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Vegan diets are healthful right from the start.
Vegan diets are healthful at all stages of the lifecycle—and that includes infancy. In fact, all babies start out as vegetarians. Vegan infants who are breastfed need vitamin B12 supplements, but other than that, their diet won't look different from omnivore babies until they are around seven months old.
Breast milk is the ideal food for any baby and should be offered until at least the first birthday. If breastfeeding isn’t possible or needs to be supplemented, commercial infant formula, including soy-based formula, can replace all or part of it in an infant’s diet.
For the first four to six months of life, babies don’t need—and shouldn’t have—anything other than breast milk or infant formula. It may look like a boring and unsatisfying diet, but it suits an infant’s needs perfectly. Some vegetables can actually be dangerous to very young babies—those younger than four months.
Babies are ready for solid foods between the ages of four and six months. One sign of readiness is the ability to sit up and maintain balance. Another is the ability to use the tongue to move food to the back of the mouth for swallowing. That takes a little practice for any baby, but very young ones can’t do it at all.
The first food for infants is usually an iron-fortified infant cereal. Rice cereal is a good choice since it is unlikely to cause allergies. Mix it with formula or breast milk and feed it from a spoon—not a bottle. Once a baby is used to cereal and eating around 1/3 cup per day, begin to introduce mashed fruits and vegetables like applesauce, banana, pureed peaches or pears, strained white and sweet potatoes, carrots, green beans and avocado.
At around seven months, your baby will be ready to drink apple juice from a cup and explore some protein-rich foods like legumes (cook them thoroughly and then puree them), well-mashed tofu, and soy yogurt. This is a good time to start introducing vegetables with a stronger flavor like kale and collards. Temper their flavor by pureeing them with bland or sweet foods like applesauce, tofu, or avocado.
Infants are usually ready for finger foods like chunks of tofu or meat analogs, bread and crackers at age 10 months and by the first birthday they can have almond butter or tahini (but not peanut butter) spread thinly on crackers.
Here are a few things to keep in mind when introducing a vegan diet to a new family member:
• Talk to your pediatrician about supplements of vitamin D and vitamin B12.
• When your baby is ready for solid foods, introduce them one at a time, offering one new food every three or four days. This makes it easy to identify any food allergies right away.
• Delay introduction of certain foods that are most likely to cause allergies. Infants should not have citrus juice before 8 months or tree nuts (almonds, walnuts, etc) before the first birthday. Peanut butter shouldn’t be offered until age two.
• Never give babies unpasteurized juice or cider or any kind of corn syrup or honey, all of which can cause illness.
• Be careful not to overdo it with juices. Too much juice can cause a baby’s diet to be poorly balanced and can also cause diarrhea. Limit your infant to 8 ounces of juice per day.
• Don’t give a baby any milk other than breast milk or infant formula before the first birthday. Regular soy milk doesn’t have the right balance of nutrients for infants and shouldn’t be offered until the first birthday. Many families choose to continue with breast milk or soy infant formula beyond the first year.
• Don’t offer foods that can cause choking like whole tofu hotdogs, popcorn, nuts, hard candies, grapes, or nut and seed butters.
• Don’t salt or sweeten foods.
Comments
For whatever it's worth, the AAP, the WHO, and many other medical organizations now recommend waiting until 6 months minimum to start solids for exclusively breastfed babies. Also, rice cereal really isn't important for breastfed babies - first foods can also be sweet potato or avocado, for example.
The best time to introduce solid foods is actually based on developmental readiness rather than age. Generally babies should not have solids before four months of age, but they should have them by six months of age. I agree that cereal doesn't have to be a first food. But for a breastfed baby, there is some advantage to starting with an iron-fortified cereal so that's just a good general guideline. Thanks for your comments!
I also agree that it is best to wait till after 6 month to introduce solids. i am Czech living in US and did a big research on several cultures about introducing solids. In czech we start after 6 months and with veggies like classic potatoes and carrots. It is very cultural what infants are started on. sometimes I even think that in western countries it's a big marketing to push the solids on very young babies. Both my breast\fed kids (3.5 and 1 year as of June 2009) were not much interested in solids after 7-8 month. My 1st girl started to nibble around her 1st year. Well, she would still nurse if she could LOL
my son started to feed him self at around 9 month as long as it was chopped in little pieces he could pick up. I was also lot more relaxed about feeding him and also being almost vegan there is not much bad things he couldn't have what we ate. also both of my kids can care less about the fruit and sweet foods. They both like olives, avocado, tomato stuff, broccoli, soups, etc.
This information is slightly inaccurate. Vegan babies need a dietary form of cholesterol for optimal health. Children don't produce ample cholesterol in their own bodies until approximately age 2-3 years. Therefor if a vegan baby isn't receiving breastmilk, then suitable donor milk should be sought to supplement the baby's diet, even if some soy formula is used. Also, vegan soy formulas are hard to come by. In fact if you happen to live in the U.S. they do not exist.
There is currently no recommendation for cholesterol intake for infants. And there is some evidence that formula-fed infants are able to synthesize their own cholesterol more efficiently. Human milk is always best, but when breast feeding is not chosen, formula is fine.
Why would a vegan exclusively breastfed infant require supplements that any other exclusively breastfed infant would not? Breastmilk is touted as nature's perfect food (for babies) yet they still try to bypass it. You are more than welcome to recommend that vegan breastfeeding mothers take additional B12, however giving infants under 6mons supplements, bothers me to the extreme. Have you ever thought: If it's not in breastmilk, 'Nature's perfect formula', perhaps there is a good reason for it?
FenDove, vitamin D supplements are recommended for all breastfed infants, vegan or not, since breast milk is low in this nutrient. Babies can make enough vitamin D, of course, if they have adequate skin exposure. But because there are so many variables associated with vitamin D synthesis, it is wise to provide supplements. Vitamin D deficiency is definitely more prevalent in breastfed infants who don't receive supplements.
If a mother is actively taking vitamin B12 supplements while breastfeeding, her milk will probably be adequate in this nutrient. If not, then babies of vegan moms need supplements. Most cases of B12 deficiency in infants occur when neither the mother or baby are getting B12 supplements.
This is wrong on so many levels, where does one start? Soy is not for infants or young children period! It's just plain dangerous. Some countries even warn against it and ban soy based formula.
This entire article is simply irresponsible. I would suggest anyone reading this to do research including the CDC on the dangers of veganism for pregnant/nursing moms and babies.
Kim, among those who are true experts in nutrition, vegan diets are recognized as being safe at all stages of the lifecycle. That's the position of both the American Dietetic Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics. I think much of what you are reading on the internet about hypothesized dangers of soy and vegan diets for children is coming from groups and individuals who really don't understand the science. The ADA is a pretty conservative group! They wouldn't say vegan diets are okay if it wasn't true.
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