Pediatrician Explains 10 Best First Foods & 13 Worst Foods for Baby

As promised, today we are diving into first foods for baby and some very important foods to avoid early on. Yeah, and in case you've not met us before, I'm Kurt. I'm a board-certified pediatrician and new dad. I'm Sarah. I am a board-certified OBGYN and new mom. And we are The Doctors Bjorkman. Welcome back. You may have followed us through our own journeys of getting pregnant, week by week through pregnancy, postpartum, and even our process of starting to work on baby number two. Yes. But this week, we're continuing our focus on starting solid foods and feeding your baby. So to do that, we are going to share 10 great first foods for baby, how to serve them, and most importantly, 13 foods that you really should avoid early on for early eaters. And then we're going to go wrap up with some quick reminders and tips about key things to remember when starting solids safely. As we start to jump into these great first foods and some of our favorites, the keys here are things that are easy for baby to hold on to. Again, with baby led weaning, the goal is that baby is able to feed themselves, even if it takes a lot of time and it's really messy. And the other thing is that the food that they're putting in their mouth is safe. So it should be something that they're able to mush and it kind of mushes into their mouth. And then it's easy for them to swallow something that isn't a risk of being kind of a chunk that could get caught either in their esophagus feeding tube or their trachea, the breathing. So number one, I think the first food we gave Cecilia was avocado. So again, you want a nice ripe avocado cutting it kind of in big long strips that she can hold on to and feed herself. Pro tip for avocado. It actually is very, very slippery. And so something we would do is roll it in breadcrumbs or you can roll it in, you know, other things, um, to give it some texture and make it easier for that little one to hang on to. Yeah. I didn't realize how slippery they were until watching her try to feed herself first time. Yeah. Yes. Uh, another great early food for babies is a banana. So you can offer this, um, in a variety of ways. You could mash it up and preload a spoon for baby to grab, or you can kind of serve it in thirds, little strips of. Yeah, this was something that I didn't realize until we had a six month old that we were feeding. But if you peel a banana and then you actually can like push your finger down the end of it, it naturally splits in the thirds lengthwise, which are great, nice chunks for baby to be able to hold on to and feed themselves and a nice ripe banana for them to eat. That is not a choking risk. Uh, next on our list was sweet potato strips, yams, acorn squash, butternut squash, and the squash family things that you've cooked to be again, soft and mushable, but then cut in nice longer strips. It's easy for them to hang on to feed themselves. Then once it's in the mouth, it's going to be easy for them to kind of mush and swallow. Yeah. And again, it's okay, you know, to add a little olive oil to this when you cook it in the oven or some spices that you like on it, um, to taste totally fine to introduce those flavors to baby early. Yeah. Ideally not adding a lot of extra salt. Um, but other than that, kind of the normal flavors of your kitchen. Yeah. Um, number four, great early food. Um, it would be scrambled eggs or kind of omelet strips. Now the thing to keep in mind here is egg is one of those big allergens. So this is one, you know, to introduce alone and then not introduce new things for a couple of days. Um, but eggs are a great source of protein and those omelet strips are easy thing for baby to pick up and eat and work on new textures and flavors. Yeah. And we were just cooking an omelet, cutting it in a little strip that she could hold onto and feed herself. Next on our list and kind of the first of our many, very messy options for this would be hummus or mashed chickpeas. Again, these are also a potential allergen. Um, so again, something that's nice to just add by itself on a day. Um, but was great. Um, the other thing that we found with this and some other things is these were great things to kind of load up on a baby spoon, um, for her. And then she could, it was amazing to me, like the ability of our six month old to be able to take that spoon to their mouth. Um, I don't know that this brand of spoon, um, num, num on it. I'll find it and link it below. It's like a stage zero and stage one spoon. It kind of has a hole in it. So things just stay on the spoon. It isn't rounded one way or the other. So it's just kind of a flat thing that they bring to their mouth and it's easy, um, for a learner, but they work, it's just, they're working on the mechanics. Like there is something yummy on this spoon. I bring it to my mouth. Um, again, you are not feeding baby. This is you load up their spoon and let them feed themselves at the pace they want. It is going to be slow and messy. That is okay. Yes. Um, while we're on the messy train, another food that we loved, um, was yogurt. Um, we usually would pick kind of a full fat yogurt. Um, and Cease really loved that. Again, it's super messy, but very much not a choking risk. It's a smooth, um, you know, dairy product and load up that spoon, set it there on her little plate and let her bring it all over her face. Yeah. Um, a good time to mention the importance of having a great bib. Um, I think this was our favorites. These were by tiny twinkle. Um, just something that I covered her kind of covered her shoulders and covered most of the chair, made most of our cleanup a little bit easier because the thing, again, with this whole baby led weaning process is making sure they have things they're not distracted