Giving fruits to small children

Almost all the babies are 10 months old so time to introduce fruits. I personally do not like to puree the fruits because, firstly I am too lazy to do this and secondly but most importantly, processing fruits will reduce the nutritional contents of the fruits. I also do not like to extract the juice because the children need the fibre to prevent constipation and some of the vital nutrients are in the fibre so by just giving the juice alone your baby will not have all the nutrients of the fruit
Most of the children have a few front teeth so they can bite through the fruits but they do not know how to properly chew food yet therefore it is important to use the right method to feed them.






Fruits like apples are hard therefore the best way is to scrape them. Cut the fruit into big slices.







Using a teaspoon, scrape the fruit until you get a pulp onto the spoon.







Offer it to the child. Continue scraping and feeding it to the baby until the slice is finished. It is best to start with one big slice and as your child gets used to the fruit you can give more.




If the fruit is soft you can give it slice by slice instead of mashing it up. This will teach your baby to enjoy the real texture of the fruit and it is less messy. I like to use the local ‘pisang emas’ because the texture is smoother and one banana is just nice for small children.







Peel the banana and using a teaspoon, slice off a small piece at a time.








Feed your child one slice at a time.








If you give kiwi fruits, cut it into halves








Use the ‘slicing’ method








Give one slice at a time until it is all gone.








Watermelon should be cut into very small cubes








Use a fork to offer the cut fruits to the child








Jeun Yip showing us that the fruit is good. All children cannot use their thumb to show the “this is good” sign so they use their fore finger.