Week 1 Syllabus: First 7 Days of Starting Solid Foods

Katie Ferraro (2s):

So if you think about it, you really don't need to wait three to five days between new foods. We can get all five of these foods in in those first seven days. Because historically the thought was, oh, well you need to observe for any allergic reactions. But if your baby's gonna have an allergic reaction to food, the vast majority of those are gonna show up within minutes and no more than two hours following ingestion. So it's not like you offer your baby egg and then three days down the road there's a weird diaper and you're like, oh my gosh, they're allergic to egg. It doesn't work like that. Hey there, I'm Katie Ferraro, registered dietitian, college nutrition professor and mom of seven specializing in baby led weaning. Here on the baby led weaning with Katie Ferraro podcast. I help you strip out all of the noise and nonsense about feeding, giving you the confidence and knowledge You need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods using baby led weaning.

Katie Ferraro (57s):

If you are just starting solid foods and you have absolutely no idea where to start, I got your solution for you. This is a week one Syllabus for starting solid foods. Now I know a Syllabus, maybe it's kinda cheesy, but I'm a college nutrition professor and I love a Syllabus. I love to plan a curriculum. I love a framework, a blueprint, a roadmap. And I also know how overwhelmed parents feel when their baby turns six months of age and they're like, oh shoot, I gotta add one more thing to my to-do list. And that's figure out how to feed my baby solid food. So in today's lesson, as your nutrition professor and registered dietician, I'm gonna help you walk through what that first week could look like.

Katie Ferraro (1m 44s):

Alright, so step one when you get a Syllabus, I am a college nutrition professor. So what I always do is I always give an extra credit Syllabus quiz. It's just a tricky way to like trick the students into actually reading your Syllabus, but you're getting extra credit here because if you follow this framework, you're actually gonna know what foods to offer your baby. The first week of starting solid foods, I based my Syllabus, this is all following what I call my five step feeding framework. So this is how we pick the five new foods that your baby is going to eat each week and we start it in week one of starting solid foods. Now, we've got lots of other content here on the channel and the podcast about how you know if your baby is ready to start solid foods, but I would be a bad teacher if I let you start before you are actually ready, right?

Katie Ferraro (2m 26s):

Like you can't take a college level course until you pass high school. So if your baby is not yet six months of age or six months adjusted age, if your baby is not yet sitting relatively on their own, then your baby is not yet ready to start solid food. So wait until those reliable signs of readiness to eat are present. And keep in mind that not all babies are ready to eat right at the six month mark. So your baby might be six month plus one week or six months plus two weeks, or six months plus three weeks, and that's totally fine before you start solid foods, okay? Most babies are gonna be sitting on their own by seven months of age. If your baby is not, be sure to talk to your doctor. Maybe there's a referral we can make for OT just to, you know, see what's going on, whatever the case may be. Back to the Syllabus day one, you're gonna get your baby ready to start solid foods.

Katie Ferraro (3m 8s):

I also need to be very honest with you that not very much eating is going to occur at the beginning of starting solid foods, but that's because that's totally fine, right? 'cause your baby is still gonna be getting most of their nutrition from infant milk. So that's breast milk or formula. So please keep in mind what your job in this relationship is. You're responsible for making the food for your baby, offering it to them in a safe feeding environment, okay? And giving it to them at set mealtime. 'cause we don't let babies graze and eat food throughout the day, but your baby is the one who's gonna make that call as to whether or not they eat the food or even how much they eat. Okay? This is what we call, this is Ellen Satter. She's a registered dietitian and a licensed family therapist. She has what's called the division of responsibility in feeding theory.

Katie Ferraro (3m 49s):

And again, it's just giving you permission to do your job. And your job is not to make your baby eat, but your job is to make the foods safe for your baby to eat. So my job as a registered dietitian is to help families make those finger foods safe for their baby to eat. And sometimes they're like, yeah, but what foods do I feed? So that's the point of the Syllabus. 'cause the Syllabus contains the info about, well, what are we actually gonna learn about? We're gonna learn about food and how to eat it. All right? So let's start with five foods your baby can eat in week one of starting solid foods. Now hold up, you said a week, which would be seven days. Why are there only five foods? I'll get to that in a second. I like to think about starting solid foods. Kind of like my job. I gotta go to work five days a week.