by. Um, so not like a heavy bib around their neck or something that they're aware of. So this is kind of like a little shirt, um, that she would just put on to eat in. And so it wasn't a face. Um, so again, just remembering not distracted, good posture. We're just practicing eating. Yeah. Uh, next on our list was tomato. So we actually, these are, we would give big tomato wedges, something she could hang on to and just really kind of suck the juice out of the middle of the tomato. But it was big enough where the, the big kind of meaty part of the tomato wasn't going to be a choking risk. It wasn't going to be something she was going to break off. Yep. Some other awesome, great first foods are going to be cooked really well cooked veggies. So broccoli, cauliflower, bell peppers, steam them, bake them, whatever, so that they are nice and soft and mushy. Um, and just, you know, you give baby that piece of broccoli and they can bring it to their mouth and chew on it. And it is a perfect, healthy, nutritious, um, food for baby. Yeah. I'm starting to think about some other protein options, um, meat family things, cooked fish, nice flake, flaky fish like salmon, trout, things like that, that they can again, have a chunk of, but when they bring it into their mouth, it's going to flake nice and be easy for them to swallow. Rich in omega-3s, DHA, great, healthy, nutritious things for babes. Uh, the final kind of thing to think about that's counterintuitive is big pieces of meat. Um, so I'm talking like a deck of card size piece of meat, um, for baby to chew on. So a big piece of steak or a chicken drumstick that, you know, doesn't really have meat left on it or a rib bone, you know, just with a little bit of meat on it that, you know, isn't falling off, um, things for them to chew on and feel that texture and get some of that juice in their mouth. And again, these are all kind of before 12 months, these preparation guidelines, um, change in terms of sizes of pieces to give to baby, you know, when they hit that kind of nine to 12 months and beyond range as your baby comes and becomes more of an advanced eater. So these are tips for very, very early eaters when you are just starting out. Um, now we just want to talk about 13 foods to be very, very careful with or completely avoid, um, in these early eaters. Um, the first on our list is honey. Um, and so honey like, oh, this should be easy for them to swallow, nice and sweet. Um, the issue with honey is that it potentially carries a toxin, um, that for older people and even older children is not a risk. Um, but the botulism and botulinum toxin, um, can cause this paralysis that can be life-threatening to infants less than one year of age. Um, in this category of honey is also like home canned foods can potentially have this toxin as well. So if they're less than 12 months of age, avoid honey, home canned foods. Number two things to avoid are round fruits. So these are things like grape, blueberries, cherry tomatoes. These are little chokers. Um, if you want to serve blueberries, you know, you're going to cut them in half. You're going to mash them. Cherry tomatoes, same thing. You're going to cut them into quarters, but those, when we get to that stage, we are a little further down the road in terms of more advanced eaters, round fruits, kind of just a good idea to avoid in those very early stages of learning to eat. Um, speaking of other really common chokers, things like hot dogs, sausage links, things that like hold their structure and like don't break up easily. Um, hot dogs cause many, many instances of choking every year in the U.S. Best to just avoid them in children under one year of age. Also super high in nitrates, um, which are not great for little babies. Um, back kind of following this choking hazards, um, whole nuts and seeds, super hard, firm, um, little round, um, seeds and nuts. Baby can't make them smaller. Um, and they are just the size of that little windpipe. So those are ones you want to avoid. Yeah. And next on our list of common chokers, um, raw veggies, things like carrots are really common choking hazards. And then also something that maybe you wouldn't think about would be raw apple. Um, many, many instances of choking from raw apple can just hold the structure so well. Baby's able to break off just a little piece. That's just big enough to fit into their windpipe or esophagus and gets lodged there and cause them issues. The best to avoid raw apple. You can cook apple to be soft without their skin, but super, super thin when they get a little bit older. Um, but we just forget we're eating a skill. You aren't born knowing how to do it and they need to practice. And so we want to avoid some of these trouble foods. Um, another one, another choking hazard is uncooked dried fruit. Again, they just hold their shape. Sometimes they're a little chewy, you know, they don't break up well. So skip those in the beginning. Next on our list, thick gobs of nut butter, peanut butter, almond butter. Um, again, so this, these are potential allergens, which there's a role for introducing those early. If you're doing that, you should really kind of dilute it in a slurry with water. Um, the challenge with the big gob, you can imagine baby doesn't have enough saliva in their mouth to dissolve it and they get that big gob of nut butter stuck in the back of their throat and can easily cause issues. Yeah. Um, other things that you want to avoid are going to be kind of chunks of meat or cheese. Um, it seems counterintuitive, but we kind of talked about before you want to give big strips or card size, you know, pieces of meat to baby. You don't want to be cutting it up into little chunks or chunks of cheese, because again, that's something they can choke on. So as they babies get older, again, we