How to provide proper nutrition for your infant

Proper early nutrition is important. The eating patterns established in infancy determine how well a baby grows and also influence lifelong food habits and attitudes.  Here are some tips to give your child a nutritional head start.

New parents probably worry more about feeding their baby than any other aspect of early child care. What if I can't breast-feed? How do I know if the baby is getting enough? Too much? Should I give the baby vitamins? When do I start solid food? Parents quickly learn that almost everyone is eager to answer such questions — grandparents, neighbours — even strangers in the supermarket. As might be expected, however, much of the advice is conflicting and adds to a parent's feelings of confusion and uncertainty. So let's begin with a few anxiety busters:

• Get to know your baby. No two infants are alike. Some enter the world ravenously hungry and demand to be fed every hour or two. Others seem to prefer sleeping, and may even need to be awakened to eat.
• Try to relax. It's natural for new parents to feel nervous and apprehensive, but raising a baby should be a joyful experience.
• Trust your own judgement and common sense. If a baby is growing and developing at a normal pace, he's getting enough to eat.
• Keep food in its proper perspective. It provides the essential energy and nourishment infants need to grow and develop. But food should not be a substitute for a reassuring hug or used as a bribe or reward for good behaviour. Even an infant quickly learns how to use food as a manipulative tool, which can set the stage for later eating problems.

• Good infant nutrition actually begins before birth, because what the ­mother eats during pregnancy goes a long way toward determining her baby's initial nutritional health. A well-nourished mother provides plenty of nutrients her baby can use for proper growth and development in the uterus, as well as to store for later use.
• Skimping on food to avoid gaining excessive weight while pregnant can produce a low-birth-weight baby who has special nutritional needs or serious medical problems.
• An anemic woman is likely to have a baby with low iron reserves.
• A woman who does not consume ­adequate folate may have a baby with serious neurological problems.
• High doses of vitamin A before and during early pregnancy can cause birth defects. All pregnant women are strongly advised to have regular prenatal checkups and to eat a varied and balanced diet.

Many parents mistakenly assume that baby teeth aren't important because they are eventually replaced by permanent teeth. In fact, early dental decay not only threatens the underlying secondary teeth, it can cause severe toothaches.

• As soon as the first tooth comes in, parents should begin practising preventive dental hygiene.
• Babies should not be permitted to fall asleep while nursing or sucking a bottle; this allows milk to pool in the mouth, and the sugar (lactose) in it can cause extensive tooth decay.
• Offering a little water at the end of a feeding rinses any remaining milk from the baby's mouth.
• The gums and emerging teeth can be wiped gently with a gauze-wrapped finger.