Katie Ferraro (4m 28s):

We're gonna offer your baby a new food five days a week. Now you might be like, wait a minute, my doctor told me that I need to wait three to five days between starting solid foods. No, you do not. Okay? We don't wanna wait three to five days between starting solid foods. There's absolutely no reason to do that. It unnecessarily slows down your baby's progress towards diet diversity. Okay? Historically, you've heard, and I'm not, not pediatricians 'cause I love them and I think they do amazing work, but a lot of time pediatricians are the ones perpetuating this myth that you need to wait three to five days between foods. But I just heard a dietitian say it the other day at a really big international conference and I was like, excuse me, that's wrong. We do not need to wait three to five days between foods.

Katie Ferraro (5m 9s):

The old thinking was, well, you need to wait three to five days between new foods in order to observe for any potential allergic reactions. But here's the deal with that. If your baby is going to have an allergic reaction to food, those reactions are going to occur within minutes and up to no more than two hours following ingestion. So it's not like we offer your baby eggs and then three days later there's a weird diaper and you're like, oh my gosh, they're allergic to eggs. It doesn't work like that. So offer your baby new foods within minutes and up to two hours later observe for a reaction, but you don't wait three to five days later. Okay? So one new food, or even more than one new food a day is perfectly fine to offer to your baby. Now how do you know which five foods to offer your baby?

Katie Ferraro (5m 48s):

That's where my five step feeding framework comes in, okay? And this is the framework that I use to help families pick five new foods a week. Okay? On Monday we do a new fruit. On Tuesday we do a new vegetable. On Wednesday we do a new starchy food. On Thursday we do a new protein food. And every Friday we do a new allergenic food. Okay? And these are foods that I choose from my 100 first foods list, any food on the a 100 first food list, you could choose any of the fruits for day one, any of the vegetables for day two, any of the starchy foods for day three protein for day four allergenic for food for day five, and so on and so forth. There's no right or wrong food from this list to start solid foods with. Okay? I like to start easy though. So in my 100 first Foods daily meal plan, okay? This is part of my program.

Katie Ferraro (6m 29s):

It's called Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro. It's a 20 week done for you program that shows you exactly what foods to feed your baby. I've Got it all laid out with a meal plan. If you wanna follow the 20 weeks of done for you meal plans that I've literally taken the guesswork out of all of this for you. You can follow that if you want to. But a lot of families, they hop into my a 100 first foods content library and they prefer to pick the five foods each week. No matter which way you choose it, it doesn't matter. We're doing a new fruit on Monday, a new vegetable on Tuesday, a starchy food on Wednesday, a protein food on Thursday, and an allergenic food on Friday. So let's start with day one. And what I'm gonna take you through is the first week of my hundred first foods daily meal plan.

Katie Ferraro (7m 9s):

So you can see those five foods and we're gonna start with avocado. Okay? Avocado is a great first food for baby. It's a really easy one to start with for baby-led weaning. It's got some great fat in there. Fat is wonderful for your baby's still developing brain avocado is nice because when you pick a ripe one, it's nice and soft. It passes what we call the squish test. Meaning that when you cut that avocado into strips about the size of your adult pinky finger, you can easily squeeze it. Your baby can easily smush it up and they can pick it up and bring it to their mouth. Okay? And explore that avocado. Now, if the thought of going right from infant milk yesterday to strips of avocado today is freaking you out, I also teach what we call a purees for a few days approach.

