Baby's best first food

Most of us are taught that Commercial Baby Rice is the best first food to start our baby's on, yet is it really? Do you know that it generally has at least five ingredients in it? Most of those are not great for your child's health, not to mention the effects of them trying to digest five different ingredients as their first food. So what is the most nutritional, easily digestible food to offer your baby at six months of age and how do you make it?

Best first food

Red sweet potato is the star of the solids feast here. It is a fantastic first food for you baby, and the one that I recommend to families time and time again. It's also great as a base of all your infant’s meals until at least ten months of age. That is how good it is in nutritional value. It’s also very easy on their digestive symptom. If you can't get sweet potato, then the next choice is orange pumpkin, followed by orange squash. 

But back to the sweet potato. It is a standout antioxidant food with some studies showing it can deliver more beta-carotene than green leafy vegetables and while beta-carotene in itself isn’t an essential mineral for us, the fact that it is concerted to Vitamin A, which is essential, helps make the sweet potato a stand out option for your child. One cup of it is 214% vitamin A, aiding healthy skin, mucus membranes, our immune system and good vision. Sweet potato is also high in vitamin C, manganese, copper and vitamin B6. It also has lesser but helpful amounts of biotin, which helps metabolise carbohydrates, fats and amino acids thus aiding digestion for baby’s first foray into solids, potassium, fiber and vitamins B3, B1, and B2.

Now, while I believe parenting choice is important, and work with this throughout my care with families, I also feel it is important to speak up when research shows us that something doesn’t work for our newborns and in the case of feeding solid foods to our infants. Baby Lead Weaning (BLW) is one of those things. Why? Because no infants system, or teeth, are ready to chew or digest chunks of solid food at six months. Biologically they aren't ready until at least 11 months. In fact it takes two years for an infant's digestive system to function the same as an adults. This is part of the reason why I am the founder of a new method of introducing solid food called Bio-logical Weaning + Plain + Slow = Gain + Grow. With this method you can be sure your infant is getting the time their body requires to flourish. That said, let’s get to the ‘how’ of making your baby’s first, soft, delicious, mouth full of sweet potato.

How to make pureed sweet potato

3 red kumera
1½ tbsp Olive oil to a meduim size sweet potato – this will help aid bowel motions
Blender
2-3 Ice cube trays - vegetables can last up to 6 months in the fridge

6 months & 10 months

Puree for 6-10 month olds

Freeze in blocks from 10 months

Peel your sweet potato and cut it into small cubes, then either steam or boil until soft. When your baby is around 10 months old you can keep the skin on the sweet potato and just wash it if you would like – the skin holds a lot of goodness. Once cooked, blend in a food processor, using the water they were cooked in, or over if you steamed them, to make them a very smooth, moist consistency. While blending you can add in the olive oil. Alternatively you can add a drop of olive oil for each teaspoon of sweet potato before you feed it. The oil quantity is trial and error for each baby but these portions are a good place to start. Once cooled, place into an ice cube tray in the freezer.