Feeding babies

[SaligoBay]

This is a "just wondering" post.

My friend has a 3-month old baby, who's on a normal 3-mnth-old diet of powdered milk. But she puts strawberry-flavoured powder in it, I think partly to thicken it up, because he was regurgitating a lot of it. This is prescribed by the paediatre, but I was very surprised at giving such sweet flavours in the milk.

The other thing is, she gives him fluoride drops, apparently you should do that till age 3, until you can get in there to clean the teeth properly. I thought extra fluoride wasn't recommended, is it because it can stain the teeth?

The last thing is that when she was pregnant she carried on eating all those soft cheeses that in Britain are dconseill for pregnant ladies because of the listeria risk. She hadn't heard of this at all.

Just another little culture frisson.

[Mistral]

Yes, the thickening up "farine" is really common. The idea being that you fill them up and then sleep better etc.
10 years ago, it was part of the standard feeding advice. I had friends stopping breastfeeding because they wouldn't be able to give their baby "farine". Now it seems to be suggested less often.
I have seen unsweetened and unflavoured farine in pharmacies but it's not common. Most of them are very sweet. Pure baby rice is unknown here.

Flouride drops are standard. I even had them during one pregnancy. I kept them up (more or less, but rather less than more) until about a year when I started using child toothpaste.

What else? oh yes the soft cheeses. That depends on the doctor. The information is there but some of them think it's just scaremongering so they don't bother to tell you. You are more likely to get a lecture on eating enough calcium. You are usually warned not to eat "lait cru".Whan I was last pregnant most French magazines were still encouraging pregnant women to eat liver too.

[Teamedup]

In spite of being told to thicken bottles here, I never did. Everything I read in english told me not to and it just sounded like good sense not to. The thickening that was recommended was a sort of 'farine' and in no way sweetened or flavoured. I think that flavoured thickening is a terrible idea.


I never put my babies in shoes until they were walking either, they were barefoot at home, or in socks and ofcourse well wrapped up outside. In the early 1980's I didn't have the inclination or money to put my babes in shoes that cost well over 20. People used to make comments and give little mocking laughs and say that a child wouldn't walk properly without shoes that came up over the ankles to train the foot and leg, which looked exactly like polio victims wore when I was a child. I could have hugged the editor of Paris Match when they would showed the "little princes'" pied nu, with suitable headlines. It was wonderful to point out that it was just the way it was outre manche. Amazingly, my children didn't have deformed legs or feet, in fact they had well shaped insteps.

[Iceni]

Ye Gods, there is only one thing a baby needs until it is 6 months old - breast milk. Giving it cows milk is a very poor subsitute and adding anything to the milk is asking for allergies and other problems. In the UK the medical advice is breast till 6 months then introduce other foods, preferably what you eat but mashed up.

I know not all mothers can breast feed but more would try if they just read the results of tests on babies who have been fed in the way recommended - less ADD for a start, less allergies and brighter healthier adults.

Me - I was bottle fed and allergic to cows milk so nearly died - says it all really as there was no soy or substitutes then.

Di
http://www.iceni-it.co.uk

[Michele]

Oh my giddy aunt!!! Yet another bizarre idea!

The very latest evidence-based research is to only milk feed up until 6 months old here in the UK. (OK I'm sure lots of ppl ignore that, but not as early at 3 months old.)

And as for fluoride - I added drops in 1990 as recommended by my Health Visitor, but by 1994 with the second we had stopped, it depends on your local regional water authority. I've asked about it lately, and no-one knows about it anymore.

Remember that the teeth are forming in the gums long before they ever sprout, so anything remotely sweet with absorb through the gum and attack the teeth whilst they are forming....

tum te tum

Michle