The third key to success is exposure and variety. I love this one because the whole family should be participating in this one. exposure and variety is especially important in the early years, because we know that it often takes at least 10 times of introducing a certain foods for a baby to accept a new foods. So if there is a variety in their diet, they're more likely to be willing to try new foods when it's introduced to them later on. At this stage, they don't really have true likes and dislikes. So I get a lot of parents telling me that, you know, my baby is not liking any meat.
So what do I do for the iron? So I really encourage you to keep trying, they're very adaptable to their tastes. And if you start exposing them to these foods now, they will likely not learn to like it in the future. We often give up After three times of its exposure, and stop giving the baby food, I remember that my son was hate shrimp. And you know, it's very tempting to not make him anymore for dinner because he's not going to eat it anyways. But I still keep trying because our family will eat shows from time to time and I still put it on his plate, and it took over a year for him to try shrimp.
Again, in nutrition world we say variety is nutrition. We know that different types of foods give us different nutrition, different micronutrients, different vitamins and minerals. That's why we want to be eating a rainbow. And we're not talking about Skittles, we're talking about different types of fruits and vegetables. The same colors will give us different nutrition. So if you have a variety baby that's more likely to meet his nutritional needs.
I encourage you as a family to challenge yourself to try something new every week. It can be a new food. It can be a new fruits and vegetables, new protein, new carbohydrates, or it can just be a new recipe. So a different way to cook the food that you're familiar with. Because oftentimes, we don't have enough variety in our own diets. So how can we introduce variety to our babies?
So it is a great time to reevaluate your family meals, and also improve the nutrition in your family. You can go check out the food demo videos for some inspiration and ideas on different types of food. But I really encourage you to be open and willing to try new foods just as you expect your baby to be