You may have spent months to years optimizing your health for pregnancy, in addition to the 9 months carefully crafting your diet to support the growth of a perfect baby. Plus, if you’re breastfeeding, you’re still consciously eating to optimize the nutrients in your breast milk.
Don’t stop now!
Conventional recommendations include commercial formula laden with soy and hydrogenated oils, highly processed and extruded rice cereal and purees that include more sugar than the actual fruit and vegetable. Your little one deserves better!
Here are our recommendations for nourishing your baby.
These have come from traditional cultural wisdom, as well as, modern science. For example, Dr. Price saw babies introduced to liver, an iron-rich food, around 6 months, which we now know is the age at which the iron in mom’s breast milk is no longer adequate for baby’s needs. Many traditional cultures also delayed introduction to grains, and we now know that babies don’t produce salivary amylase, a crucial enzyme necessary to digest grains, until at least 15 months.
The below plan encourages optimal development, respects your baby’s nutrient needs and digestive limitations, and sets your baby up for a strong palate instead of early addiction to processed sugar.
0-24 months:
- Breast milk is the ideal food; feed on cue during the first three months.
- If unable to breastfeed, consider donor human milk via the Human Milk Banking Association of North America. See their website, www.hmbana.org. The next best option is to make homemade formula from Nourishing Tradition. It’s imperative that you pay keen attention to the preparation of homemade formula. It will be worth your effort but you must be precise.
- If commercial formula is your only option the only one we recommend is Baby’s Only Organic Dairy Formula. It’s important to add a high quality probiotic, like HMF Natogen Formula (1/4 teaspoon daily), as well as ½ teaspoon fermented cod liver oil.
- The following babies should be given a high quality probiotic like HMF Natogen (for breast fed babies) or HMF Natogen Formula (for formula fed babies): if the mother has been given antibiotics prior to or during birth; babies who have been given antibiotics at birth; if the mother has had a history of yeast or urinary tract infections; if the mother has had a history of prior use of birth control pills or antibiotics.
4 months:
- Those babies on commercial formula should be given the following: egg yolk from organic pastured chickens (egg yolk should be soft cooked and a pinch of Celtic sea salt added); ¼ teaspoon of fermented high vitamin cod liver oil (use eyedropper to feed); 1/8 teaspoon X-Factor butter oil; liver. After 8 months of age fermented cod liver oil may add to small amount of fresh organic orange juice.
- Breastfed babies of vegetarian mothers should be given liver.
6 months:
- Egg yolk, grated frozen liver, meat stock, pureed meats (organic grass fed)
6 ½ months:
- Avocado, banana, cooked carrots, ghee, kidneys and other organ meats, cooked sweet potato (lacto-fermented); Delay introducing fruits if GAPS symptoms such as eczema are present.
7 months:
- Cooked apples, pears (to break down pectin), mango, papaya, kiwi, fish roe, marrow, lacto-fermented vegetables
8 months:
- Coconut milk and coconut kefir, cooked vegetables, olive oil, lard, cooked peaches, apricots and cherries (cooked to break down pectin)
9 months:
- Raw yogurt, raw butter, raw cheese, oily fish, cooked berries, fermented pickles; pineapple
10 months:
- Purified water, coconut water, beets and beet kvaas and well-steamed leafy greens (spinach, chard, kale)
11 months:
- Wild fish and fish stocks or soups
12-15 months:
- Whole eggs, liverwurst, raw milk, raw berries, honey (raw, unfiltered), tomato, potato, eggplant, peppers, citrus, arrowroot powder, most spices and herbs, beets, celery and radishes
15-18 months:
- Soaked brown rice, raw vegetables, carob, soaked nuts and nut butters (no peanuts)
18-21 months:
- Properly prepared gluten-free grains, raw greens, occasional pasteurized cheese (okay but not ideal)
21-24 months:
- Properly prepared gluten grains, properly prepared legumes (which includes peanuts) and shellfish
2 years +:
- Limited: pasteurized dairy products; dried fruit, fermented soy products, nitratefree lunch meat, peanut butter.
Synthetic vitamins and minerals, and especially fluoride, should be avoided. For those with concerns of dental weakness or decay we use Schussler cell salts such as Calcarea Phosphoricum 6X and Calcarea Fluorica 6X or Original Quinton Isotonic minerals.
Resource:
- Erlich, M.D., Katherine and Genzlinger, Kelly. Super Nutrition for Babies. Beverly, MA: Fair Winds Press, 2012.
This information is not intended to provide medical advice or to take the place of medical advice and treatment from your personal physician. Readers are advised to consult their own doctors or other qualified health professional regarding the treatment of their medical problems. Those taking prescription medications should consult with their physicians and not take themselves off of medicines to start supplementation without the proper supervision of a physician familiar with nutritional supplementation.
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