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Growing nutrition needs

The facts on feeding your child through the years.

Madeleine Greey,

Originally published in Today's Parent January 2007

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Feeding your child can be one of the most gratifying and maddening experiences of parenthood. From those first tender nursing sessions to standoffs over broccoli, to squeezing in meals between soccer games, the journey is rife with ups, downs and detours. To help you navigate, we’ve come up with a road map. We’ve isolated some hot spots and stress inducers, along with some helpful directions to guide you through, stage by stage.

Six to nine months

Astounded by your baby’s voracious appetite? Many babes double their birth weight in the first four to five months of life, then triple it by year one.

Typical problem: “Introducing solids is messy! Is my baby getting the nutrients she needs?”

Reality bites: It’s normal for more cereal to be dripping from your little one’s chin than travelling to her tummy. “Right now,” says Toronto dietitian Lisa Weinberg, “the nutrients from solids are secondary to the experience she’s gaining.” Rest assured that baby has breastmilk or formula as a nutritional crutch during these first months.

While baby learns to eat, parents learn to read body language. A turned head or tightly closed mouth means I don’t want it. Weinberg says it’s “essential that parents respect these cues and make this first feeding experience a really positive one. Never force a baby to eat.”

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