Salt levels

[NormaStits]

I feel like I'm constantly checking salt levels in food, it's driving me mad. My baby is 10 months now and is a good eater, likes variety. She loves fruit and veg so I know there's no or little salt in them. But she's also a big girl (90-odd percentile height & weight) and likes quite big quantities of food and I'm trying to make sure she gets plenty of protein, fat and carbs too as I'm trying to start making the move towards getting her nutrition from food and not milk as she heads to the 12 month mark.

I read that she shouldn't have more than 1g of salt a day and it seems so hard to keep to that! I give plenty of low salt things like rice, pasta, veg, chicken, fruit, yoghurt, porridge. But one slice of toast is half her daily allowance of salt and she likes a piece of toast in the morning (I like it because she can self-feed as opposed to cereal which means I have to sit and feed her). A couple of pieces of cheese is half her allowance, a bit of ham etc, it just seems to add up so quickly. So a ham butty would be all her salt for the day and that's not accounting for what, if any, is in my milk, which she still has a lot of.

Am I being over zealous in strictly sticking to under 1g a day? Occasionally we'll go over, the other day she had a treat of 5 KFC chips with the salt licked off by me (the things you do!) so the next day I went very light on salt to compensate. Usually she doesn't have junk food like that, but it seems that even eating natural foods allows the salt to build up. I feel like I'm turning into One Of Those Mums.

[FlopIsMyParentingGuru]

I think there is a balance in these things and it sounds like you might be worrying slightly more than necessary. Every child has odd treats now and then.
That said, DD is a frustratingly picky eater, loving things with salt in so, in order to keep her salt levels lower we maker lower salt bread in a breadmaker, as she will eat that bread and it's a relatively easy thing to do.
If you're worried is it worth considering doing something similar yourself.

[LissieD]

We also make our own low salt bread in the bread maker. Bit of a faff but shop bread is very salty. And then I feel less worried about letting my nine month old have a bit of ham or the odd chip.
Milk should still be quite a substantial source of nutrients and calories at one anyway. You don't need to rush to replace milk with all food.
I'm annoyed that I can't remember where I read it but...
At 12 months 25% food, 75% milk
18 months 50% food 50% milk
24 months 75% food 25% milk.

[NormaStits]

Thanks both. I don't have a breadmaker but that sounds like a good idea if you do.

I didn't know that about milk, I just thought that you could stop breastfeeding/formula feeding at 1 and go onto food. Must look into that some more then.

I'm lucky that she LOVES fruit and veg and eats them off the plate before anything else, so I'll just keep up the portions of those to bulk out meals. Typed while watching her shovel chunks of tomato into her face faster than she can chew...

[MrsAukerman]

It's all sliding scales though. At 12-47 months they can have 2g a day. So really with her being a big girl she could probably handle nearly 2g a day. It's not like her kidneys will suddenly get twice as good overnight before her birthday!
Relax a bit.