This week during my mothers’ group a nutritionist came to talk to us about introducing our babies to solid foods. All of the babies are just four months old and so I was extremely surprised to discover that every single one of us–yes, including me–have already started our babies with solids. And the nutritionist thought this was great and appropriate.
In the US there is a huge push to wait until six months, and I dutifully waited until nearly seven with Little Girl, but with Baby Bro I started earlier (he was eating massive quantities of formula; he was desperately disappointed we weren’t sharing our meals; he’s on the large size for his age). I was feeling kind of defensive about it, though, (despite the pediatric nurse saying it was best to follow his interest) until I learned at that gathering that that’s the norm here in Sweden anyway. Lots of people even start with “smakportioner” (little tastes) earlier than four months.
There were some other notable differences in baby feeding guidelines that caught my attention. We were advised:
–start with mashed potato, parsnips, or turnips
–add olive oil, butter, or margarine to baby food
–no leafy green vegetables under one year
–introduce gluten-containing foods by age six months
–starting at ten months, babies can drink regular milk, as long as it is low fat
–from four to six months, when the quantities are small, babies can have salted adult-style food
–you don’t need to wait several days between trying new foods to see if babies react allergically
–formula and välling (which I believe is a formula/cereal hybrid) are equally fine as baby’s main food (if not breastfeeding, or in supplementation)
There was nothing about rice cereal. I don’t even think they sell it here.
Some of the other tips were not that different from what I remember being told in the US (e.g. try vegetables before fruits, try the same food multiple times before deciding the baby doesn’t like it). There was no real discussion of Baby-Led Weaning (skipping purees and going straight to finger foods) but I think that’s because all of our babies are too small to feed themselves at this point. I largely did that method with Little Girl and it was easy and fun, though.
I’m not sure why the Swedes are not pushing the wait-until-six-months thing that the WHO recommends and which is such a benchmark of educated and careful motherhood in certain circles in the US, but it’s nice to know the thing I thought made sense for my baby is completely accepted here.
Baby Bro’s tried tiny bits of several different foods so far (notably potato, mango, banana, and oatmeal) and though sometimes it seems like he’s not eating the food so much as redistributing it around his person, he is super-psyched to join in our activities at the kitchen table (finally, they’re sharing!), and that really seems like the important part.
14 January 2012 at 3:32 pm
Thanks for sharing this! I just started Mathis on rice cereal this week, at 5.5 months, and a friend in Sweden told me about the new recommendations there. I wholeheartedly trust the Swedish way, so I’ll try to Swedify things a bit.
14 January 2012 at 3:48 pm
Here’s the recommendations:
http://www.slv.se/sv/grupp1/Mat-och-naring/Kostrad/Spadbarn/
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16 January 2012 at 10:16 am
Thanks! Also, now that I think about, I bet the whole rice cereal thing here has a lot to do with iron. So it’s not totally lame.
16 January 2012 at 12:25 pm
About the iron: the iron is added and can be added to other foods as well, that has nothing to do with the rice itself.
16 January 2012 at 12:30 pm
Yes, I should have said “iron fortified.”
18 January 2012 at 10:02 am
It’s the same with swedish “välling”. Do you know why rice is commonly used over there? Is it tradition or is it supposed to be bettter in some way?
18 January 2012 at 10:42 am
I think rice is tradition, and I think it is because it’s just really easy to make mushy and thin for small babies, and some people put it in a bottle with the formula. I never used it (preferred baby oatmeal). Plenty of people don’t use rice cereal now under the theory that it has no real nutritive benefit.
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18 January 2012 at 10:52 am
I understand, thank you. Just as here then, a combination of tradition and what is supposed to be healthy, and sometimes what people once thought was healthy. :)
18 January 2012 at 11:09 am
I think it’s also because it’s extremely easy to digest. And, to clarify, whole grain rice cereal is naturally nutritious … it isn’t stripped of nutrients like white rice cereal. The Earth’s Best variety that I’m feeding Mathis is made with brown rice.
18 January 2012 at 1:46 pm
Huh, I don’t think they had brown rice cereal when my older child was a baby. We used the Earth’s Best oatmeal.
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14 January 2012 at 3:58 pm
WHO recently changed its recommendations–now it’s “between 4 and 6 months” and I think the AAP is going with that now too–can’t remember. Also, the US is backing off on the whole allergy sequence thing as it hasn’t been shown to help.