Katie Ferraro (7m 51s):

This is where for the first three days of solid foods, we puree the food with some breast milk or formula and then we offer it to your baby from a preloaded spoon. Now, some people mistakenly think baby led weaning, oh, that just means skipping purees, but it doesn't. Okay? You can honor the self-feeding principles of baby led weaning and still offer your baby naturally pureed foods like oatmeal and unsweetened applesauce and full fat home milk yogurt. And we do that using the preloaded spoon approach. Put that thin puree of avocado with breast milk on the preloaded spoon. Put it in your baby's hand at the very beginning. You may have to help guide the spoon to their mouth, but a lot of times they're just gonna grab it from you and send it right to the kisser. Okay? And then I'll do that for about five minutes. I, I will then do a chunkier puree of just smashed up avocado also off of that preloaded spoon.

Katie Ferraro (8m 35s):

Okay? This is given parents like very quickly, a lot of confidence. Like, oh hey, cool, my baby can swallow something besides infant milk. Do that for five minutes and then in the last 10 minutes of the meal, then we'll hop to the solid strips of soft avocado pieces that are cut about the size of your adult pinky finger. So again, that's a 20 minute meal. Most babies can sit in their high chair for 20 minutes. Day one you did avocado. Alright, you can do it again later in the day. We like to see babies eating solid foods one to two times per day at the six to seven month mark, if you can, Hey, we're gonna take a quick break, but I'll be right back.

Katie Ferraro (9m 17s):

Day two of your Syllabus, you're coming back to school and we're gonna do our new vegetable of the day. We're gonna do zucchini, okay? And I love cumin spiced zucchini boats. This is one of the most popular vegetable recipes inside of my program. Vegetables, when you roast them, bring out a really, really nice deep, rich flavor, they get nice and soft. I take the skins off for early eaters. You don't have to remove the seeds for most types of zucchini. You can add seasoning and spices like cumin. We just don't do added sugar or any added salt for our early eaters. But don't be shy about seasoning your baby's food, right? Babies do not need to eat bland food. Same thing. If you're feeling a little scared about those finger foods, feel free to puree up and do it off of that preloaded spoon 'cause we're on day two.

Katie Ferraro (10m 3s):

Okay? So I'll do the thin puree for the first five minutes, a chunkier puree for the second five minutes. But then the last 10 minutes of the meal, we're gonna let your baby go to town on those solid strips of spiced zucchini boats. Day three, we're coming back, it's Wednesday, and this is where we're doing the first starchy food of the week. And that is Sweet Potato Sweet Potato's, another great food for baby led weaning. Inside of my program, I show you lots of different ways to prepare all sorts of foods, a hundred of them to be exact, but with sweet potato, I do love a roasted sweet potato. And here's the kicker. When you roast the sweet potatoes in the oven and you take them out, you wanna get 'em until they're just cool enough where you can handle 'em with your hands.

Katie Ferraro (10m 44s):

And I don't know if you've experienced this phenomenon, like in my household, the men are so weak and they cannot touch things that are hot. Like, oh my gosh, it's too hot. I can touch a very hot potato and I'm gonna take the skin off when it's still warm. Okay? If you let that potato get cool, it's like impossible to get the skin off. All right? So you wanna get the potato skin off early on, peel it off, and then you've got that nice soft, sweet potato flesh. Cut it into strips about the size of your adult pinky finger and let your baby eat that. Now at this point, you're on day three, your baby has had three foods. What I like to do is I split the meal now into two 10 minute sections. For the first 10 minutes of the meal your baby's gonna eat the new food of the day, which is the sweet potato, all by itself out of a suction mat herbal.

Katie Ferraro (11m 26s):

And then the second 10 minutes of the day, you're gonna bring in a plate that has three foods on it, two familiar foods from the previous day. So bring back some of that avocado, bring back the zucchini from the previous days, and then put the sweet potato on it. So in that way, you're continuing to offer your baby one new food a day, but you're also reintroducing them to the familiar foods from the previous days. I see how this is working. We're moving forward with new foods, but reintroducing familiar foods, so your baby builds proficiency. We're on today, four. We're doing our first meat of the week for families that eat animal foods. If you guys have been listening for a while, you know you gotta dive right in. I love to do lamb leg of lamb roast on week one. Trust me, this is going to give you so much confidence.

