Pureed food ‘isn’t natural for babies’
Feeding babies on pureed food is unnatural and unnecessary, according to one of Unicef’s leading child care experts, who says they should be fed exclusively with breast milk and formula milk for the first six months, then weaned immediately on to solids.
Gill Rapley, deputy director of Unicef’s Baby Friendly Initiative and a health visitor for 25 years, said spoon-feeding pureed food to children can cause health problems later in life
She blames the multimillion-pound baby food industry for persuading parents that they need to give their babies pureed food. ‘Sound scientific research and government advice now agree there is no longer any window of a baby’s development in which they need something more than milk and less than solids,’ Rapley said.
Big got jarred foods and home cooked purees at nursery from 14 weeks. Small got stuff all but milk til he was over 6 months old, and then home made purees of broccoli and pasta and finger foods until he pushed them away and went for the real stuff. Got to say the latter approach was easier than jars (which he never liked judging by his reaction to the occasional exposure due to being out and about). I wouldn’t say either of them are unnecessarily fussy either – they have a limited range of stuff they eat at home, but then again, do do me and Tim.
Anything that cuts down on the expense and the fiddly little jars has got to be good, but this does look like another way of making working women feel guilty.
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