I’m fairly horrified at low fat milk before a year though. Kids at 10 months are still drinking a lot of milk. UK practice is fairly lax–no allergy sequence, but “no milk as a drink before 1 year of age”. (Baby led weaning is a thing with the yummy mummy types in the UK–think Guardian readers–but most people use baby rice and pureed fruit/veg, with Weetabix mixed with milk next–much easier than rice). They were pushing the “not before 6 months” thing with my first but health visitors still regularly told mums to feed solids before that–and I was the only mother I knew who waited to 6 months. Though mine was genuinely uninterested till then.
14 January 2012 at 4:08 pm
Yeah, I actually asked for her to repeat the low-fat milk thing to make sure I didn’t misunderstand and she insisted. I’d never heard that before. She did say 10-12 months was the age you can introduce regular milk, but it was the low-fat bit of it that was different, since they told us in the US that full-fat was what one-year-olds needed. I’ll ask the pediatric nurse again about it when we get to that stage.
My older child wasn’t interested in food before we started her, either, but Baby #2 was heartbroken he wasn’t getting to eat. They’re all different!
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14 January 2012 at 4:39 pm
Huh. That’s very odd to me – I was under the impression that the full fat foods were necessary to brain development. Aside from that, though, the recommendations don’t sound too different from what I was told. The only things we were told to avoid were peanut butter and honey. But I think peanut butter was more about difficulty in swallowing, and honey has the botulism thing.
14 January 2012 at 9:18 pm
A note re: fat and milk: Swedish food recommendation is pretty strict about the saturated fats, so the idea is to use vegatable oils and fatty veggies like avocado (when age appropriate) for the very essential fat and keep the milk fat down – especially as Swedes are huge consumers of milk.
14 January 2012 at 9:40 pm
Hmmm…that is interesting. Guppy is definitely interested in watching us eat, but I am waiting until 6 months to start solids. I am actually thinking about baby-led weaning this time around.
14 January 2012 at 11:26 pm
FWIW, the recommendations changed here in the US between my two kids, too- I was told I could start solids before 6 months with the second kid.
The thing that seems really weird/different is the recommendation for low fat milk. We’re told to do full fat here until 2 years old.
15 January 2012 at 12:13 am
I’ve always had HUGE problems with all four of my boys in waiting until 6 months of age to introduce solids. I always thought it was because they were huge. (By 6 months, most of them were at least 20lbs, if not 25 by then.) So around 4 months, every single one of them was smacking the dining room table and reaching for food and crying and acting hysterical. I started them all on solids before 6 months, but what I ended up realizing that it was less about actually eating it than “play” eating it. All of them gagged or spit out most of it, which is supposed to mean that they aren’t actually physically ready. My theory is that it may just be a sensory boy thing.
15 January 2012 at 12:15 am
Oh, also, the recommendations change constantly. I had a child 13 years ago and they were recommending juice bottles. That recommendation changed in the 6 year gap between kids.
15 January 2012 at 9:12 pm
I wasn’t in the US when Eggbert was born, but did get advice from my American friends as well as our Korean pediatrician, and honestly, none of it sounds too different from the Swedish way (other than the lowfat milk thing). I was told no leafy greens before 1 year also, but I can’t remember why, There is no rice cereal in Korea either, or at least I never found any that didn’t have a bunch of other random ingredients also (like fish!). We started her off on root vegetables also. That wasn’t really a product of our ped’s suggestions, though, but was just based on stuff I had been reading. I don’t really get the rice cereal obsession.
15 January 2012 at 9:12 pm
P.S. I forgot to say that BB is adorable!
16 January 2012 at 8:23 am
Not everyone in Sweden agrees with the low fat milk thing, honestly I think SLV are (wrongly) a little obsessed with low fat.
And I do think it’s important to remember that the advice are constantly cnanging, and we all became sort of alright anyway, didn’t we..? ;)
17 January 2012 at 2:18 pm
Interesting, I cannot remember being told about the low-fat thing, but we do mix full fat and low fat depending on what is on hand. I do remember that we waited until 6 months with solids because LO was completely disinterested, gaining weight and happy, and because I was planning a long trip and didn’t want to have to fuss with solids when LO was 5 months and being in different countries, BFing was just easier. I remember the ped. nurse kept pushing us to start solids and I just played it off. I know a lot of Moms in our area felt intimidated waiting with solids as well, but I know a lot of babies who felt much better starting solids earlier, so I think this is one of those ‘everyone is different’ things they try to medicalize.