To put it simply, your baby, child, or small person is growing at an astonishing rate. New functions are appearing daily and they’re developing the motor skills to do tasks that us grown-ups take for granted. When you go to the gym or become more active, your diet needs to change to adapt to your new lifestyle. More protein is needed for muscle growth, iron for healthy blood, and more water to replace all that sweat.

After having all his or her meals from nutrient-packed milk or formula, it’s time to think about updating baby’s diet.

I think at this point, it’s fine to admit that my meals are often popcorn and leftovers, and that my main meal-time focus is on the baby. What is she eating? Why won’t she eat what we give her? When is she going to love spaghetti like she did for those two days and now won’t touch it?

After around 6-8 months-ish, the small one should be able to start getting more nutrition from food and less from mother’s milk or formula.

I should note, however that this is  entirely depending on your own baby, it’s appetite, and your plans. I’m not an expert, this is just what worked for us. Although I’m still learning, so please, please share your tips.

Protein: This will still mostly come from milk or formula, but after a year this will start to change to food like eggs, meat, chicken.

Calcium: Whole-milk cheese (Cheddar, Havarti, Swiss, etc.), yogurt, and cottage cheese.

Vitamins: Eat the rainbow (not Skittles). Lots of fruit and vegetables. If your child doesn’t have many teeth yet, make sure you cook them down and strain them. Carrots are full of vitamin A, green veggies are loaded with B. Melon and berries are full of vitamin C.

Fat: When baby switches from breast milk to a more varied diet, including cheese, avocado and yogurt will give them the fats needed for their growing body.

Iron: Lots of baby cereals and cookies are fortified with iron, but try to also give meat, eggs, peas, and whole grains for balance.

I’m a big believer in the benefits of good quality, organic food, and I love that there are more and more options, especially here in Vancouver. When I went to the Healthy Family Expo, here in town, I met the two sisters who co-founded Tiny Tummies.

Here’s why I love what they’re doing:

• 1) Fresh –
  • Tiny Tummies baby food is freshly made to harness the most nutrition for babies and frozen to empower parents with healthy convenience. We only steam and roast our ingredients to minimize the nutrition loss.
  • Shelf stable purees are heat pasteurized destroying much nutritional value of the food.
• 2) Amaranth & Olive Oil –
  • Tiny Tummies adds amaranth as a protein source and olive oil as a fat source ensuring our food contains all 3 macronutrients – carbohydrates, proteins and fat.
  • Shelf stable fruit & veggie purees have no fat at all which is key for vitamin absorption and neural development.
• 3) Preservatives
  • Tiny Tummies has zero preservatives in its food – not even lemon juice.
  • Shelf stable purees contain preservatives like ascorbic acid or lemon juice. Pediatricians don’t recommend lemon juice for babies as it can cause diaper rash and tooth enamel decay.
• 4) Packaging
  • Tiny Tummies purposely designed it product to have a container for spoon feeding to help fuel baby’s chewing development.
  • Baby food pouches promote sucking which babies are already good at due to breast feeding. They don’t promote healthy eating habits. Plus they hide the food from the baby.

Now all I have to do is find a local, organic company who makes food this good, for me!

Note: This is a paid post, but I stand by the lovely people at Tiny Tummies and love what they’re doing. It’s probably worth mentioning again that this advice is just what worked for us, and I’m still learning. Do you have advice? Share it in the comments, I’d love to hear your tips and tricks to getting baby to eat what you’d like them to eat.