Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Best finger foods for babies

Is your baby pointing the finger foods? If yes, then don’t restrict him/her from eating. This sign shows their development to grow. Around 7 to 8 months old children are ready to try Finger foods. So, allow them to consume finger foods. But, the question is what the best Finger foods are? Get your answer here. It is not too difficult to choose finger foods that are to be fed to your child. You only need to take care that they can chew the given food easily. Mostly, the preferred foods for babies are those which can be easily mashed and chewed with little or no teeth. Fruits like grapes need teeth to eat so ignore such foods.

Best finger foods for babies

Introduce as many aromas, colors and textures in your foods to teach your child to eat everything and to keep him away from preciseness during later youth. The food that can be apprehended by the hands of the baby is included in category of finger foods. The special baby biscuits are the best example of Finger foods. There are many vegetables, fruits and other homemade foods that can be consumed by babies. Your baby will not only enjoy the finger foods but will also become independent to develop his own likes and dislike as well as learn the correct way of eating.

Don’t worry about the messy hands of your child while eating finger foods; leave him to develop at his own the healthy eating habits. Finger feeding and later including utensils will help your child to have a control over what to eat and how much to eat. If your child shows irregularity in eating food, then don’t panic as he will step to the process of learning self- control. Don’t stop spoon-feeding of cereals and other important dietary elements even if they start self-feeding of finger foods. Self-feeding will help your child to recognize and react to hunger.

The next general question comes is When to provide finger foods? How much? It is not necessary to wait till the teeth of your baby grow. The correct time to offer finger food is when your baby sits properly around 7 months old. The quantity of the food should be adjusted according to the age of your baby. It would be advisable to provide finger foods once a day to 6-8 months child. However, at the age of 9 months or 1 year the quantity should be increased to 2 times a day. It is equally important to maintain the nutritional values of finger food that must be met in one day.

The nutritional value should not exceed 30% per day. For 6-8 months baby, the nutritional value of finger food should be around 165 calories that is equivalent to 1 piece of medium-size banana or papaya that weigh 100 grams or 1 or 2 carrots biscuits poured with milk. Whereas, those who enter the age of 9-12 months the nutritional value reaches approximately 195 calories per day. To fulfill this amount of calories, slice of cheese of medium size or a pancake with 2 pieces of fruit and 5 vegetables and also fruit jelly or 2 seed-sized meatballs can be added to their meals. Finger food in the form of pop corn, nuts or other foodstuffs, which are small in size, should be avoided as it may stifle.

Lastly, you would be interested to know the benefits of feeding finger food. So, you would be glad to know that your baby will receive a perfect growth by finger-feeding. Your baby will learn self-feeding by doing so that will lower your burden to teach him/her. This will also boost the confidence of your child to perform self-feeding. Start providing solid foods to your baby that will help him/her to learn grasping skills. Inspire your baby to hold the food properly that will increase the reflexivity of the child. Sucking finger foods will help your baby to overcome the itching while growth of teeth and will give a perfect texture to their teeth.

The Best Finger foods to be fed:
  • Small 'trees' of cooked broccoli or cauliflower
  • Vegetables
  • Cubes of avocado or Slices of it
  • Green beans or cooked peas
  • Cucumber or slices of tomato
  • Potato, sweet potato, soft baked carrot
  • Cut butternut squash into chip shapes
  • Servings of cooked courgette
  • Pieces of very ripe banana
  • Softened dried apricots
  • Pieces of melon
  • Ripe mango
  • Stewed prunes
  • Cut apple into strips
  • Cubes or Peels of soft fruits
  • Pieces of ripe pear
  • Chopped and soft cooked chicken, beef or turkey
  • Cheese slice
  • Bread sticks
  • Lightly toasted bagels or bread, spread with cream cheese, butter, vegetable puree or fruit
  • Scrambled egg yolks or Hard-boiled egg yolk
  • Small chunks of naan bread or pitta bread
  • Tofu chopped in small cubes
  • Finger shapes of Home-made pizza
  • Low-sugar cereals
  • Roughly chopped and soft cooked fish
  • Rice cakes
  • Spiral-Cooked pasta shapes
  • Crackers

1 comments:

Have you ever used a munckin feeder, it's a really cool gadget that holds food in a kind of mesh bag with a handle on it. The baby can suck the food (fruit or whatever) right through it. There is a video of my grandson eating out of one on this hubpage article about cool baby stuff. He just loves it.

Post a Comment

Twitter Delicious Facebook Digg Stumbleupon Favorites More