Vegan for Life - Jack Norris [57]
The First Four Months
For the first four to six months of life, babies don’t need—and shouldn’t have—anything other than breast milk (or infant formula). They don’t need any solid foods during this time, and certain vegetables can be dangerous to very young infants.
Between the ages of four and six months, babies start to show that they are ready for solid foods. One sign of readiness is the ability to sit up and maintain balance. Another is the ability to use the tongue to move food to the back of the mouth for swallowing. Your pediatrician will help you decide when your baby is ready for solid foods, but all babies should start having some solid foods no later than six months of age.1
First Solid Food Adventure: Cereal
“Solid” is a bit of an overstatement for the first non-milk foods a baby eats. They are more like thick liquids—fed from a spoon, not a bottle.
The first food for an infant is usually an iron-fortified infant rice cereal mixed with breast milk or infant formula. There isn’t anything wrong with other choices, but rice cereal is easily digested and unlikely to cause allergies. Once a baby is used to cereal and eating around ⅓ cup per day, begin to introduce mashed fruits and vegetables like applesauce, banana, pureed peaches or pears, strained white and sweet potatoes, carrots, green beans, and avocado.
During this period, breast milk or soy formula continues to play a major role in your baby’s diet and will be a part of the menu until at least the first birthday. Breast milk or infant formula is especially important for providing zinc, which can otherwise be low in a vegan infant’s diet. Even after your baby starts to consume solid foods, he or she needs either breast milk or a commercial infant formula. Regular soymilk should never be offered to babies before the first birthday because, like cow’s milk, it is a poor fit for an infant’s nutritional needs. Be sure to read “When Breast-Feeding Isn’t an Option” on page 147.
First Protein Foods
At around seven months, your baby will be ready to drink apple juice from a cup and explore protein-rich foods. This is when the diet of a baby in a vegan household starts to look a little bit different from that of other infants. First protein-rich foods for vegan infants include legumes (cook them thoroughly and puree them), well-mashed tofu, and soy yogurt. This is a good time to start introducing vegetables with a stronger flavor like kale and collards. You can temper their flavors by pureeing them with bland or sweet foods like applesauce, tofu, or avocado.
Infants are usually ready for finger foods, like chunks of tofu or meat analogs, bread, and crackers, at ten months, and by the first birthday they can have nut butters or tahini spread thinly on crackers.
A few things to keep in mind for vegan babies:
• Talk to your pediatrician about supplements. Vitamin D is usually recommended for breast-fed infants in both vegan and omnivore families. Iron is sometimes recommended beginning at around four months, but that will depend on other foods in your baby’s diet. Breast-fed vegan infants need vitamin B12 supplements only if the mother’s diet isn’t adequate. The table on page 146 shows suggested supplements for breast-fed vegan infants.
• When your baby is ready for solid foods, introduce them one at a time, offering one new food every three to four days. This makes it easy to identify any food allergies right away.
• Never give babies unpasteurized juice or cider, or any kind of corn syrup or honey, all of which can cause serious illness.
• Be careful not to overdo it with juices. Too much juice can displace other nutritious foods in a baby’s diet and can also cause diarrhea. Limit your infant to 6 ounces of juice per day and avoid juices with added sweeteners.
• Don’t give a baby any milk other than breast milk or infant