Online Learning: Early Nutrition

See Feeding Your Baby – 6-12 Months – Horizon Health Network
See Guide and recipes for introducing solid food – Vitalité Health Network

Infant Feeding Recommendations

• Exclusive breastfeeding is recommended for the first 6 months
• Around 6 months, start offering solid foods and continue breastfeeding for 2 years and beyond.
• Breastfed and partially breastfed babies need to receive 400 IU of vitamin D daily via supplement
• If baby is not breastfed, a commercial cow’s milk based infant formula is recommended until 9 to 12 months of age.

Around 6 months, look for signs your baby is ready for solids:

• They are able to sit in a highchair with or without support.
• They show interest in what you and your family are eating.
• They watch the spoon and open their mouth when the spoon is coming.
• They pick up food and try to put it in their mouth.
• They keep food in their mouth and swallow it instead of pushing it out.

• Offer your baby iron rich foods first, such as iron-fortified infant cereal, finely minced meat or fish, mashed cooked egg, mashed beans, or tofu.
• Add soft vegetables and fruits.
• Introduce common allergenic foods safely. Common allergenic foods include peanuts, tree nuts, soy, eggs, wheat and dairy. Waiting to give common allergen foods will not prevent food allergies and may promote allergy development.
  • Add one new allergenic food at a time.
  • When introducing common allergenic foods for the first time give a small amount. For example, offer smooth peanut butter that has been diluted in hot water (cooling after mixing) or mixed with a previously tolerated food (breastmilk, infant cereal, yogurt, etc.). Offer it on the tip of a spoon, directly in the mouth, and wait 10 minutes. If no symptoms develop, feed at the infant’s usual pace of eating.
  • Give priority to introducing peanuts and eggs around 6 months
  • Offer the tolerated allergenic food 2-3 times per week

• Start by offering pureed or mashed foods around 6 months
• Gagging is a natural reflex when learning to chew and swallow new foods.
• Between seven to nine months, based on your baby’s feeding cues and abilities, progress quickly to soft minced or diced foods, regardless of how many teeth your baby has.
• Allow baby to eat with their fingers and from a spoon.
• Safe finger foods:
  • Pieces of soft, cooked vegetables
  • Soft ripe fruit, such as bananas
  • Finely minced, ground, or diced cooked meat
  • Deboned fish, chicken, or turkey
  • Grated cheese
  • Bread crust or toast
• By 12 months, your toddler can eat a variety of healthy foods with various textures, continue to modify the texture of food as needed.

See video: Offering A Variety Of Textures To Your Baby (UnlockFood.ca)

You can make your own baby food at home with a few basic kitchen tools: Fork or potato masher, grater, toaster, blender or food processor, and good cutting knife.

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Cooked protein foods
These can be chopped, minced, grated, or cut up. You can purée or mash them in water, breastmilk, or the liquid you cooked them in. If you are formula feeding, you can use formula.

• Beef
• Pork
• Chicken
• Turkey
• Fish – See: Consumption Guideline: Fish and Mercury (GNB.ca) and Mercury in Fish (Canada.ca)
• Egg
• Dried peas, beans and lentils

Vegetables and Fruit
Fresh, frozen, and low-sodium canned vegetables and fruit offer many choices. If you can’t find canned low sodium vegetables or fruit in water, just rinse the food before you serve it.

• Cook, then mash, purée, chop, mince, grate, or cut up your fruit and veg.
• Vegetables should be cooked, but very soft fruits – like ripe bananas or avocados– can be served raw and just cut up or mashed.

Whole Grains
Smooth, plain/single ingredient infant cereals with iron can be prepared according to the directions on the package. You can mix breastmilk or formula and other fruit.

Some good whole-grain finger foods:

• pieces of toasted bagel
• dry toast strips
• rice
• quinoa
• roti
• noodles
• cooked pasta
• flatbreads
• cereal
• unsalted crackers

Honey
Babies should not have honey at all until they are 12 months old. This is due to a risk of botulism — a serious type of food poisoning.

Foods with added sugar
Babies and young children have no room in their diet for added sugars. Foods high in added sugar will leave little room in baby’s small stomach for the foods they need to grow and develop such as iron rich foods, vegetables, and fruit.

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Foods with added salt
Salt should be limited in baby’s diet because their kidneys are not fully developed and are not able to process large amounts of salt. Babies exposed to salty foods may develop a preference for these types of foods

Foods that can cause your baby to choke

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Parent’s role: What, when, where food is offered

Baby’s role: if and how much food is eaten

How to tell if your baby is hungry:

• Turns towards food
• Opens mouth when they see food
• Gets excited when they see food or when they hear things like “let’s have lunch” or “time for a snack”

How to tell if your baby is full:

• Turns their head away
• Closes their mouth when food is offered
• Spits out food
• Covers their mouth with their hands
• More interested in playing with food or throwing it on the floor

See Video: Responding To Baby’s Cues (UnlockFood.ca)

Healthy Eating Habits

Mealtimes are a chance to connect with your baby as a role model.

• Include your baby in family mealtimes
• Limit distractions. No toys or TV/ electronics at meal and snack time.
• Be patient. Babies will make a mess as they learn to feed themselves.
• Encourage but do not pressure
• Avoid using food as a punishment or reward
• Serve a variety of healthy foods, even if you do not like them.

