Is it better to add salt to my baby as late as possible? Will it affect development if it is not added beyond 1 year?

The topic of how old a baby can eat salt has been controversial among the older generation and the new generation of mothers and fathers. Grandparents believe: children have no strength if they don’t eat salt. Younger parents, having been exposed to modern scientific views of parenting, agree that babies should not eat salt until they are at least one year old.So, the question arises: if babies can’t eat salt until they are 1 year old, are they allowed to eat it after that? Or, at what age can babies officially eat salt?

As an indispensable condiment in our lives, salt is like a flower that blooms on the taste buds and makes our culinary world more colourful.

The first thing that is certain is that there is no need for extra salt up to the age of one year. This is because babies up to one year old are still mainly fed with breast milk or formula, which contains sodium and can fully satisfy their sodium needs.

For babies under one year of age who have started supplementation, breast milk or formula can supplement part of their sodium needs and supplementation can meet the other part.

At this point, some mothers may wonder why they are not allowed to add salt if they are getting some sodium from complementary foods. It is important to know that complementary foods themselves contain sodium. If you add salt or soy sauce containing invisible salt, it is easy to overdose on sodium.

There are a number of dangers associated with babies eating salt too early and in excess. Firstly, the taste can become heavy. Babies’ little mouths have not yet tasted any condiments and their tastebuds are much more sensitive than those of adults. Foods that adults find tasteless, they will find delicious instead.

Therefore, parents should not use their own taste to measure their baby’s taste. Foods that they find bland are actually acceptable to their babies.

If you eat a heavy diet for a long time, your baby will be less able to accept light food afterwards, and this will slowly develop a habit of being heavy and may become heavier and heavier, which is not good for your baby’s health.

Secondly, eating salt too early and in excess can be a very serious burden on the kidneys. For adults with mature kidney function, salt intake in general is excreted more when you eat more and less when you eat less.

However, for small children, they cannot excrete as much as adults because their kidneys are not yet fully developed.

If salt is added too early and is consumed in excess, this can have a negative effect on the kidneys. On the one hand, it can cause kidney dysfunction, and on the other hand, it can lead to kidney failure if it is serious, so parents must pay attention to this.

We know that salt is not needed before the age of one, but what about after the age of one? Do you need to add salt? How much is appropriate?

Parents can estimate that if their child is able to accept a light diet, that is, if they do not add salt to their daily food, but are able to get sufficient amounts of sodium and iodine in their food, then it does not matter if they add salt or not, so there is no question of the latest age at which they can add salt to their child.

What parents should be more concerned about is the amount of salt they should consume at each stage of their baby’s life, and the amount of dietary fibre and micronutrients that should be consumed in a balanced manner at each stage of growth, rather than the question of how old a baby should be before he or she can eat salt.

So, instead of obsessing about the latest age to add salt to your child’s diet, it is better to focus on a healthy and light diet from a young age, with parents leading by example and using their own eating habits to influence their children’s eating habits for the rest of their lives.