Baby's sense of smell is developed when he is in the womb. Around 13-16 weeks of gestation is enough for the taste glands to become active. As the baby can smell the amniotic fluid present in the womb of the mother he can also taste the food the mother intakes during the nine months of pregnancy through the same fluid.
To avoid the baby to be a picky eater, selective and fussy for some foods it is advisable to eat all and maximum varieties of food during pregnancy and breast-feeding. The breast milk also contains flavors of food in taken by the mother.
No wonder the sense of taste is related to tongue. But for the baby the sense of taste comes from the tongue and the mouth roof containing tiny taste buds. This shows that the baby is more sensitive to different tastes and variety of foods. With age the taste buds slowly happen to vanish from the remaining mouthparts except the tongue.
The baby's saliva present in the mouth helps in breaking of food and causes the receptor cells to send message to the brain. And the signal about the taste of food is than send back by the brain. The taste glands can mainly recognize four kinds of tastes, the sweet, sour, bitter and salty. The baby's sense of taste not only leads him to enjoy various foods but also avoid dangers.
Newborn babies are more habituated to the mother's sweet breast milk. This taste of the milk makes it a bit difficult for the baby to leave breast-feeding. The reason is addiction to the taste of breast milk. This can be a challenge to mothers to make the baby cultivate taste for other fruits, vegetables and cereals leaving her milk.
It has also been noticed that baby tastes the food seeing the texture. Some attractive colors and textures attract the taste gland too. A common thing noticed in babies is that they split out anything that does not taste them good immediately. This proves they have a very strong sense of taste.
Many pediatricians and experts believe that the appropriate time to include new flavors in the baby's diet is the 9-10 months age time. In this age group the baby develops sense of taste peaks. While some recommend to add new varieties at the age of 5-6 months. This can be choose depending on the baby and breast-feeding.
Unawareness regarding the fact that the babies have a tongue with some thrust reflex that cause the tongue to push back when some food is put in the mouth parents believe that the bay shows the disliking for that food taste. Hence it is advisable to look at the bay's face when feeding him to learn his liking and disliking for a particular food and keep a very positive attitude and look while feeding him.
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