Hi I'm Elisa All with Babies Today and I have with me Karen Raden, a registered dietician, and I have with me the most adorable little baby in the world. It's Luke and his mother Kelly. Thanks for being here with us. So today we're talking about getting baby's feeding off to a great start. And we're going to start with the benefits of nursing. There are so many benefits of breast-feeding and most important is getting your baby the optimal nutrients. Breast milk really is the best milk that you can feed your baby. It's great for his immune system and it's also a wonderful bonding experience for the baby and the mom together. Absolutely. I remember those moments well. If the mom cannot breast feed, or wants to supplement with bottles, can you tell us a little about bottle-feeding? Sure. Glass bottles are one way to go. Or you can go with the hard plastic bottles. Make sure you use a bottle that your baby is comfortable with the nipple. There are many different nipple choices out there so try a variety and see what works for you baby. Now moving toward solid foods. Oh look he's hungry. I remember that rice cereal…rice cereal is a great first food. He likes it. So is there a special way we shoulder make the rice cereal? Either with water or with breast milk or with formula that way the baby get's iron and the right nutrients he needs. OK wonderful. And then some other first foods I remember well like a mashed banana. Wonderful. Mashing it up with a fork. Or using baby food from a jar is great too. Just make sure you don't want to over pour. Always feed the baby from a container, like this. And then if he needs more, you always pour more in. Gotcha. You don't want to feed right from the container for sanitation reasons. One thing I remember very well, like Luke here, is when you're feeding the baby, it's not that important to make sure that they're getting all the food in their mouth at one time. It will ooze out and you just can kind of just scrap it out and put it back in. First feedings are really about getting the baby familiar with the food. It's not about the nutrition. The nutrition should be coming from formula or breast milk. And the feedings are just for fun and to get started and use to food in your mouth. Yes. Well he's doing a great job and we're going to keep feeding him because he's really hungry. And thank you guys for being here with us today. And we'll see you next time on Babies Today.
