It’s exciting when your baby starts making the transition to solid foods, but it can also create lots of new questions for parents. Although avocado is a great starter food for babies, for instance, some might wonder how much avocado a baby can eat or how much is too much.
Determining how much avocado is too much for your baby to eat depends on their age and dietary habits. While avocados are an excellent source of healthy fat and vitamins, overeating could add too many calories to their diet or prevent them from adding additional foods to their diet.
Personally, we love avocados in our house and all of our kids enjoyed them as babies. Let’s dive into some questions that you might have about avocados as well as how much you should be serving your baby by age group.
Should your baby be eating avocados?
Avocados are super healthy food for babies to eat. They are nutrient-dense, full of healthy fats, and help babies learn to love fruits and vegetables. Since they have such a smooth, soft texture, they are also one of the best foods to choose for your baby’s FIRST solid food!
Since avocados have so many health benefits and they are also pretty trendy right now, in general, many parents might worry that they are giving their baby too many of them or that there might be some risk associated with eating too many avocados. Since they are so heavy in fats, it could be easy to assume that you are overfeeding your baby if you add too much avocado to their diet.
The good news is that unless your baby is overeating, in general, then you probably aren’t feeding them too much avocado. Just be sure your baby is getting the right amount of breastmilk, protein, and other fruits and vegetables in her diet as well.
Of course, every baby is different and her dietary needs and preferences will change over time as well. Let’s learn more about avocados, answer some questions that you might have, and even look at the maximum amount of avocado your baby should have each day by age group.
Nutritional benefits of babies eating avocados
Avocados are considered a very healthy food for babies and adults, alike! Here is a complete breakdown of what’s in your average medium avocado:
- Calories: 322
- Total fat: 29 grams (4.3g saturated, 3.7g polyunsaturated, 20g monounsaturated)
- Total Carbohydrates: 17 grams (13 grams fiber, 1.3 grams sugar)
- Protein: 4 grams
- Sodium: 14 mg
- Cholesterol: 0 mg
- Potassium: 975 mg
- Vitamin A: 5.9% of daily value (DV)
- Vitamin C: 34% of DV
- Calcium: 1.9% of DV
- Iron: 6.1% of DV
As you can see, avocados have a great macronutrient (fat, carb, protein) breakdown with a huge serving of healthy monounsaturated fat! Did you know that they are even a better source of potassium than bananas?
Can babies eat avocado every day?
Under normal circumstances, babies should be able to eat avocados every day.
However, you might not want to do this because babies should be exposed to new foods constantly when they are just getting started with solids. The ultimate goal for all babies is to let them experience as many tastes and textures as possible and allow them to grow into a complete diet that can give them all of the vital nutrients that they need. By giving them avocado every day, you might be unintentionally limiting these new foods.
A great way to ensure a little more variety in your baby’s diet is to pick up some baby food pouches that mix other foods together with avocados. In our house we absolutely love the Happy Baby Organics baby food pouches and they have a delicious apple, kale, and avocado mix that you can find right here.
How do I know its good – I always taste the baby food!
For babies that LOVE avocados, however, there is no reason you can’t give them a little taste every day or even just mix it into other foods as well!
Do avocados cause constipation in babies?
Rather than causing constipation in babies, the fiber content in avocados can actually help prevent it!
Even though avocados are mostly made of fat, they also include a lot of fiber in every serving. As a result, avocados could also be a great snack for babies that are struggling with constipation right now to help loosen things up!
Using avocados for baby-led weaning
Baby-led weaning is a simple method of introducing solid foods to your baby that puts emphasis on letting your baby explore the new tastes and textures at their own pace rather than being spoon-fed purees.
As an example, parents that choose to baby-led wean their kids would present a small plate of different foods for their baby cut into age-appropriate sizes or pureed, if necessary. The baby can then pick up, smell, taste, or suck on the food at their pace. In the beginning, it’s not very important that they actually eat much of the food.
Avocados work great for baby-led weaning because they are firm enough for babies to pick up but soft enough for them to squish or gum up in their mouths. They can also be easily pureed and have a texture that most babies enjoy while still having a neutral flavor that is unlikely to turn a baby off of them.
Always be sure to watch your baby carefully anytime they are eating new foods to keep an eye out for choking hazards, allergic reactions, or other issues!
How to choose the right avocado for babies
I’ve already mentioned that avocados work great as a baby’s first food because of their smooth, creamy texture that baby’s love to eat!
