Italian Baby Weaning - It's Completely Different than the American Way
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What feels to be a gazillion years ago, while I was attending Universita’ Bocconi, one of my professors mentioned a book: “L’elefante invisibile” (The Invisible Elephant), by Giuseppe Mantovani; the elephant being culture – the thing that takes up so much space, and yet we don’t see.
Like the book, the phrase – told to me more than a decade ago – has remained with me. Living between worlds, as one does when one moves to another country, forces the elephant to become a little less invisible. You start to notice the big and little differences between the country you came from and the country you now call home. And you start to realize that many of the things you felt to be certain, almost laws or absolute truths, are anything but. Instead, you come to realize, that they are merely social constructs specific to a place.
Never was this more evident to me then after I had my son.
After many years living in between worlds – I felt I had a nuanced view of life. And then I had a baby.
Having a child can open your eyes and your mind to whole new worlds. Like, now I truly understand how a mother can successfully wrestle an alligator to save her child. REALLY – DON’T MESS WITH MY KID!
What I wasn’t expecting was for child-rearing and baby-weaning to be so different between the culture I came from and the one I now embrace.
I don’t know why, but somehow I assumed that there was a “standard” way to introduce babies to food. I mean, mustn’t there be a standard first food given to children all around the world?
After having my son Lorenzo in Italy, I realized how ignorant I was to assume so. I mean, apples don’t naturally grow in lots of parts of the world (including on the warm Caribbean island where I was born), so why would applesauce be the standard first food for 6-month-olds globally? I mean, unless, of course, they had somehow been convinced by TV shows and mass media that giving their kids something out of a jar was the best way to introduce them to solids.
No judgment here guys; I, too, fell trap to these assumptions, and perhaps, so did my parents. I called my dad to ask what the first thing they fed me was. He didn’t remember. No surprise there; my parents are not those people that can recount every single milestone I accomplished as a child, or when. Their stories of me as a child basically come down to me talking – A LOT – and being really skinny. So, his response was “Maybe apples?” Again, I was born on a small Caribbean island – we had mangos and avocados growing in our backyard, so why in the world would they give me apples?
But I digress.
So, there I found myself – an American wife and mother, along with my Italian husband – visiting with an Italian pediatrician about the first thing we should give our son to eat, and when.
As it turns out, the pediatrician suggested that I not start out with apples; Too sweet, she said. And my son wouldn’t become accustomed to eating only sweet foods. Instead, she gave us a paper to read and asked us to return in two weeks for a baby-weaning class led by a staff nurse.
All of this happened during my son’s fourth or fifth month; I guess they wanted me to be mentally prepared – before the weaning actually happened.
I took the paper home and read it. My first reaction? What?!?!? What the @!*?! You want me to give my 6-month-old lamb?!?!?
Then I called all of my relatives and family friends in the States, saying, “These Italians are CRAZY! They want me to feed Lorenzo lamb – LAMB – at 6 months!” I think we all got a pretty good laugh out of it.
Despite my skepticism, I went to this Italian baby weaning class, taught by a nurse who works with my son’s pediatrician. I probably only went because I really love my son’s pediatrician, and I was pretty much in the dark about how to wean my baby.
If I hadn’t attended the live course, there is no way I would have followed this weaning method; NO WAY.
The paper said that the first week, I should make a homemade broth from carrots, potatoes, and zucchini. Then, after a few days …
My thoughts were all over the place. What do you mean? I’m not supposed to introduce one food each day? I’m not supposed to give him carrots for three days to a week, then pureed zucchini for three days to a week?”
Once we made the broth, we were instructed to add the pre-cooked baby rice. She suggested this, instead of any products containing wheat, in case Lorenzo had a gluten intolerance.
Then there was the infamous lamb. It turns out, instead of having babies eat iron-fortified foods, the Italians feed babies foods that inherently have a lot of iron. But why lamb instead of, like, beef? The nurse explained that lamb has lots of healthy fats necessary for brain development. It’s less likely to cause an allergic reaction than proteins like fish. Plus, it tends to be less intensively farmed-raised (and all the problems that come with that) than many other meats.
Initially, I was instructed to use these little baby tiny bottles of lamb in powder form, and homogenized lamb baby food, which is wildly available in Italy. From there, I moved to trips to our butcher to get fresh lamb, and then rabbit (yes, rabbit!), and whatever else was on the list.
The cooked veggies we used to make broth could then be mushed up and added to the pappa (baby porridge). But once they had been used to make the broth, they really didn’t taste like much, so my husband and I would steam veggies on the side – usually in my pressure cooker – and then blend them to add to the pappa.
Since that initial month of weaning, we’ve never fed our son red meat more than twice weekly. Instead, we introduced other iron-rich foods like spinach, legumes, fish, and white meat.
By the age of 1, he was eating sea bass, chickpeas, and yes, still lamb, like it was nobody’s business.
I’m now one of the biggest advocates for the Italian way of weaning. Most of all, probably, because it took almost all of the guesswork out of what I was giving my son to eat every day. I had a chart with which foods to introduce, and how, as well as how many times a day.
A bit of work, yes. But as we know, Italians are all about food – and baby food is no exception to this rule.
Another delightfully interesting thing about having (and weaning) a baby in Italy, in general, is how much Italians love kids.
I will go to the butcher, supermarket, or fishmonger looking for ingredients for Lorenzo, and people go out of their way to get him the freshest ingredients. Attendants say things like “Wait, let me go to the back – we just got this in fresh this morning,” then they proceed to cut or filet our purchase with the utmost care.
Going to the deli counter, as he gets older, all I have to say is “E’ per il bambino (It’s for the baby).” They then tell me which products they carry that are antibiotic and preservative-free, etc., and thus more apt for babies.
There are lots of reasons why I love living in Italy, and the Italian approach to weaning and child-rearing is definitely at the top.
Want more?
I’ve included a few pictures of the weaning charts my pediatrician gave me within this post. If you want to see it more in detail. You can download it here; just note, it’s in Italian.
If you are interested, let me know, and I’ll translate it into English. Or if you’re interested in hearing more stories and info about Italian baby weaning, having a child in Italy, etc., do let me know in the comments below. Your feedback helps me and my team determine what content to share here.
Sending lots of love,
Thea
