Brought to you by Hass Avocado Board
New moms are often faced with the worry of how and when to introduce certain foods into their baby’s diet – especially when starting solids. When my son Donnie started on solids, I wanted to make certain I was choosing foods that were healthy and high in nutrients, but most of all – something he would enjoy!
At first, I was a bit unsure of giving avocados to my son as a first food but after receiving a little advice from some of my mom friends and from a bit of research, I decided to give them a try.
I’m glad I did – my baby boy just couldn’t get enough and still loves avocados!
In this post I'm going to share with you how I encouraged healthy eating habits with my son early on. I'll also share with you the handy dandy printable Avocado Baby Food Recipe cheat sheet I created to help your little one get started with avocados!
You'll find the printable at the bottom of this post. 😀
The Benefits of Avocado as Baby's First Food
When choosing baby’s first foods it’s important to pick something dense in nutrients, has a soft and smooth texture, and also has a neutral flavor profile. Avocados are a perfect choice since they fit all three of those characteristics!
Avocados are super packed with nutrients and have a perfectly smooth texture that’s easy for baby to swallow. Its neutral flavor profile also makes avocados the perfect first food – especially since this also helps to avoid a preference for sweet foods – isn't that awesome!!
Did you know that in Nutrients journal avocados were named as an optimal first food for babies?
Just one serving of avocado contains 6 g of healthy unsaturated fats – this is much higher than other fruits! Unsaturated fats are known to be important for normal development of the central nervous system, and structural and functional brain development in the first year of life.
A few More Benefits of Avocados
One (50g) Serving of Avocados provide:
- A good source of fiber, 11% of the daily value
- A good source of folate, 10% of the daily value
- 250 mg of potassium, 6% of the daily value
- 1 mg of vitamin E, 6% of the daily value
- 4 mg vitamin C, 4% of the daily value
- Contain naturally good unsaturated fats, which are an important part of a balanced diet
- Contains less than 1g of sugar per serving – that's the least amount of any fruit!
- Cholesterol free!
How to Introduce Avocado to Your Baby
You can introduce pureed avocado to your baby when they are as young as 4 – 6 months old. I first introduced avocado to my son Donnie when he was about 5 months old.
Start out with a simple puree of avocado blended until smooth using a tablespoon or so of water, breast milk or formula. This will help create the perfect consistency for your baby swallow. As with any baby food, start with just a small amount. If baby seems to enjoy it, keep going!
Most babies who try avocados tend to LOVE them so If they don’t seem too sure, try try again! 🙂
After your baby becomes familiar with the basic avocado puree, you can start combining it with other ingredients such as banana, apple, or sweet potato (my son’s favorite!).
I’m so glad I introduced my son to avocados early on since he seems to prefer healthier choices. As I mentioned above, since avocados have a neutral flavor profile they help to avoid kids getting a preference for sweet foods!
That's one of my favorite things about avocados since it seems to ring true with my boy!! I’m not kidding – he’d eat avocados rather than candy any day!
You can easily adapt and add to the basic avocado puree recipe as your baby grows. It’s a great way to introduce proteins such as chicken at 6-8 months, veggies such as broccoli at 8-10 months, and foods such as beans, corn and strawberries at 10 – 12 months. Check out the Baby Food Recipe Cheat sheet I created at the bottom of this page for more ideas! 😀
From 12 – 24 months, I started giving my son some basic finger foods such as sliced avocado on multi-grain toast – which is still one of his favorites at 3 years old!
Please check out Avocado Central for more great homemade baby food and kid-friendly recipes using delicious ripe avocadosI hope you found this post helpful and that you try introducing avocados to your little one to help start them on the path of healthy eating.
Click Here (or the image to the left) to download a Printable copy of the Avocados Baby Food Recipe Cheat Sheet! You might want to print this off and post it on your fridge for easy reference. 😀