To get that perfect texture, however, you will need to choose the right avocado and that means picking one that is perfectly ripe. Ripe avocados have a softer texture, which makes them much easier to eat when sliced and much creamier when pureed.
Here’s what to watch for when selecting the perfect avocado:
- Bumpy, dark green skin
- Slightly firm, but gives a little under pressure
- Yellow color around the stem (brown is overripe)
- The inside flesh has a butter-yellow color near the pit
Can you buy organic avocado baby food?
If you don’t want to make your own avocado purees, it’s not hard to find it in the baby food section at your local store or online (did you know you could buy baby food on Amazon?).
For whatever reason, however, it’s not super common to find JUST avocado in a jar or pouch serving, so it will likely be mixed with other fruits or vegetables. Since it’s best to introduce foods to your baby one at a time, it might be a good idea to only feed the mixed versions to them after you have given them some fresh avocado by itself!
How to store avocado baby food and puree
Avocados are a bit notorious because they can be expensive and it’s incredibly easy to waste them if you aren’t prepared.
If you still have whole, uncut avocados, then you can simply store the ripened fruit in the fridge for one or two weeks.
If you have already cut into your avocados or you have several that are about to go bad, then the best solution for longer-term storage is to freeze them. Rather than freeze them whole or cut up, however, the best method is to puree them up with a little citrus juice and freeze them in a bag or other container. According to Spruce Eats, this is the best method:
- Cut each avocado in half lengthwise
- Pull out the pit in the middle
- Scoop the flesh out and load it into a food processor
- Add 1 tablespoon of lemon or lime juice per medium avocado
- Puree until smooth
- Seal the puree into an airtight bag or container (leave a bit of room for expansion)
If you don’t have any baby food-sized storage containers, then I highly recommend picking up some like these. They are made of high-quality glass, have screw-on lids, are microwave and dishwasher safe, and don’t contain any BPA, PVC, or other harmful plastic chemicals!
Adding that bit of citrus helps prevent browning and also allows a little bit more texture to stay intact after freezing and thawing.
How many avocados can a baby eat by age
While all babies are a little different, there are still some general recommendations that you should follow when it comes to feeding solids to yours.
According to the Mayo Clinic, for instance, your baby should ideally be fed breastmilk until the age of 6 months. At that point, you can start introducing solid foods one at a time. Babies that are formula-fed, meanwhile, can start this process at 4 months if she seems ready. Either way, those first few feedings are less about eating and more about exposing your baby to new tastes and textures.
To determine how much avocado you could offer your baby by age I looked at the feeding guides for infants, toddlers, and young children at Florida’s Department of Health to see how many servings of fruit are recommended for each group.
Here is a great table to break things down based on how old your baby is now!
Avocado servings by age
|Baby Age||Total servings of fruit (such as avocado) per day|
|4 months||4 to 6 tablespoons per day (2/5 to 3/5 of a medium avocado)|
|9 months||4 to 8 tablespoons per day (2/5 to 4/5 of a medium avocado)|
|12 months||3/4 to 1.5 cups per day (about 1 to 1.5 medium avocados)|
|16 months||3/4 to 1.5 cups per day (about 1 to 1.5 medium avocados)|
|24 months||1 to 1.5 cups per day (about 1.25 to 1.5 medium avocados)|
Looking at the table above, your baby can have a pretty large amount of avocado before it would be considered overeating. Do keep in mind, however, that these are just general recommendations based on the average baby and they are for the total amount of all fruits in a day (not just specifically avocados). As long as your baby is getting adequate overall nutrition and not eating too many calories in general, then it’s probably okay to be a little loose with those guidelines.
In my personal experience, we try to keep avocados in the house most of the time because we love making homemade guacamole and salsa. As my son was transitioning to solid foods, we would simply give him a bit of the pureed guacamole while we were making the guac and he loved it!
Even at close to two years, my son LOVES avocado and we give it to him at the house and even at a Mexican restaurant if it’s on our plate.
Potential issues with too much avocado for baby
Even though there are lots of benefits that go along with eating avocados, there can always be too much of a good thing.
As I mentioned earlier, avocados are pretty calorie-dense because of their fat content. This means overeating them could add too many calories to your baby’s diet and cause unnecessary weight gain if you aren’t paying attention. There could also be issues with food sensitivity or allergies, so always keep an eye out for stomach upset or any other similar symptoms and try to isolate which food might be causing it. In the beginning, you should really only be adding one new food at a time to your baby’s diet, anyway, to make sure that there aren’t any issues with that one before moving on to the next.