Organic Juice: Five Tips for Serving Your Baby
I’ve found this very informative article about minimising the sugar intake for your baby when giving him/her fruit juice. It’s from the great website Organic Baby Resource – Nurture your baby with nature in mind.
I especially agreed with the following excerpts:
• “ Minimize the amount of juice given to babies under one and stick with milk and water for as long as possible.”
• “...beware of juice with 0 grams of sugar. It likely has an artificial sweetener such as sucralose or Splenda. I believe giving your child some natural sugar is better than exposing them to artifical sweeteners.”
• “Another way to minimize sugar naturally is to add filtered water to your toddler's juice before serving. I often do this with organic apple juice and orange juice because it's hard to find them with less than 25 g of sugar. One part water to two or three parts juice usually does the trick.”
• “ Making juice allows me to keep the ingredients as simple as possible, minimize sugar and sneak (I mean add) a serving or two of vegetables, such as organic or spinach or carrot to my daughter's diet.”
I can only recommend reading the full article and taking those tips into account.
I personally didn’t introduce any liquids until my son was 6 or 7 months old, as he was exclusively breastfed until then. I weaned him at 21 months. We didn’t give him any fruit juice up until roughly a year and a half, always (and still) diluted - even at 26 months-old. Our son only recently discovered hot chocolate or sirup, and gets a half-bottle of when he asks for it, but he’s so reasonable I don’t ever have to monitor or restrict him. Meal times are 99% plain water. But it’s the same for us, and we don’t feel like we are missing out on anything. He doesn’t even know how to say Coca-cola yet! And I’m very proud of it!!!
Another thing: I never send my little one to bed with a bottle of juice, milk, or anything else then water, or nothing. And he lives with it perfectly well.
No comments:
Post a Comment