• Use Canada’s Food Guide for what foods to offer.
• Some foods may need to be made more toddler friendly by changing the shape and texture- see section below on foods that can cause choking and how to make food safer.
• Include: fruits and vegetables, protein, and grains
  • Fruit and vegetables: carrots, celery, bell peppers, broccoli, strawberries, blueberries, bananas, etc.
  • Protein: nut and seed butters, lentils, hummus, meat, chicken, fish, eggs, milk, cheese, yogurt, etc.
  • Grains: whole grain bread, pasta, cereal, quinoa, oats, crackers, etc.
• You can choose to offer fresh, frozen or canned.   If using canned veggies, drain off the liquid and rinse to remove some of the sodium used in canning. Choose canned fruit packed in water or juice. and drain the juice.
• Offer fruit instead of fruit juice, as fruit juice can be high in sugar and lacks the fiber that fruit contains. Offer water to drink instead of juice.
• Although you may offer something from each part of the CFG plate at your meals, your toddler may choose not to eat all of it. That’s ok too!  Remember, they are learning.
• We also want to acknowledge that the best healthy eating patterns include foods that reflect your preferences for taste, your culture, budget, and your lifestyle.

See: Healthy eating for parents and children – Canada’s Food Guide

• If breastfeeding, continue until age 2 and beyond.
• Milk provides protein, fat, calcium and vitamin D, as well as other important nutrients. Offer pasteurized whole cow’s milk (3.25%) or pasteurized full fat goat milk fortified with vitamin D.
• Other types of milk, such as soy, almond, coconut, rice or hemp are not a suitable alternative to drinking cows/goats’ milk or breastmilk as they don’t contain comparable amounts of fat, protein and energy
• If included, offer 2-3 cups (500-750ml) of milk per day.
• After age 2, you can switch to a lower fat milk. Soy milk is the recommended plant-based alternative.
• Offer about 1/2 cup of milk at a time (for example at each meal and at bedtime).
• Health Canada recommends a vitamin D supplement of 400 IU for breastfed or partially breastfed babies/toddlers until the age of 2.
• It is understood that after age 2, children are likely eating adequate food sources of vitamin D on a daily basis and do not require a vitamin D supplement. These food sources may include milk, egg yolk, fatty fish, and soft margarine.

See: Vitamin D – Canada.ca

• Some foods contain higher amounts of sugar and should be offered less often
• We suggest offering small portions of sweets in a neutral way, not as a ‘treat’ or as a reward. They could be offered at a meal instead of at the end (they may choose to eat the “dessert’ first sometimes and that’s perfectly ok.)
• Foods that can cause choking:

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See: Loving Care – 1 to 3 years

• Toddlers do best when there is a routine with their meal and snack times, so they know what to expect.  We recommend keeping to a schedule of three meals and two to three snacks each day at about the same time.
• Enjoy eating with family and friends as much as possible and avoid distractions
• Your toddler should be seated in a highchair or booster seat and supervised during meals and snacks.

See: Healthy eating for parents and children – Canada’s Food Guide

See: Loving Care – 1 to 3 years

• The parent’s role includes controlling what foods are offered, when they are offered and where they are offered at mealtimes and
• The child’s role includes controlling how much, and whether or not to eat the foods that are offered to them.
• **link health Canada website 2024-10-food-tips-parents-FINAL

• Toddler behaviours can often be mistaken for picky eating. These behaviours may include eating very little one day and a shocking amount the next; like a food one day and dislike it the next; go through a phase of only liking a handful of the same foods; say they’re full at mealtimes then be hungry shortly after; and vary in their love for eating.
• Toddler eating habits likely start at around 18 months. Your baby that was once open to exploring and trying new foods will start developing new behaviors around feeding.
• They are also learning to process their emotions, test boundaries or they may want to assert control of situations.
• These behaviors are often temporary and will go away over time as your toddler continues to grow and develop. When you spend time eating as a family and modelling the eating behaviors you’d like to see, your toddler will learn to participate and adopt these new behaviors over time.

Distraction

When your toddler is too distracted to eat here are some tips:

• Have sit-down meals & snacks.
• Keep to a schedule.
• Remove the distraction (toys, tv screen).
• Keep mealtimes short and sweet.

Throwing Food

If you toddler starts throwing food during mealtimes here are some tips:

• Stay Calm & Neutral when it happens.
• Give them 1 or 2 more chances to correct the behavior and if throwing food continues, remove the food.
• Prepare to take the hint your toddler is finished eating.
• Introduce the “No” bowl – This is especially useful for toddlers that tend to get overwhelmed when they have food in front of them that they don’t want. The “no” bowl is a designated place where your toddler can put the food that they have said no to. This gives them the control to choose between the options put in front of them and keep the items they DO want while putting the foods they DON’T in a designated place that isn’t all over the floor.

Food Refusal

If you toddler is refusing foods during meal or snack times here are some tips:

• Resist the urge to pressure, bribe or force them to eat the food.
• Let them explore unfamiliar foods at their own pace.
• Pair new foods with familiar ones.
• Keep offering the rejected foods.
• Switch up the serving style (For example instead of potato wedges, try serving the potatoes cut into fries or mash them up.)
• Include them in prep/cooking the food.
• Eat the same foods as a family.
• Resist the urge to hide, sneak or trick your toddler into eating vegetables and fruits.
• Tone down strong vegetable flavours with seasonings, herbs, sauces/gravy, or breadcrumbs.
• Tone down ‘weird’ fruit textures by making them into a sauce/jam or choosing canned vs fresh.
• Be prepared to accept when your toddler simply doesn’t like it.