baby cereal and juice

Loopy_Girl

wannabe_sybil wrote: »

I freely admit to giving my little bear lots of juice, usually the hi juice well diluted (one in ten is recommended) but everytime I've seen the Panda juices there has been aspartame. I'll go with sucralose but not aspartame. A lot of Sainsbury's own brand have sucrolose instead of aspartame, and are very inexpensive, and I would rather give fruit shoots with sugar than sugar free with aspartame. The reason I go for juice is because I am concerned about uptake of iron and ensuring he has enough vitamin C to allow this.

btw did you know that you have to get permission to advertise?

And I do hope you enjoy browsing the site now you have joined. Please pop over to the old style board, and browse the recipes, I think you will enjoy it.

You are spot on WS. If you are going to give any kind of diluting juice or ready made juice then you should always get the sugared variety and not the sugar free.

Sugar is a natural source and sweetners have not been around long enough for a detailed analysis of what they do to you has been produced.

Under no circumstances should sugar free drinks be given to the under 3's anyway as they contain an ingredient which can cause them a runny tummy (which makes you wonder what the sweetners are doing:rolleyes:)

Ribena if the worst thing possible for teeth (even the 'light' version) in respects of sugar content. You'd be as well handing them a can of Coke.

It's actually not sugar per se that causes tooth decay but the frequency. You teeth need about 4 hours again to 'harden up' after eating and drinking. If you eat and drink sugar 3 times a day at meal times and brush your teeth twice a day then you would be extremely unlikely to get decay.
The problems arise when you have sugar (in any form) in those 4 hours...lets say you have breakfast - so the teeth soften. You then have a can of Coke 2 hours later which means that sugar is washing over the soft teeth...and then you have lunch...and so on and so on. So essesentially your teeth are soft all day and are being washed over with sugar - that's when the decay can start as it has a chance to chip away at the soft teeth.

Same with kids which is why it is recommended to have water and milk and leave the juices for mealtimes.

btw - just to clarify. Milk does not cause tooth decay and is NOT one of the major causes of tooth decay in babies. Milk does have a natural sugar in it but you would need to be drinking gallons and gallons a day to cause a problem.
The main cause of tooth decay in babies is putting sugary drinks in the bottle. And the baby sits all day with this sugaary juice washing over his teeth.

annie_d

My babies are grown ups now but in the early days ( apart from the powdered milk they needed) they drank only water until the age of 2 ( yes...2!) and had Ready Brek for breakfast. One terrible day when i had no money, they had Ready Brek with grated cheese in for dinner. Glad those days are long gone.

Pisces

I gave our six month old Weetabix just before he got to six months. The branded Weetabix has the lowest salt levels of all of them.

One Weetabix mixed with 3oz of formula and some apple and pear puree = very happy baby!

Money_maker

Getting baby used to and happy with water will pay dividends when older as well. Thinking here about the 3-10 years age group - some of my friends bought or lugged vast quantities of fruit shoots/fizzy drinks around as thats all their children would drink. Cost a fortune (especially on days out) and of course they drink more of it rather than what they actually need. We took bottles of tap water - my boys love it.

Mine have always had milk or water during the day with 1 cup of squash at lunchtime. Happy with that now and ones a teenager. Doing the same with 13mo dd (but not the squash). Fully sugared version - dont believe in sweetners in anything.

As for salt, cook without and eat without. Save you having to separate the babys food and keep the rest of the family healthy.

xmaslolly76

Why does everything sold for a baby come with an artificially inflated price tag. Im sure these companys just pray on our fears that if we dont get baby this and baby that we are going to do them permanent damage which is absoulute twoddle. Babys can eat what we do as long as the salt is removed, its not high in sugar and each item is introduced sensibly to them one at a time. My two are now 7 and 11 and will try anything and eat anything with a very rare couple of exceptions which they truely do not like which we all have even as adults we cant all like everything can we.

As for the salt thing Moneymaker is right i dont put salt in any of my food now especially not fresh veg i found a steamer helped with this as you cant really add it when steaming and the veggies taste so much better than boiling anyway you dont need the salt.

Good luck with what ever you decide to do and remeber you wont do any harm at all giving them fresh food that isnt out of a packet or a jar stamped with the word baby. xx

code-a-holic

Loopy_Girl wrote: »

As I work in dental health and teach children and parents, I would be interested for a link about where you read that a)milk is as bad as sugar juice and b) that milk is one of the major causes of tooth rot in babies.

Clearly my years of training in the NHS must mean nothing if your statement is correct.....

I have also been told numerous times over my 7 years of motherhood to 3 children that milk can be harmful to teeth. Especially told often to avoid babies and toddlers falling asleep with a bottle of milk as any milk welled around the teeth is a recipie for tooth decay.
Im pregnant with my 4th at the moment and im sure i have just read this in a mother and baby magazine too. Advice that i recall is to brush teeth after the milk before bed, and then to get babies drinking from a cup as early as possible so that the milk does not linger around the teeth.

Loopy_Girl

As I have already agreed, there are natural sugars in cows milk but you would have to be drinking gallons for any effect.

Formula milk has also added sugars to make it taste better - added sugars are much more harmful than natural ones.

And breast milk has to be one of the sweetest tasting milks out there - as I found out by accident when I was breastfeeding my daughter when she was teeny tiny!

I think letting babies fall asleep with a bottle is just basic common sense to be honest and nothing to do with dental health.

The reason that dentists want children on cups ASAP is not just for the fact that the teats let the liquid wash over the teeth but also that is the mouth is developing and they are still sucking on a teat then it can have a detrimental effect on the way the teeth come in.

I'll say again - milk is not as bad for the teeth as sugary juice and milk is not the reason for tooth decay in babies and children.

Good luck with this pregnancy

Teerah

Loopy_Girl wrote: »

I think letting babies fall asleep with a bottle is just basic common sense to be honest and nothing to do with dental health.

It actually has a lot to do with dental health. You are right that milk is not as bad as juices etc but it is the frequency rather than the amount that will cause the damage with milk. ie sending baby to bed with a bottle so that they can sip from it when they like will lead to bottle caries as I'm sure you know.

I agree milk is not the main reason for decay in children but it would be wrong to say that it cant cause decay at all if given in the way I describe.

Loopy_Girl

Maybe I didn't explain what I meant for which I apologise.

What I was trying to say was that concerns about choking rather than dental health should be the reason that babies aren't sent to bed with a bottle.

Whilst I accept that it could be possible that bottle caries might be contributed to milk intake, whenever I have seen a child with bottle caries and spoke to the parent it has always transpired that juice was put in the bottle.

As you know we always recommend milk and water as drinking fluids.

We also tell parents that it is okay to let them have a drink of milk after they have cleaned their teeth for the night.

I'm actually thinking here as well as I work in a challenging area and I think it's case of trying to get at least one message across.
If I can stop them putting Coke or diluting juice in the bottles then it is a huge victory and I don't want to then undo my work by trying to come across as 'the establishment'.

I have one parent who gives her child diluting juice in his bottle all night and he's only 7 months - but then I am not there at 2 in the morning am I when he is screaming for it as he has a taste for it so I can only say to her to make it more and more diluted till eventually it is a scraping of juice and tons of water.

Anyway, I am rambling now!! I am very passionate about my job and absolutely adore it and it's a real chance to make a difference and change the way that things have been done in families for generations.

shellnapier

have you tired instead of juice the boots hint of strawberry water podwer i used to give my little girl it..... for the cerel i would stick to baby cereal... pound land has it cheaper...