Katie Ferraro (12m 8s):

Got a great leg of lamb roast recipe inside of the program. If you wanna check out that program, baby led weaning with Katie Ferraro, there is a discount code to sign up wherever you're listening to or watching this. For those of you that are the star students, this is your extra credit. You get the discount code. Check that out. If you want to join up today and get started, 'cause I've got that whole hundred first foods daily meal plan. Your baby's going to eat all these foods before they turn one, and I took all the guesswork out of it so you don't even have to think about it. All right, we're gonna move on to day five. This is Friday and we're doing our first allergenic food of the program of the semester. That's gonna be yogurt. Alright? Yogurt is a wonderful way to introduce your baby to cow's milk protein.

Katie Ferraro (12m 49s):

So there's nine foods that account for about 90% of food allergy. We call these the top nine allergenic foods. Cow's milk protein is a biggie. You don't have to do 'em in any particular order, but I like to get it outta the way first. Now, if your baby's had formula, the base of cow's formula is cow's milk protein. So we know they're not allergic to it, but for our exclusively breastfed babies, heck yeah. Get that yogurt in there. Okay? And you put the yogurt on a preloaded spoon. We do full fat whole milk yogurt, okay? That means no reduced fat or low fat products for children up until age two. 'cause they need that fat from the full fat foods for their still developing brain. And we do the plain one, meaning it's unsweetened. So vanilla has added sugar or some, even some of the baby yogurt brands have added sugar, which is asinine. Your baby doesn't need baby yogurt just by regular yogurt.

Katie Ferraro (13m 30s):

It doesn't have to be Greek, it doesn't have to be Icelandic. It can be whatever you want it to be. Just make sure there's no added sugar And that it's not reduced fat. So there should be somewhere around six to eight grams of fat in a cup, and then that's generally an indicator that you're doing the full fat stuff. Put that on the preloaded spoon and let your baby bring it to their mouth. Spoiler alert, yogurt is messy. All right? It is a bear to clean up after I try to line up yogurt day with bath day. But it is so fun to watch a baby go to town on yogurt. Now you're gonna do yogurt two times on Friday. You're also gonna do it two times on Saturday and two times on Sunday, okay? 'cause the thing here is that if your baby's gonna have an allergic reaction to food, it is not gonna occur on the first ingestion. It's gonna be on the second or the subsequent. So we wanna do it early and often.

Katie Ferraro (14m 12s):

These allergenic foods, that's the way you help reduce the risk of food allergy. So we're gonna do yogurt two times on Friday, two times on Saturday, and two times on Sunday with no other new foods across the course of the weekend. But continue to reintroduce those familiar foods, right? You already got the avocado, the zucchini, the sweet potato, the lamb made work that into your baby's rotation. And now you've got one full week of foods that your baby knows how to eat. And then the following Monday, you pick right back up and you pick a new fruit. Tuesday, you pick a new vegetable, and now you're jamming with five new foods a week. In one month you've done 20 foods, and in five short months, your baby has eaten a hundred foods and you are not dealing with mealtime battles.

Katie Ferraro (14m 55s):

You are not short order cooking, there's no severe picky eating, and you are gonna be so glad in six months from now that you started doing this approach today. Again, if you wanna check out that program, baby led weaning.co/program, use the discount code to save some serious dough when you sign up, and good luck getting started in the School of Baby led weaning. Thanks so much for listening, guys. I'll see you next time. I'll also put the show notes for today's episode@blwpodcast.com/103.

Airwave Media (15m 25s):

A very special thank you to our partners at AirWave Media. If you guys like podcasts that feature food and science and using your brain, check out some of the podcasts from AirWave Media or online@blwpodcast.com.

Katie Ferraro (15m 36s):

Thanks for listening and watching, and I'll see you next time. Bye now.