When my first born first stopped eating (he was just 12 months old), I would have done anything to get him to eat. He fell off the growth charts completely—less than 1 percentile in weight—and it was an incredibly stressful time.
He's just now begun, at age 4 (and a half—he’d want me to say that) to eat chicken (if it’s in rice pilaf or a nugget). It’s often only a nibble—but I’ll take it.
And have my twin babies had chicken nuggets yet? You bet. Because those little buggers are tasty! And because parenting is hard.
Here’s our official take on chicken nuggets for babies:
Chicken nuggets (frozen or fast food) are best reserved for babies 12 months and older. Why 12 months? Because many brands of chicken nuggets (and fish sticks) have levels of sodium that far exceeds baby's needs as well as additives we'd ideally like to hold off on in infancy.
But word to the wise: make sure your baby has some exposure to foods like chicken nuggets if you ever want to serve them. This way your child is not seeing nuggets for the first time (which often leads to rejection, especially after 18 months of age.) Toddlers are wary of new things so if you want (or need) your child to be eating a certain food, make sure they have some exposure to it early on. People often think of picky eating as a child who only eats foods like nuggets or pizza, but truthfully, it's much more complicated than that.
--Jenny, founder
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