talk about cutting it into little pieces when they have a pincer grasp. Um, but we're not there yet. So avoid, um, kind of chunks for now. Yeah. Uh, next on our list. So we put kind of nice flaky fish on our great early foods, but then here is avoiding fish with bones kind of goes without saying that you don't want the bones to get in there and cause issues. Popcorn is a no-go for little ones, along with other kind of crunchy hard snacks. So chips, granola bars, these things, again, they cannot break down. They can't chew them up in their mouth and they are at a high risk of getting stuck. Yeah. And then some other good categories of things to be very careful with, limited with, or just avoid altogether would be very salty things. Things like soy sauce, store-bought Mac and cheese, instant ramen noodles, processed cheeses, meat, smoked fish, things that are really high in salt. Um, baby's kidneys are still developing and just that high salt load can be not challenging for them for many reasons. And so best to try to limit their sodium salt intake as much as possible. Also want to avoid really, really sugary things. So juice, soda, instant pudding, candy, chocolate, um, always want to kind of wait on those, um, really sugary things for little ones. And then we just want to wrap this up with a nice review of some good kind of safety things to think about when starting solids with their baby. Um, and the first one is just to always supervise your baby. Again, they're just learning how to eat. Even if it's a food they did really well with yesterday, they may have new issues with it today or it's prepared slightly different. Um, don't leave your baby alone with food in front of them. So again, posture is really important. Make sure they are sitting upright in their high chair, their back is supported, their feet are on the ground, um, that they're learning to eat. They, we don't want them worried about their balance or unsteady. Again, you never want to be feeding baby when they're crawling or playing or, you know, reclining in their stroller or in a car seat because they're just not advanced eaters. So it just changes all of the mechanics. Um, you want them just focusing on practicing eating. Yeah. And then the final kind of safety piece or just FYI for you from one parent to another, um, your baby is going to have some degree of gagging. Um, and so it's important to know the difference between a little bit of gagging and what choking actually is. Um, something that we recommend and was glad for us in this experience is that like, if something were happening, if there was a true choking experience that we had the first steps to help get rid of that. Some things that means if you can't see what's in their mouth, do not do a blind sweep because you may actually push whatever that is further into their throat. Of course, if it's in the front, you can just easily get it out. Okay. Um, but then also kind of being comfortable with the process of giving back blows. We're actually going to link a video that we think is good for infant CPR choking things should that happen. Hopefully this is something you never have to deal with, but a little bit of preparation goes a long way. So you do keep in mind that a little bit of gagging is normal. And so I definitely, we watched some videos on YouTube about the difference between gagging and choking. Um, and one of the things that kind of stuck with me is if you think your baby is gagging or choking, not to freak out, not to go or something like that, because then that's going to freak baby out and they're going to go themselves. And then they are more likely at that point to choke. So kind of remembering that if you find yourself in a gagging or choking situation, remain calm, assess the situation, have in your back pocket that you know how to do back blows, um, and have that plan. Um, and we found that really helpful. One other thing that I thought was helpful when we were starting this baby led weaning process was we would kind of plan out what we were going to introduce and when, um, one, because we wanted to introduce a variety of foods and we sometimes tend to eat the same thing over and over. Um, and so by planning that a little bit ahead of time, a, we'd have a meal plan for a week and then B, I would look up online or on the solid starts app, which was something we used a lot, how to prepare that food and what was appropriate, um, for a six month old baby in terms of how to prepare that food. And so it just made us feel, I think, confident and comfortable when we were offering these new foods. Um, because we, you know, done a little bit of prep for that dinner and how to offer it to her. So that's just a tip when you're getting started with this. Yeah. And it's also just like remove the pressure from yourself. Like worst case scenario in this six to nine month period, like maybe still getting all of their nutrition they need on a daily basis from formula breast milk. And so if you don't have a solid to offer them safely, like that's okay. They have their milk and the day goes on. Yeah. And if they don't like it, it doesn't matter. This isn't for their calories or anything like that. This is to help them learn how to eat, how to do different flavors and textures. It's supposed to be fun, no pressure learn how to eat little baby. So that's going to be it for us this week. Um, we'll see you guys next week. Hopefully you guys are subscribed as you're following along with our journey about feeding our growing baby and trying for baby number two. We'll see you next week. Bye guys. We're doctors, but not your doctors. Anything we've said in this video is for education or entertainment purposes only. It is not medical advice. Any specific medical questions you have should be directed to your provider.