by BabyCenter Featured Expert posted in Products & Prizes

By Dr. Alan Greene, Pediatrician, Author and Advisor to Plum Organics
The time when your baby starts eating solid food is a truly unique window of opportunity. Babies can still easily learn to love a lifetime of food that loves them back. They are primed to sample new flavors and are ready for tastebud training. This is serious business. And we adults are the trainers, on hand to offer a vast array of flavors.
This is the perfect time to focus on helping your baby develop a balanced palate and a life-long love of a wide variety of foods. And you can feel free to devote yourself solely to flavor during this phase, as the nutrients your baby needs are still mainly being provided by breast milk, especially if mom has a healthy and dynamic diet herself, or formula. Solids, at this age, are mainly supplemental. So grab this moment to act as a flavor concierge with a rainbow of choices. Soon enough the solids your baby eats will need to meet her nutritional needs based on stages of development, cycles of growth, and learning. For now, introduce as many flavors, smells - and even textures as you can. Play around with color, aromas, and wildly diverse foods.

If you don?t think bland rice cereal tastes great, it?s likely not a flavor you want to give your baby. Mix and match ingredients: bold and subtle. Offer foods alone as well as combined. And don?t forget herbs and spices. If you?re breastfeeding, chances are baby is...