Is it necessary to feed bread?

Question

My daughter is 8.5 months old and we're starting to expand the table foods we serve her (right now she eats whole pieces of fruit, veg, rice, Cheerios, etc).

The question I have is: is it necessary to give her bread? Specifically whole wheat toast / bagels (we don't eat white bread so I won't feed it to her). I'm just worried that whole wheat breads may be difficult to digest. True? And if so, when is it a good time to start to introduce bread?

Thanks!

Answer 1

She's only 8 months old. She doesn't need any table foods at all. She needs her formula or breast milk, and finger foods for fun. Did she skip baby foods completely? Whole pieces of fruit seem like a lot for a little one to handle.

Skip the bread. She's MORE than fine without it.

  

Answer 2

Whole wheat is no harder to digest than "white" flour.  However wheat is very hard to digest and generally recommended that you don't give it to babies until 12 months.  No food is really required under 1 year of age, but of all the food groups grains are the least needed, least nutritious (particularly when looking at baby's needs for fats, minerals, proteins, etc), and hardest to digest.

Why not cereal?

http://www.westonaprice.org/children/nou...

Grains, nuts and seeds should be the last food given to babies. This food category has the most potential for causing digestive disturbances or allergies. Babies do not produce the needed enzymes to handle cereals, especially gluten-containing grains like wheat, before the age of one year. Even then, it is a common traditional practice to soak grains in water and a little yogurt or buttermilk for up to 24 hours. This process jump-starts the enzymatic activity in the food and begins breaking down some of the harder-to-digest components.1 The easiest grains to digest are those without gluten like brown rice. When grains are introduced, they should be soaked for at least 24 hours and cooked with plenty of water for a long time. This will make a slightly sour, very thin porridge that can be mixed with other foods.29

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9646449/page...

Take rice cereal, for example. Under conventional American wisdom, it's the best first food. But Butte says iron-rich meat — often one of the last foods American parents introduce — would be a better choice.

Dr. David Ludwig of Children's Hospital Boston, a specialist in pediatric nutrition, says some studies suggest rice and other highly processed grain cereals actually could be among the worst foods for infants.

"These foods are in a certain sense no different from adding sugar to formula. They digest very rapidly in the body into sugar, raising blood sugar and insulin levels" and could contribute to later health problems, including obesity, he says.

The lack of variety in the American approach also could be a problem. Exposing infants to more foods may help them adapt to different foods later, which Ludwig says may be key to getting older children to eat healthier.

http://www.kellymom.com/nutrition/solids...

Cereal is not at all necessary, particularly the baby cereals. Regular (whole grain) oatmeal is more nutritious for your baby.

http://www.askdrsears.com/faq/ci2.asp

The truth is, there is nothing special about these foods that makes them better to start out with. Babies don't actually even need rice cereal

http://www.llli.org/llleaderweb/LV/LVDec...

Meat provides additional protein, zinc, B-vitamins, and other nutrients which may be in short supply when the decrease in breast milk occurs. A recent study from Sweden suggests that when infants are given substantial amounts of cereal, it may lead to low concentrations of zinc and reduced calcium absorption (Persson 1998). Dr. Nancy Krebs has shared preliminary results from a large infant growth study suggesting that breastfed infants who received pureed or strained meat as a primary weaning food beginning at four to five months, grow at a slightly faster rate. Dr. Krebs' premise is that inadequate protein or zinc from complementary foods may limit the growth of some breastfed infants during the weaning period. Both protein and zinc levels were consistently higher in the diets of the infants who received meat (Krebs 1998). Thus the custom of providing large amounts of cereal products and excluding meat products before seven months of age may not meet the nutritional needs of all breastfed infants.

Meat has also been recommended as an excellent source of iron in infancy. Heme iron (the form of iron found in meat) is better absorbed than iron from plant sources. In addition, the protein in meat helps the baby more easily absorb the iron from other foods. Two recent studies (Makrides 1998; Engelmann 1998) have examined iron status in breastfed infants who received meat earlier in the weaning period. These studies indicate that while there is not a measurable change in breastfed babies' iron stores when they receive an increased amount of meat (or iron), the levels of hemoglobin circulating in the blood stream do increase when babies receive meat as one of their first foods.

http://www.westonaprice.org/children/nou...

Finally, respect the tiny, still-developing digestive system of your infant. Babies have limited enzyme production, which is necessary for the digestion of foods. In fact, it takes up to 28 months, just around the time when molar teeth are fully developed, for the big-gun carbohydrate enzymes (namely amylase) to fully kick into gear. Foods like cereals, grains and breads are very challenging for little ones to digest. Thus, these foods should be some of the last to be introduced. (One carbohydrate enzyme a baby's small intestine does produce is lactase, for the digestion of lactose in milk.1)

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Answer 3

Do you HAVE to give bread?  No.  At this age solids are just for fun, so there are no solids that she HAS to have.

But if she enjoys solids and you want to offer bread, that's fine.  It isn't too hard to digest. If you do find that it gives her a belly ache, hold off for a few months and try again.