixing it with a little formula or breast milk.
- Giving small serving sizes. For example:
Months of age
Tablespoons of solids
Feedings per day
4-5
2-3
2-4
5-6
2-3
4-5
7-9
6-7
3-4
10-12
7-10
3-4
- Never force your baby to finish a bottle or food. Your baby is the best judge of how much to eat. Overfeeding can lead to weight problems.
- Do not give your baby nuts, raisins, seeds, or raw carrots, unless mashed or finely shredded. Avoid all small hard foods (such as popcorn, sausages) or very thick sticky foods (such as peanut butter) that can choke the baby.
