Hi Moms!
My son is turing one this month!! Very exciting but also very nerve wrecking...Right now he is eating anywhere from 20 to 24 ounces of formula a day. How do I start him on whole milk and is there a specific amount he must have (like 24 oz a day?). Also, he is still on 3rd stage foods. I have tried giving him table foods but he just keeps it all in his mouth and does not really swallow. Am I trying this too early? How did you guys introduce your one year olds to table foods and how long before they ate it normally? He also just waves the spoon around...Not so much interested in using it. So, is he behind on all this table food stuff and how do I get him up to speed? Oh, and now he eats anywhere from 3 to 4 hours so about 5 times a day. Do I keep this schedule? Thanks!!
Hi everyone
Thank you all so much for your input. Right now, he's still into smashing the food rather then trying to feed himself. But I'll keep at it and sooner or later, he'll get it right :) I've been feeding him table food and he seems to be doing well with it. It does take him a while to eat but that's ok.
Thanks again everyone!
Talk to your Dr. Every kid is different. Some children do not need whole milk, my girlfriends son needed 2 percent?!?!? Have a discussion with your Dr., I am sure you culd even call instead of making an appointment
hi there! first off, I would definitely speak to your pediatrician on what's best for you guys. i have a 1 yr old daughter and slowly started her on whole milk at 10 months (doc advised b/c we have no food allergies in our family), just an ounce or two a day. then a little more at 11 months. now she only drinks whole milk. she eats three times a day, breakfast, lunch and dinner and has milk with each meal (about 4-6oz). we just recently weaned her off milk before bed. she's off the bottle too - only sippy cups (just went cold turkey and she was fine w/ it). she's been eating table foods for a few months now b/c once i introduced them she didn't like the baby food or being spoon fed. i would try the pasta pick ups by gerber - quartered - and other really cooked pastas. for veggies, cooked well and mushy try brocolli, carrots, green beans (gerber has jars) and my daughter loves avocados. cheese is good, especially american that's really soft. crackers and cheerios were good starter foods for her to master her pincher grasp. just take it slow and see how he does - gagging is natural for the first few times but if it happens frequently then take it slow, he may not be ready yet. each baby has their own schedule, you'll get there eventually!
My littlest turns one at the end of this month, too. I'll tell you what we do, but really whatever works for you two is what's best for him!
My daughter pretty much eats whatever I eat. For breakfast she has toast or a waffle for breakfast with a banana and sausage or yogurt and dry cereal. She feels herself everything except the yogurt. Lunch and dinner are whatever the rest of us are having. She'll eat mashed potatoes, chicken, roasted carrots, taco meat, cheese, zuchini, avocado, anything! She just picks it up off the tray herself. If I'm giving her something liquidy like soup or applesauce, I feed it to her myself. She doesn't know how to make the spoon work either, and frankly, I'm just not willing to deal with the mess yet.
As to the milk, I started slowing mixing it in with the formula. Right now I'm just using up the rest of my formula before I switch her to straight milk.
The thing I'm most worried about is getting her to go from the bottle to the sippy cup. She seems to think the sippy cup is just a toy! Then again, my older two eventually gave up their bottles, so I'm sure she will someday, too. It just seems to take forever!
Have fun.
My son is turning one this month too and I have also wondered about how to introduce whole milk. What I have heard from other moms is to slowing mix the milk with the formula....try the afternoon bottles first...and then you can switch to straight milk at 1. I offer a sippy cup everyday with juice or water....but he doesn't really use it yet. It is more fun to bang it on the floor. tee hee As for foods...I try to offer some of what we are eating but I always start with a stage 3 or veggie. Most of the finger foods end up on the floor....but it is amazing what he will eat. Just keep trying. And the spoon.....yeah right....I just give him his own to distract him when I am feeding him something that requires a spoon. He will get the hang of it someday.....
Good Luck!
Hi Mari!
Congrats on your one year old. Can you believe how fast time flies!!! I wouldn't worry too much about table foods. If he's eating the stage 3 he's fine. I will say that when my daughter was 1 we bought the Magic Bullet Blender. I would put whatever we were eating for dinner in this thing and give it a couple of pulses and it was just like stage 3 foods. That could save you money in the log run. I plan to use it again for my son who's only 12 weeks old now. They also make great smoothies! Just keep offering him table food, maybe before you feed him his dinner so that he's hungry enough to try it. I always sat my daughter in her high chair and would throw some cheese or other foods on her tray while I cooked dinner. As for the milk, we started our daughter on whole milk like 2 weeks before she turned 1. We also intoduced the cup at this time. I just never wanted her carrying around a bottle with milk in it so we just went cold turkey milk and cup at once and she took to it very easily. He really only needs about 2-3 cups of milk a day (or equivalent in cheese & yogurt) to meet his calcium requirements. Recently I've educated myself on nutrition, especially childrens nutrition and I've become a little less of a milk fan. We are now giving our daughter only 1 cup a milk and then some vanilla soy milk. We definitely go organic with our milk. It's more expensive but I just don't like those hormones in regular milk. And don't worry about the eating schedule. It's so much better for all of us to be grazers then to eat 3 large meals a day. I'd leave him alone with his 5 small meals a day. In fact what I do now for my daughter is I fill a muffin tin with all different finger foods like carrots, whole wheat crackers, grapes, etc and let her snack on it all day. Good luck, let him lead the way and before you know it you'll have a routine to follow!
Hello,
Does he have teeth? Keep introducing fun healthy foods he may like. Yogurt is an option. My son drank soy milk because he has a allergy to cows milk.
Recommended three meals a day plus snacks and if your child says he is done he is done don't try to force him or save the left over portions. Enzymes from his mouth are going to continue to break down the nutrients in the food so if you serve him left over eaten food it has no nutritional value. More important listen to your child he will tell you when he is hungry and full listen to him and trust your gutt. Good luck
I agree with Deb. Our daughter eats anything we eat and she is still breastfed 6-7 times a day. She's going to be 1 at the end of the month too. She eats/nurses about every 2-3 hrs and is quite content. She is starting to feed herself the spoon with yogurt/rice cereal when we get it close to her mouth...otherwise we feed her the goopy stuff. She's been self feeding since she was 7 mths old. We started at 6 1/2 with solids and she's Miss Independant and wouldn't last for long with us feeding her. If he is happy and at a healthy weight, then he is eating just fine. I don't know about the formula b/c I plan to continue breastfeeding and just adding milk in like the water that she drinks all day already.
