Foods To Avoid During Baby’s First Year And Beyond

When beginning solid foods with your baby there are safe, nutritious foods and there are foods that should be avoided. This post will cover the top foods to avoid when feeding your baby and why you’ll want to steer clear of them. Some of these foods should never be fed to a baby due to the risk of contamination with food borne illnesses. To learn which foods are recommended when feeding baby, check out the top 10 first foods for baby when starting solids.

Foods that should never be fed to baby due to risk of food borne illnesses:

Honey can be contaminated with “Clostridium botulinum” which is a toxin causing the food borne illness, botulism. Botulism is a rare, but very serious illness that attacks the body’s nerves causing difficulty breathing, paralysis, and potentially death. Improperly preserved homemade foods can also be contaminated with the toxin. Avoid honey in any form, even in baked goods. After 1 year of age, baby’s immune system is mature enough to safely handle the bacteria and honey can be served then.

This may be another obvious food to avoid for baby but important to be aware of. Seafood that’s not cooked thoroughly can contain bacteria that has potential to cause serious stomach infections. Also avoid seafood high in mercury like shark, swordfish, and marlin. Other well-cooked seafood like shrimp, scallops, salmon, lobster, crab, sardines, and tuna are all great for baby and should be offered early and often along with the other top 9 allergens.

Foods to avoid for babies and toddlers due to choking risk:

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) list popcorn and marshmallows and others as top choking hazards for babies and kids. Popcorn can be easily inhaled and tough to chew for young children. Molars are needed to fully chew the tough fibers in popcorn, which don’t develop until around age 4. It’s best to avoid popcorn for the first few years of your baby’s life. Even adults can have a hard time with popcorn! Marshmallows shrink and expand, posing a risk of blocking the airway. Additionally, marshmallows are made of added sugars which are best avoided during the first 2 years of life.

Hotdogs also pose a high choking risk due to their size, shape, and texture. The CDC and AAP recommend avoiding hotdogs until 4 years of age and always carefully supervising children when offering hotdogs after 4 years. For extra precaution, cut hotdogs length wise twice and then cut into bite-sized pieces. It’s best to cut all round, coin-shaped foods into quarters before serving to babies or toddlers.

Of course grapes and cherry tomatoes are perfectly healthy for your baby, but it’s the size and shape of these foods that pose a choking risk. These small, round foods are the perfect size and shape to get stuck in baby’s airway and must be altered to be safe. Cut grapes and cherry tomatoes into quarters and mash other round foods like blueberries and raspberries before serving to baby.

Raw chunks of apples and carrots, and other hard fruit and vegetables are best avoided until 4 years. It’s best to avoid these due to the possibility of the baby or child not chewing well enough and swallowing a large piece that could cause a choking event. These foods can still be offered but they may need to be cooked and cut appropriately first.

Foods to limit for babies and toddlers:

This is a another category that may not be possible to completely avoid but limiting added sugars in baby’s diet will benefit baby in the short and long term. Natural sugars in fruit are fine especially because fruit provides other necessary nutrients like fiber, vitamins, and minerals. The AAP, CDC, and American Heart Association (AHA) recommend avoiding added sugars until 2 years of age. Foods high in added sugars are often high in calories and lower in healthier nutrients. Babies and toddlers only have so much room in their tummy. Every bite counts for babies and filling those tiny tummies with nutrient-rich foods will help them meet growth and developmental goals and avoid nutrient deficiencies. Look out for common added sugar names in the ingredient list like fructose, sucrose, dextrose, and corn syrup.

Hotdogs also fit into this category along with pickles, soy sauce, bacon, ham, store-bought sauces and gravies, ready-to-eat meals, and any other food with added salt. As with added sugars, sometimes we can’t completely avoid added salt in baby’s diet but we can limit it! Avoiding excess salt during infancy may prevent baby from preferring these salty foods in the future. There’s little research on how much salt is too much for babies. It’s possible that baby’s kidneys may be too immature to handle excess salt and it’s best to avoid when possible.

If you’re wondering how to easily create balanced meals for baby check out 10 Nutritious Baby Meals that provide you with 10 ideas for balanced meals, general serving tips, and advice for offering the top allergens. You may be in the beginning stages of starting solids or maybe haven’t quite started, in either case, check out the baby-led weaning supply list to shop all the feeding supplies you’ll need for starting solids.

This post is not meant to shame. Parenting is HARD and we’re all just trying to do the best for our kids. Learning about new guidelines is one way to help us during this wild journey. As always, this is not meant to be medical advice but purely educational.

References

Vos MB, Kaar JL, Welsh JA, Van Horn LV, Feig DI, Anderson CAM, Patel MJ, Cruz Munos J, Krebs NF, Xanthakos SA, Johnson RK; American Heart Association Nutrition Committee of the Council on Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health; Council on Clinical Cardiology; Council on Cardiovascular Disease in the Young; Council on Cardiovascular and Stroke Nursing; Council on Epidemiology and Prevention; Council on Functional Genomics and Translational Biology; and Council on Hypertension. Added Sugars and Cardiovascular Disease Risk in Children: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association. Circulation. 2017 May 9;135(19):e1017-e1034. doi: 10.1161/CIR.0000000000000439. Epub 2016 Aug 22. PMID: 27550974; PMCID: PMC5365373. Format:

Rapley G, Murkett T. Baby-Led Weaning, Completely Updated and Expanded Tenth Anniversary Edition: The Essential Guide―How to Introduce Solid Foods and Help Your Baby to Grow Up a Happy and Confident Eater. 10th ed. New York, NY: The Experiment, LLC; 2019.