How Do You Know Your Baby is ready to Begin Solid Foods?

It is a big step for a baby to start eating solid foods in their diets and parents are so excited to help their baby to experience new flavors and food textures. Experts suggested that parents should wait for their baby at least 6 months old before they can introduce any solid foods to them because before a baby reaches 6 months or older, solid foods are not nutritionally required for their growth and development.

In addition to age, there are some signs that show a baby is ready to begin solid foods:

• When the baby is able to sit with help or support.
• When on its stomach, the baby can push up on arms with straight elbows.
• The baby is interested in food when others eat.
• Loss of tongue-thrust reflex - This will let the baby to drink and ingest liquids more easier because with the tongue-thrust reflex present, baby possibly will just drink in liquid purees or thrust the food back out where it protects the baby against choking.
• Doubling on birth weight.

This gives them the opportunity to get adapted to new tastes and textures and enables parents to identify unpleasant reactions to specific foods in their child’s diet. If a certain food stimulates a reaction such as allergy, diarrhea, bloating or gas, then it should be taken out from the baby’s diet for 1 to 3 months before giving the same food to the child again.

Research suggested that a baby at 1 year old, most of them can stand foods which caused a reaction to them earlier. Bring in many different type of foods and flavors to babies in the first two years of life will enhance their possibility to try new foods. Babies should be always sit up when they are eating or drinking, and placed so that they can see their parent’s face when feeding them. Mealtimes offer significant chances for babies and parents to enjoy eating together and enhance the relationship between the mother and child or father and child or both. Additionally, parents should not feed their babies when they are in a rush. Moreover, appetites of babies’ many change from day to day, and they will let their parents know that when they are full by turning their heads away from the spoon or holding their lips closed. Parents also should not force their babies should to eat after they are full. For children under 2 years old, dietary fats are needed in their diets as it is important for the formation of nerves and brain tissues. Health experts do not advise parents to feed reduced-fat foods to children in their diets during this age. On the other hand, to prevent the developing of nursing bottle dental caries in your baby, parents should never put their babies to bed with a bottle of milk or other liquids.

Infant Nutrition

It has been long known that it is important to establish healthful nutrition practices and habits during childhood year and early adolescence. Diet and physical activities are important for these development years which will later set the stage for life-long habits like the difference between strength of health and illness during later years.

For and infant, the optimal growth, health and behavioral development period will be from birth to 2 years but it is also a peak age for their growth to flatter for example, deficiencies in a certain micronutrient and some common childhood illness like diarrhea. In addition, nutrition insufficiencies occurred during this age will have direct and long-term costs which include delayed motor and metal development and also associated with impairments and academic performance, work capability, reproductive outcomes and overall health during their adolescence and adulthood years. Therefore, sufficient nutrition is needed to achieve for a child’s to have full human potential.

There are studies supported that exclusive breast-feeding for the first 6 months of life and the continuation of breast feeding together with suitable complementary feeding up to 2 years old or more. Breast feeding is known to be a nutritional diet as well as has immunologic benefits for an infant. Moreover, nowadays the scientific evidence showed that breast feeding may also have a protective effect against childhood obesity. Hence, breast feeding is highly encouraged all over the world. While breast feeding is encouraged, iron-fortified formulas for infants are also acceptable if the mother cannot breast feed her baby.

In addition, complementary feeding is suitable when breast feeding alone is not enough to provide sufficient nutrients in the infant’s diet and when other solids and liquids are required other than breast milk and take it in along with breast milk but the developmental of the readiness for complementary foods varies among infants. There are some experts suggested that parents should introduce the first complementary foods in the baby’s diet between 4 and 6 months of age. According to them, parents should feed their baby with simple, fundamental foods first. For instance, a single-grain and iron-fortified baby cereal will do. Semi-liquid ground rice cereal is normally suggested due to the gluten-free property and seldom related to the allergic response where gluten is a protein that can sometimes cause allergic reactions in infants.

The iron in fortified baby cereal can aids in preventing iron-deficiency anemia which is a common nutritional disorder during infancy. Once infants can handle that, then they can slowly move up to mashed foods. When they reach the age around 7 to 10 months, thinly chopped foods is applicable.

Diabetes snack tips for children

As mentioned earlier, snacking is important for kids or children with diabetes to maintain their blood glucose level other than their diets. But overboard of snacks can be dangerous for kids also. Therefore, following are some healthy snack tips for diabetic child.

1. Limit children snacks to lower calories as possible. Parents must make sure that their kids are really hungry and not just bored or too stressed to crave on chocolates because it is dangerous if snacks become extra meals if children go overboard. And then mother can limit their kid’s snacks to 100-150 calories or less.
   
2. Watch out for low-fat snacks. There are studies indicate that child tend to eat more snacks when they are stated low-fat because they think they are having lower calories. But normally, low-fat snacks will have about 11% lesser calories compared to the full-fats one. Therefore, do not let your kids eat too much on snacks; keep to the amount they needed.
   
3. Have a few whole-grain crackers with peanut butter. Parents should let their children to eat more protein and lesser carbohydrates and the kid’s blood sugar will not raise so much. Moreover, whole grain crackers have more nutrition than other normal crackers.
   
