What a child eats in the first year of life is of great importance for his health in the future. Make sure your little one is getting everything they need for active growth and development.
From birth to 4 months
Up to four months, the baby is exclusively breastfed, feeding is on demand. Complementary feeding has not yet been introduced. There should not be any supplementation with water, children's teas, juices. The baby's gastrointestinal tract is not yet ready to accept any food other than breast milk or milk formula replacing it. If it seems to you that the baby does not have enough of your milk, do not rush to feed him with formula, try to latch the baby to the breast more often to stimulate lactation. If necessary, you can call a breastfeeding consultant.
4 - 6 months
If a baby is breastfed, breast milk should remain the only menu item in his diet. With artificial feeding at 5-6 months of life, you can already begin to introduce complementary foods. The scheme for the introduction of complementary foods can be considered on the example of a baby who feeds on breast milk, it is only necessary to take into account a slightly earlier date for artificial people.
6-7 months
By the age of 6 months, your baby has already formed the intestinal microflora, the intestinal motility has improved, and the chewing reflex is gradually replacing the sucking reflex. Thus, the child is ready to try new foods. There are several rules when introducing complementary foods:
- on the first morning and last evening feeding, only breast milk is given;
- a new product is introduced into the second feeding, in order to be able to observe the child's reaction to the product throughout the day, you should start with half a teaspoon and bring to the required volume within a week;
- complementary foods are given before breast milk;
- you can only give complementary foods from a spoon;
- a new product is introduced every 1, 5 - 2 weeks.
Care should be taken when choosing the first complementary foods. If 10 years ago, complementary foods began mainly with apple juice, now, according to the recommendation of the World Health Organization, porridge and vegetable purees should be the first to be introduced into the baby's menu. If the baby is not gaining weight well, it is better to start with cereals; in all other cases, complementary foods should be started with vegetable puree. If you first introduced porridge, then after 2-3 weeks you can introduce mashed potatoes, and vice versa, if vegetable puree became the first complementary food, porridge follows after it.
The first cereals should be milk-free and sugar-free. For now, exclude gluten-containing cereals (oatmeal, semolina, barley, pearl barley, wheat). You can add some breast milk to the porridge. Bottle-fed babies can immediately enter milk porridge.
From vegetable purees, zucchini, cauliflower, broccoli are recommended to start feeding. Later, carrots, pumpkin and potatoes are introduced. Add a drop of vegetable oil to the vegetable puree.
From seven months, fruit purees can be introduced into the baby's diet, starting traditionally with apple, also on a spoon. You can already buy dairy and gluten porridges.
8 - 9 months
At this age, egg yolk, cottage cheese, meat should appear on the baby's menu. You can add 2 grams of butter to the porridge. Finally, fruit juice appears, but it must first be diluted in half with water.
The boiled egg yolk is ground and mixed with breast milk. You can cook the meat yourself and grind it for puree, or use canned meat for children. Add a little meat to the vegetable puree. You can prescribe cottage cheese in the dairy kitchen or buy it in the store in the form of baby cottage cheese.
Now the baby has already had its first teeth and you can try to give him an apple. Peel the whole apple and give to the child. You can not give a small piece, becausethe child may try to eat it whole and choke.
10 - 12 months
You can add pasta, bread, baby cookies to the baby's menu. He already has enough teeth to stop giving ground food, vegetables and meat can be cut into pieces.
Now the baby has a full menu, and breast milk is no longer a food product, but rather one of the ways to communicate with mom. Nevertheless, it is still good for the baby's health, so it is not recommended to end breastfeeding yet.
