Although newborn babies cannot express their emotions in words, they are born to know that they have milk, which means that they already have a sense of taste and know which tastes they like. Taste buds are developed at around 4-5 months into a pregnancy. Regarding the baby’s taste development, the mother should make such understandings:

The fetus’ taste begins to develop during the second month. At 4 months into a pregnancy, the taste buds on the fetal tongue are fully developed, and they are able to taste amniotic fluid with relish. In the fetus’ 7-8 months, the taste of the nerve bundle has been myelinated, so the taste has been developed at birth.

Experiments have shown that babies have a sense of taste two days after they are born. Within a month,  they can distinguish different flavors such as sour, sweet, bitter, and salty. When sweet liquids are put into the baby’s mouth, they show a relaxed, happy expression, and they suck up satisfactorily. On the other hand, they accept salty, sour or bitter liquids with wrinkled noses, covered mouths, and irregular breathing.

A baby 4-5 months old is very sensitive to the small changes in food. From 6 months to 1 year old, a baby’s taste development is the most sensitive at this stage.

The first thing to give a child for taste stimulation after birth is breastmilk or a milk replacer. During the development of the taste buds afterward, all the taste stimuli that the baby touches must be treated rigorously. The baby’s picky eating and food refusal will receive little attention.

Although newborns prefer to have a sweet flavor in food, it does not mean that the baby should be given sugar water. On the contrary, the baby should eat breastmilk and drink more breastmilk after birth, even if it is selected for milk powder, medicines or nutritional products, but also try to choose products that have a taste close to breastmilk. Do not let your child drink sugar water before breastfeeding so you can avoid affecting the breastfeeding.

Choose milk powder and try to choose products that have a flavor close to breastmilk while avoiding adding sugar. In the selection of drugs or nutritional products the products on the market are rarely close to the breastmilk taste, so you should try to collect as much relevant information as possible. Choose the one closest to breastmilk taste. Other brands of baby calcium products are often sweet. Long-term use of these products will lead to the possibility of being a picky eater.