RAISING A VEGAN BABY..
Posted by pattycakex on Aug 24, 2009 · Member since Jul 2009 · 12 posts
my partner and i are trying to have a baby. im vegan, he's vegetarian but eats seafood and dairy..
we're both thinking how the hell are we gonna raise our children VEGAN??? do i feed my children soymilk?? i mean yeah i can cook very well but what do i feed them?? it must be really expensive!!!!
Try this thread:
http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=29040.0
I don't have kids yet, but my fiance and I plan to raise our kids vegetarian until the point they can make their own moral decisions. My fiance isn't vegetarian. It's not a big deal as long as you communicate with each other, and do your research. Aside from this site (which is full of great people with great advice), try searching out some books on vegan nutrition and parenting.
I'm of the opinion that it's one thing to feed yourself, but when you bring a kid into the world you should probably think a lot more about what you cook.
Besides, babies are easy. Breast milk is the perfect food for them.
;)b
Here's a thread for vegan toddlers
vegan parenting
vegan pregnancy
recommended books
questions about vegan pregnancy
un-veg*n cravings
Prenatal vitamin recommendation
Articles
Vegan Diet for baby and 4 year old
Non-dairy diets for infants
Newly pregnant and concerned about protein
Breastfeeding Your Vegan Baby
Hope these links help to answer some/most of your questions!
~H
I don't think it's any more or less expensive, and you won't have to worry about it for a few months after it's born. No soymilk for the first year... Also, maybe check out this thread... http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=29256.0
Congratulations!
Raising a vegan child is actually really easy. Nothin to it but to do it! My daughter is now 6 and has been vegan all her life.
The benefits are tremendous! Your child will be healthier, have a better immune system, better endurance, and a clear conscience! Everyone has given great suggestions so far. I just wanted to chime in as well.
:)
WOW AMAZING!! THANKS SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have helped raise seven vegan babies, and they are now from seven to twenty nine years old.
Although i never took part in the breast feeding this was the first food. For the first year they never ate anything other than breast milk and fruit. Banaas and avacados being the favorites. We had a baby food grinder such as the one seen in this add
http://www.teething-teeth.com/baby-food-Grinder-Product.html
They all survived with few sicknesses. The youngest three are still vegan while the oldest are mostly vegetarian.
When DS was born, DH and I were both ovo-lacto vegetarians. By the time DD came along, I was vegan and DH was still ovo-lacto. In the end, the kids are ovo-lacto vegetarians, and eventually brought me with them, though my home cooking is primarily vegan, and we use soymilk. DS wouldn't even eat food til he was around a year old. DD began eating some people food at around 6 months.
The important thing is probably to breastfeed your baby for as long as possible. That way, by the time they are weaned, soymilk will be fine for them. It's easy having a vegan baby; the hard part is when they begin having friends and going to preschool and encounter all the junk food our culture has to offer...
ETA: My kids are 17 and 13 now and are very staunch vegetarians.
My wife and I, ages 44 and 41, had our first child 16 months ago. We're both as vegan as possible for almost 16 years now and he's been the same way since conception. He's now a very strong and focused child. She breastfed for the first several months and then slowly transitioned him to organic soy formula along with organic rice and multigrain cereal added in. He now eats just about everything, loves tofu, as well as nutritional yeast, which is a super food for all ages young and old. We sometimes add a little blackstrap molasses to his bottles, for the extra iron and calcium, as well as other times a little flax oil for all the great omegas. After her c-section, as her doctor (a traditional meat & potatoes guy) stitched her back up, he commented out loud in front of the entire staff, "Sherrie, you don't have any excess fat lining your abdomen, which is usually only typical for women 20 years younger than yourself, it must be due to your healthy vegan diet, I should really think about this", which just blew our mind as we never discussed it with her doctor and he only knew because the nurse noted it on her chart very early on. Upon the follow up visit he remarked once again how incredible her insides looked, how wonderful the baby was, and that he'd been mentioning it to others ever since, which we took to mean his medical colleagues. A wonderful experience to say the least. Being the cook, I just made sure to include a wide variety of healthy veg foods during her pregnancy, and especially those which contained all the vital nutrients, such as plenty of Nutritional yeast, Flax oil, Hemp oil, Blackstrap Molasses, a variety of nut & seed butters, plant & nut milks, lots of different nuts, beans, grains and greens, etc.
My wife and I, ages 44 and 41, had our first child 16 months ago. We're both as vegan as possible for almost 16 years now and he's been the same way since conception. He's now a very strong and focused child. She breastfed for the first several months and then slowly transitioned him to organic soy formula along with organic rice and multigrain cereal added in. He now eats just about everything, loves tofu, as well as nutritional yeast, which is a super food for all ages young and old. We sometimes add a little blackstrap molasses to his bottles, for the extra iron and calcium, as well as other times a little flax oil for all the great omegas. After her c-section, as her doctor (a traditional meat & potatoes guy) stitched her back up, he commented out loud in front of the entire staff, "Sherrie, you don't have any excess fat lining your abdomen, which is usually only typical for women 20 years younger than yourself, it must be due to your healthy vegan diet, I should really think about this", which just blew our mind as we never discussed it with her doctor and he only knew because the nurse noted it on her chart very early on. Upon the follow up visit he remarked once again how incredible her insides looked, how wonderful the baby was, and that he'd been mentioning it to others ever since, which we took to mean his medical colleagues. A wonderful experience to say the least. Being the cook, I just made sure to include a wide variety of healthy veg foods during her pregnancy, and especially those which contained all the vital nutrients, such as plenty of Nutritional yeast, Flax oil, Hemp oil, Blackstrap Molasses, a variety of nut & seed butters, plant & nut milks, lots of different nuts, beans, grains and greens, etc.
Great story!
That is great. Congratulations!
all the parents here are awesome and can provide all the support you need to raise a veg baby.
my personal opinion follows:
BREASTMILK! For as long as you can stand. do everything you can to avoid formula, soy or not. both my babies react badly to highly processed soy.
awesome posts everyone. now its time to get it on!! LOL!! ;D
Breast-feed if possible for as long as you can, 2 years is optimal!!! (again if possible, of course a baby would be fine if you couldn't) This helps health wise for all the right fats and it also protects against illness, especially ear infections. Around 9 months my daughter needed a little supplment to breastmilk occasionally when I went back to work and we had to do rice milk because she was allergic to soy. ( But we okayed this with our Dr.) As far as first foods we did mashed, (thined with water,) avocado which is still my daughter's fav food! We could mix just about anything in with it too. I get her b-12 level checked 1x a year because I've always read to be careful about that, all of her work-ups shes been fine,(for iron too.)
Now that she is almost 2 she is a pretty good eater, she loves ezekial bread w/ earth balance, homemade soup filled with beans and veggies, (which could be pureed for a younger/picky child,) tacos with rice and black beans-plenty of guac-, fruits as well and occasionally she will eat small pieces of brocolli/cauliflower on its own....still working on that one. We avoid nuts still, I think our Dr said until at least 2 years.
Hope this helps, good luck to you!
I am currently pregnant and planning to raise the baby as a vegetarian. I have been vegan for over 10 years and my wife is a omnivore who can occasionally be convinced to eat vegan food. After a lot of discussion and compromise we have decided that until the child is old enough to make his/her own decisions an ovo/lacto vegetarian diet will be followed. We already have 2 children, 13 and 17, who are omnivores so our family will be quite mixed. I don't think it is that difficult to raise a vegetarian or vegan child so long as both parents are on board with the decision and steadfast in their decision to do so.