Cheese and Yogurt

[FutureHKmom]

I'd like to start giving cheese and yogurt to my 9 month old to eat. Any suggestions on what kinds of cheeses and which brand yogurt to start with? Thanks!!

 

[jvn]

Any basic cheese is good, I'd probably avoid unpasteurised or blue for a while but apart from that I think anything goes, we gave our son strong cheddar because that's what we eat and he loves it. Be aware that cheese has some salt in it but unless your baby suddenly starts by eating loads then it isn't a worry.

With yoghurt you need to avoid low-fat products as babies need the fat in their diets up until at least two or three years old. Apart from that, read the back of the packs and avoid high sugar brands or ones with lots of chemically sounding ingredients. We started with natural Greek yoghurt, it's lovely, no added sugar, and you have the choice to add your own fruit if you want. Flavoured yoghurts, even the 'baby' ones almost always have sugar added, plenty of babies have them but I avoided them until my son was about one and a half as I just don't think the added sugar in his diet is necessary.

Hope your baby enjoys!

 

[AudreysMom]

To introduce, around 10 months, we first gave her shredded organic cheese because it was fun for her to eat. She wouldn't eat the solid blocks bc she didn't have a lot of teeth. The shredded cheese was easier bc it dissolved sort of... Now at 20 months she likes organic string cheese which I give her every afternoon as a snack!

 

[FutureHKmom]

Thanks all!

Audreysmon- what type of string cheese did you start with?

 

[TNT]

i second what jvn says, but would add that whilst my daughter would eat a tiny bit of the extra strong cheddar that we eat - it is very strong, lots of people don't like it - we found (from her trying it at friends places) that she preferred a. milder taste so now both our children have tasty cheese but not a really strong one. My son won't eat the strong one at all. So some kids tastes do differ.

also on string cheese my understanding is that this is processed cheese like the cheese slices etc. So i would still go for as natural as possible, proper normal cheese as better for baby (and tastes much nicer too!)