Andre' ,

Some thoughts on Paleo infants and food.  These are generated from my
experience as a mother and my perceptions, as well as a look at early
Christian human feces from the Sudan.

First, my daughter was breast fed for 2 years.  For the first ear she had
almost no other food because she would not eat anything else.  I did not buy
canned baby food, but rather just ground up what we ate.  We never did try
porridge or cereals.  Fruits were good and some vegetables were OK. Finely
ground meat was also pretty good.  As she ate more after her first year she
ate more of the same types of things, never eating "traditional" baby foods.
I would not be surprised if Paleo mothers fed their infants pre-chewed foods
that they were eating.  Therefore, the foods would vary with geography.  I
just can't imagine that any other special preparations were made.  Mothers
probably watched what their babies and young children liked and ate well and
tried to give them more of what worked.

My look at human feces from a population of early Christians living along the
Nile River about 1400 years ago indicates that the infants and small children
ate what the adults ate.  This is not really ancient, but at least is not a
modern population.  As for age at weaning, look at physical anthropology
studies.  There is a lot of mortality at the transition from breast feeding
to eating adult foods in the prehistoric and historic records.  Presumably
largely from weanling diarrhea.  Perhaps something could be added to the diet
to get the proper bacteria into the system, such as yoghourt.

I would say look to the diet of the adults and ask what is nutritious, what
lends itself to a bit of processing, and what can  be done to transition the
digestive tract into working well with these foods, and experiment from
there.  I believe that weaning probably did not occur until 2 years of age or
more for many groups, so there might be opportunity to encourage going back
to this practice and making certain that mothers have adequate diets to
sustain quality nursing for 2 years.

Hope some of these thoughts help.  Perhaps many are things that you have
already tried.

Regards,
Linda Scott Cummings, Ph.D.
Paleo Research
15485 W. 44th Ave.
Golden, CO  80403  USA
(303) 277-9848