Does a baby's food reflect how advanced they are??

Question

I had been feeding my baby boy them stupid jars since he started weaning at 6 months.. Just the jars nothing else!

But then i decided he wouldnt eat anything else so now i feed him ALL my meals and spend loads of time preparing healthy meals for him..

The question is though does their food reflect how advanced they are??

Charlie is 9 months and cannot yet sit up and just rolls around everywhere..

His friend sits up, stands, crawls and does all sorts and she is 2 days younger, she has had her mothers food from weaning!

Im really encouraging him to sit up and spend lots of time with his toys doing so

Anyone know??

Answer 1

A baby that can not sit up independently should not be eating food, only breastmilk or formula.

I don't use jarred baby food.  One child started feeding themselves at 6 months, one at almost 9 months.  The one that started at almost 9 months didn't sit independently until 7 months, but at 9 months is cruising.  The one that started solids at 6 months sat independently at 5 months but also walked at a year.  I firmly believe that if left alone all babies start eating non-milk foods at the right time for them.

That being said there are some studies that show babies that were exclusively breastfed for 6 months walk and crawl sooner than those who were only exclusively breastfed for 4 months.

Certainly proper nutrition aids in proper development mentally and physically.  And babies who are spoon fed are more likely to overeat jarred foods and not eat  as much formula/breastmilk as they really need compared to self-feeding babies who are less likely to overeat.

So feeding patterns can be both caused by development, and impact development.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/676279...

Mrs Rapley argued that babies fed pureed food had little control over how much food they ate, thus rendering them vulnerable to constipation, and running a risk that they would react by becoming fussy eaters later in life.

http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full...

In both studies, infants in the EBF group were reportedly able to crawl earlier, and in study 1 they were more likely to be walking by 12 mo (60 versus 39%) than infants in the SF groups. There are several limitations to this component of the studies. First, neither the mothers nor the field workers were blind to group assignment. However, they had no reason to suspect that there would be differences between intervention groups (there were no a priori hypotheses regarding these outcomes), so this should not have biased the results. Second, no data were collected to validate the mothers’ reports of their infants’ motor skills. This is a standard practice, but it is difficult to compare data across studies because the definitions of the milestones vary considerably. Nevertheless, the average ages at which infants in study 1 achieved pull to stand, walk with assistance and walk alone were similar to the 50th percentiles of the Denver (Frankenburg and Dodds 1967Citation ) and Bayley (The Psychological Corporation 1969Citation ) scales, the values for crawling and sitting were similar to those reported for Indonesian (Pollitt et al. 1994Citation ) and Pakistani (Yaqoob et al. 1993Citation ) infants and the values for walking were similar to those reported for Pakistani (Yaqoob et al. 1993Citation ) and Guatemalan (Bentley et al. 1997Citation ) infants. Furthermore, the fact that there were highly significant delays in most of the milestones among the LBW (small-for-gestational age) infants compared with the infants in study 1, which is consistent with other reports (Goldenberg et al. 1998Citation ), indicates that the method used was able to capture biologically important differences.

It is noteworthy that crawling typically occurs just after the 4- to 6-mo interval. The mechanism by which EBF during this interval might affect motor development is unknown. Certain constituents of breast milk (e.g., docosohexaenoic acid) are known to be associated with infant mental development (Koletzko and Rodriguez-Palmero 1999Citation , Uauy et al. 1995Citation ), but there is little evidence that they affect motor development. On the other hand, Vestergaard et al. (1999Citation ) reported that achievement of two motor skills (crawling and pincer grip) was linked to the duration of breastfeeding in a large sample of Danish infants, even after adjustment for potentially confounding variables. It is thus possible that greater consumption of breast milk in the EBF groups accounts for our findings, although the difference in breast milk intake between intervention groups was only 67–110 mL/d. Breastfeeding frequency was similar between intervention groups after 6 mo, but the volume of breast milk consumed may have continued to differ for several months after the intervention period. Other possible mechanisms include lower absorption of micronutrients by partially breastfed than exclusively breastfed infants (Bell et al. 1987Citation , Oski and Landaw 1980Citation ) or differences in maternal caregiving or infant motivation to explore the environment or be upright (Biringen et al. 1995Citation ), all of which could be altered by the amount of time spent nursing. Whatever the mechanisms for these findings, the differences in motor development observed may be predictive of later functional outcomes. Although motor development in infancy is not correlated with later cognitive development in well-nourished populations, Pollitt and Gorman (1990Citation ) reported that motor test scores (although not mental scores) of Guatemalan infants at 15 mo were significantly associated with several indices of cognitive performance in adolescence and speculated that this may also be the case in other nutritionally at risk populations.

http://www.foodsecurity.gov.kh/docs/docs...

Exclusively breastfed

infants seem to be

more likely to:

– crawl earlier (p .007)

– sit earlier (p .009)

– walk earlier (p .07)

than infants with solid

http://nutrition.ucdavis.edu/briefs/Issu...

Infants exclusively breastfed until 6 months were able to crawl, and in the first study, walk sooner than infants who started solids at 4 months. The average age in reaching other developmental milestones was similar. In the second study, the average duration of amenorrhea was significantly longer in exclusively breastfeeding mothers compared to the early solids group. In the first study, mothers breastfeeding exclusively lost more weight during the intervention than mothers in the other group. One might question whether increased weight loss is a good thing in these mothers, since weight loss in undernourished populations may result in maternal nutrient depletion. However, only 10% of the mothers were underweight. In addition, the estimated nutritional burden of exclusive breastfeeding for 2 more months was low: 2% of body stores for vitamin A, 0.2% for calcium, and 0.7% for iron.

Answer 2

No, but I don't waste my time or money on jars at all.  If you're eating healthy meals, then baby can have what you're having.

Answer 3

has nothing to do with the food they eat... my daughter has been on solids since she was 4 months old and off formula at 6 months...she has a friend that is 3 days older than her and was formula fed...he started crawling first, but mine was walking first, mine says about 40 different words, he says only a handfull. Baby's develope at different times, and this has nothing to do with what they eat...