Puffs and Mums

shuga_23

I've been doing a lot of thinking about feeding solids to Abe in the months to come.

I've heard moms talk about puffs and mums. I guess I'm not sure what they are or what they are for. Are they a snack? Do babies like/need snacks? Are they nutritious?

MainelyFoolish

Puffs are like lightly flavored Cheerios but less dense.  Mum Mums are flavored rice crackers that dissolve easily in the mouth.  Neither one offers much in the way of nutrition or calories, for that matter.  I guess you could call it a snack as much as any other finger food you feed an infant, since infants get their nutritional needs met through breast milk/formula.  They're easy to pick up, fun to eat, and a great way to occupy babies while you finish your own meal or to take the edge off the hunger until baby's mealtime.  Another infant finger food I would put in this same category is yogurt melts, which are little blobs of freeze-dried yogurt. 

MrsSweetpeaMagee

Puffs are good for hand to eye coordination and the pincher grip, they don't have much of a nutritional value, but babies love them.

Mum Mums are like crackers kind of... my mom called them cuttle bones because thats what they look like, they are also used for practicing eating. 

The boys loved both puffs and mum mums. 

jl&jl

I'm a pediatric feeding therapist as a part of my professional role.  At the last conference I went to, some time was spent discussing these.  Basically what was said was infant foods that dissolve are used by parents because of marketing, not because they make sense nutritionally or developmentally.  They're not nutritional at all.  And she talked a lot about giving kids whole foods, rather than flavored foods.  As in bananas are a food, not a flavor.  The reason why they're not good developmentally is because they don't prepare babies for real foods.  How many of the foods we eat just dissolve without us needing to do any active chewing or moving of our tongue?  She said the better choices for first crunchy foods are honey free graham crackers and cheerios.  If you have any feeding questions, I can likely spit back with the experts say.  Personally, we were given 2 containers of puffs and I gave them away.  Just the ingredient list made my eyes pop open.

jd72878

Most babies don't get nutritional value from food this early.  From what I understand trying new foods is to learn to eat, swallow, pinch, etc.  Different foods and textures provide lots of learning versus nutrition.  It's so much fun to see their reaction!  I recall Abby's first taste of Apple like it was yesterday!  Something I didn't realize until Abby's 6 month appt is that there are certain physical attributes babies must need to do before they can start food.  

What are you going to try first??

maeghan21

We went the puffs and mum mums route because I didn't feel comfortable giving DD cheerios. They dissolve fast. She loves them and it was good when she was younger when we went out to eat and she wanted to snack on something and feel "grown up." also, DD only has two bottom teeth, she needed something to gnaw on, but harder teething biscuits just dont give her the satisfaction of "finishing" something since she cant. they weren't given to her for nutrition and they are rice cakes so I wasn't worried they would harm her either. DD did not like the yogurt melts , still doesn't really. I'm ok with that since they contain sugars. At this stage of the game she is snacking on fruit so I won't bother anymore.

Mainer-in-Texas

DD loves Gerber Puffs, Mum Mums, and Yogurt Melts. Then I read the container of the Gerber Puffs and decided they were baby junk food, so I decided not to feed them to her anymore because they were the ONLY thing she would eat a few months ago. Now she eats (and loves) Cheerios and puffed rice cereal instead. Happy Babies also makes puffs that are sweetened with fruit juice, but they taste like air and DD just throws them on the floor. I will say that she is starting to outgrow the Mum Mums, which is fine with me because they provide no nutritional value anyway - they were just a good starter food for me to feel comfortable with.

I just started feeding her Happy Babies yogurt melts this week as a way to introduce dairy, and she loooooves them, but I'm not sure if I am going to continue giving them to her because they have added sugar. They do, however, also have protein, vitamin D, and calcium, so it's not like they are empty calories. And she is really picky, so I'm happy to have found something that is not a grain that I can feed to her.

mrscjwatts

T love MumMums and Puffs.  I mostly give them to her when she is in her chair and waiting for me to cook/feed her or when we first get home and I just need a few minutes to breathe.  We also give her the wheels (made by gerber) which she really likes.  MumMums and wheels are good for snacking in the car too.

WildcatPrincess

jl&jl:

I'm a pediatric feeding therapist as a part of my professional role.  At the last conference I went to, some time was spent discussing these.  Basically what was said was infant foods that dissolve are used by parents because of marketing, not because they make sense nutritionally or developmentally.  They're not nutritional at all.  And she talked a lot about giving kids whole foods, rather than flavored foods.  As in bananas are a food, not a flavor.  The reason why they're not good developmentally is because they don't prepare babies for real foods.  How many of the foods we eat just dissolve without us needing to do any active chewing or moving of our tongue?  She said the better choices for first crunchy foods are honey free graham crackers and cheerios.  If you have any feeding questions, I can likely spit back with the experts say.  Personally, we were given 2 containers of puffs and I gave them away.  Just the ingredient list made my eyes pop open.

I avoided them for these reasons. There's no nutritional value and I didn't feel the need to give her a food that basically dissolved in her mouth. Plus since we did BLW we started finger foods before she had a pincher and she was chewing like a pro by the time she could even have picked them up. I bought yogurt melts thinking they'd be a less messy alternative to yogurt and at least have some nutritional value to them, but not so much. We basically stay away from anything made by Gerber. The only baby food I've ever bought (besides the melts) are Earth's Best cereal bars which I keep in the diaper bag for emergencies.

Mainer-in-Texas

WildcatPrincess:

We basically stay away from anything made by Gerber.

This is how I feel about Gerber too. I bought her some of their other baby foods - The corn snacks and apple wheel things, and I tried them and they taste like cheesy poofs and apple jacks. I do think they are good to help nervous-nelly parents like myself get comfortable with the idea of feeding their babies finger foods, but they seem like total junk foods! Not a big deal as an occasional treat if your baby eats other things, but they don't work for us because Lily is so picky that I didn't want to create a junk-food junky who would only eat that stuff.

shuga_23

jd72878:

What are you going to try first??

I think I am going to try avocado first. I LOVE avocado!