Encouraging Your Baby to Eat Textured Foods
This is a sponsored post. All opinions are 100% mine.
Babies can be finicky when it comes to texture. For a long time, our daughter preferred only pureed foods. Every single day, she would have a serving of Apples and Chicken baby food until well after her first birthday.
We learned the hard way that starting babies on more advanced textures prior to their first birthday is key to helping them transition to table food. Some studies indicate that if babies haven’t been exposed to soft chunks of food by the time they are around 10 months old, they have a much harder time transitioning to more solid foods.
Gerber has created a product that helps with this developmental transition called Gerber 3rd Foods Lil’ Bits that are specifically created to help little ones learn to chew!
The Lil’ Bits comes in 10 different varieties: 7 fruits and 3 veggies, with unique blends such as “Island Fruit Blend” and “Sweet Potato Apples Carrots & Cinnamon” that are great for introducing your child to a broader range of tastes.
We love that the Gerber 3rd Foods Lil’ Bits are easy to throw in the diaper bag and take along. And if your little one doesn’t finish the whole thing, just pop the plastic top back on and store it in the fridge until the next meal!
I love that Gerber 3rd Foods Lil’ Bits give parents the confidence of more textured foods without the fear of choking or gagging.
How do you introduce your child to more advanced textures of food?
Gerber 3rd Foods Lil Bits Recipes help babies learn to chew and ease the transition to table food.
Official Rules
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Gerber. The opinions and text are all mine.
If every meal is fraught with questions (Did they eat enough meat? Enough veggies? Enough altogether?), take a step back. “Kids’ appetites fluctuate with their level of activity, their mood and their growth,” says Stephanie Jamain, a registered dietitian with ATP Nutrition in Montreal. “Don’t stress over a couple of unbalanced meals — or days.”
Sure, it’s good to strive for balance, adds Melanie Stokes, program development coordinator for the Kids Eat Smart Foundation in St. John’s. “You can aim for three of the four food groups at breakfast, and four at lunch and dinner, but don’t worry if it doesn’t happen every time.”
Over the course of a week, most kids will eat what they need, agrees Jennifer House, owner of First Step Nutrition in Calgary. A parent’s job is to decide what’s for dinner; a kid’s job is to decide how much of it to eat. “Many parents try to control how much their kids eat, but this just leads to power struggles,” says House. Letting kids learn their own satiety signals means they’re less likely to grow up with appetite control issues or disordered eating. “If your child is healthy, has energy and is an appropriate weight, don’t waste time worrying about how much they eat at a meal.”