babies and salt

[lindster]

i had my 8 month ass today for ds. The HV said he can now eat everything we eat including gravy etc. i asked about salt but she said its fine. Im not sure about this advice as thought they had to be about a yr before having salt added foods. Would appreciate any opinions, thanks.

Blimey, no! He's FAR too young for salt!!

Babies of this age should be having no more than 1gram a day. (According to Annabel Karmel).

Home cooked food is fine, as long as you dont add salt, but avoid all convienance food like jars, tins etc.

Eh - how crap is this HV! My understanding is that they should be over 1 before they can eat things like honey and 'normal' family meals - and even then you still have to be careful re amounts of salt. Can't have whole nuts before 5 because of the risk of choking.

My dd is nearly 16 months and I usually save some of mine and dp's tea and she has it for lunch the next day. It does make it a lot easier not having to prepare separate food - but am still careful re added salt etc.

I think I'll be more chilled out when dd2 arrives (due in 9 days) but with dd1 I have followed the Annabel Karmel route.

DSs are nearly 5 and 7 and I still don't add salt when I'm cooking family meals!

My hv said my 7 month old can eat anything now - bread, eggs etc. But there is salt in bread, cheese, even custard powder!
So how much salt are they allowed, or is it just don't cook with salt or add it to food ( which I still don't anyway after dd who is 6)

I think it is fine as long as you don't add salt to food and avoid overly salty foods such as bacon, smoked fish and meat etc.

I rarely cook with salt anyway, and never do if it something that we are all going to eat.

There was a news story more than a year ago now about a poor baby who died of salt poisoning. His parents had been weaning him and used gravy granules regularly. Presumably an awful lot of gravy granules, but such an awful, desperately sad story. I was very, very careful about salt content of anything that wasn't home-made (ie no salt) after that.

Food Standards Agency (official regulator, independent of Government but statutory body) says babies under a year should have less than 1g of salt a day, btw.

thanks ladies, youve backed up what i think. Not sure what the HV is going on about but i think ill carry on with what im doing for now and avoid salty foods.