4. Plate your children snacks. Mother can put a small amount or portion on a plate and let her children eat just the snack on the plate. Seal it and put away the snack after putting on to the plate. This is because if parents let their kids to eat straight from the bag, the kids are going to eat more.
   
5. Encourage children to snack more on raw vegetables and fruits. Parents should encourage their children to eat more fruits and vegetables in their diets and meals. But snacks also can be fresh veggies or fruits. Mother can suggest her child to snack on grape tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, and cauliflower. Kids also can choose to eat them plain or plunge them into nonfat yogurt or a light salad dressing which can make the raw vegetables taste better.
   
6. Blend a fruit smoothie. Parents can try combining half of a chopped banana, 3⁄4 cup non-fat or low-fat plain yogurt, and small amount of sugar, and blend until smooth.
   
7. Eat apples with the skin. There are studies showed that an apple with the skin have about 3g of fiber. The skin contains healthy soluble fiber that helps to lower cholesterol, avoid heart disease and also antioxidants that fight free radicals and also lower down the risk of diabetes complications.
   

The above are some recommendations of snacks for diabetic children, but it is important also to do exercise in order to maintain the blood glucose and also keep the body healthy for a kid. Therefore, for a diabetic kid to keep healthy, they should balanced diets, eat foods with nutrition and diet low in sugar, healthy snacks and do more physical activities. All these may help them to decrease further diabetes complications in their future lives.

Why Snacking in Important for Diabetic Children?

As we all know, diet & nutrition are important for a healthy lifestyle. But is it possible that when your child have diabetes and still have fun eating? Certainly they can. The reason is, consuming snacks is very crucial of every child’s daily meal plan, especially for those kids with diabetes. Normally, when parents first notice that their child have diabetes, they can’t stop thinking about how to control their kid’s diet and change their kid’s eating habits. But, kids with diabetes still can eat healthfully and still can enjoy snacks. Most of the people are told to stay away from heavy meals and stretch their eating throughout the day, therefore, kids snacking can actually be encouraged.

Nearly all diabetic diets or meal plan will have at least 2 to 3 snacks per day in order to maintain a balanced diet, but, parents must watch on what their kid eat over the whole day and are within the individualized nutritional goals of the child. The main part to uphold an active child’s blood glucose level is to get the balance between the child’s insulin, intake of food and also physical activity. This is because insulin and exercises will help to lower down the blood sugar levels where foods can raise blood sugar levels, particularly carbohydrates.

According to some experts, foods will need to change as the kids with diabetes grow and they have to become more physically active. Snacks may be necessary in preventing blood sugar from dropping too low between meals. But these should not be snack foods high in sugar and fat, like candy or chips. Furthermore there are studies from doctors and nutritionists indicate that snacks for children with diabetes should originate from: grains, dairy, fruits, and vegetables. Additionally, they recommend using the Food Pyramid for Kids as a reliable guide to understanding food groups and portion sizes.

Foods can become healthy snacks with only a few modifications. A piece of fresh fruit, carrot and celery sticks are always a good idea, low-fat sugar-free yogurt, low-fat popcorn are examples of low fat snacks. In addition, parents can add a few spurts of butter-flavored spray and a add garlic or onion powder on popcorn make a tasty snack that can help to avoid high concentrations of fat and sodium. Parents can also include bran muffins, graham crackers, cereal and milk in their children’s diet or make it as snack.

Usually, kids with diabetes have the tendency to over snack for fear of low blood sugar levels. Therefore, if parents are not alert of this kind of situation, it may cause problems as they try to respond to the child's elevated blood sugar levels. That is why it is so important that their meal plans and diets need to be well-monitored by adults. This also can make sure that the children nutrition status is achieved and not over or malnutrition because of diabetes.

What You can Do with Your Diabetic Child?

Each child’s has different needs for their nutrition requirements. Diabetic children require eating the same nutritious food that other family members are having. They do not need to go on ‘diet’, diabetic child can eat everything but in moderation, which includes foods with sugar and special diabetic and dietetic foods are not required. However, parents need to watch the time their kids eat such as their meal or snacks. Moreover, parents also need to watch how much their kids eat, for example, the portion size should be the same everyday, and also watch the balance of what their kids eat for each meal which is not too much on one type of food only in their diets.

When parents preparing their children’s meal, they probably will need to work with the dietitian to plan the meals and snacks initially. According to some experts, most of the recommended plan is called ‘carbohydrate counting’ which is keeping track of the sugars and starchy foods where they will affect the most on blood sugar. Parents also have to equal the amount of the carbohydrate in their child’s diet to the amount of insulin of the child takes. Parents should also train their child to have balanced food intake with their insulin levels, get enough calories for their normal growth and also make their meals or diet satisfying and enjoyable.

The meals and snacks recommended shall base on the principles of the diabetes food pyramid which they need about 50% of calories come from complex carbohydrates such as breads, rice, starchy vegetables like potatoes, corn and beans. Parents should provide more fresh vegetables and fruits for their kids in their diets. On the other hand, protein can be obtain from lean meats like chicken, fish and eggs, dairy foods should be nonfat or low-fat and also minimized added fats and sugars. Below is the diabetes food pyramid. Parents should follow this food pyramid when preparing their diabetic child’s diets and snacks.