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My son is 4 months old and he is taking Soy protein formula milk from second month and no mother’s milk.
He also taking Rice Cereal twice a day; while preparing the cereal we’re adding a pinch of Sugar to make it sweeten as per our PDs suggestion.
However, my elders and friends suggest that we shouldn’t give sugar and salt on this age.
Can someone advice what is the right age to start giving Sugar and Salts in infants foods, please.
For the first year, infants should have no more than 0.4g of sodium (1g of salt) per day. Odds are they will get most of that through naturally occurring salts. More than this can be dangerous for your baby's kidneys.
After one year old, you can start adding small amounts of salt to foods, though it's probably not necessary in most cases. Especially if you find them eating foods like french fries from time to time, that's going to give them a day's worth of salt right there.
As far as sugar, there's not as much risk as there is from salt, though if you head over to this question/answer, you can read an excellent summary of the potential risks. More importantly to me, if you feed your child mostly sweet things, they will eat only sweet things.
This is true even later in life; sugar changes the information your tastebuds give you, and if you go off sugar for a while, you'll start noticing you like things you didn't before. Train your children to like savory foods from an early age, and you won't have a challenge with them eating when they're older.
That said, you should talk to your pediatrician about this. If they instructed you to put some sugar in the cereal, they may have done so for a reason - so find out why. If it's just to make it taste better, but there's no health reason (your baby is not underweight), they likely will tell you it's fine to leave it off. But verify that first, in case they do have concerns about the weight of your baby.
A good alternative to sugar is to give your baby a few vegetables before cereal; there's no need to feed cereal first, and vegetables are excellent sources of interesting tastes. Then when cereal is introduced, it can be mixed with vegetables that the baby has already tried. Make sure you're only introducing one or two foods per week at first, and one at a time (to be able to isolate allergic responses).
The maximum daily recommended amount of salt for babies under one is 1g (0.4g sodium). From one to three years old the limit is 2g (0.8g sodium). Bearing in mind that most of the salt we eat is already in the food we buy (bread, cereal, etc.) it makes sense to keep any added salt as limited as possible. So any extra salt will be a burden on the tiny kidneys and the kidney’s will not be able to function properly due to the excessive load.
Most of the mothers think that no sugar for babies also means no sweet foods for babies and refrain from giving nutritious fruits for their little ones. As Sugar is refined by lot of chemical processes which may be harmful to children or babies and excess of sugar may depress immunity.
Here is the resource page which I had come across http://www.mylittlemoppet.com/why-no-salt-and-sugar-for-babies-until-1-year-of-age/
By avoiding sugar and salt in the early years, you can make sure that your child does not develop salty cravings and sweet tooth.
