Up to 6 months, a child can be completely breastfed without harm to health and development. However, there are situations in life when this is impossible. In such cases, early complementary foods are appropriate.
Before you start introducing complementary foods, you need to make sure that the baby is able to eat it, otherwise you can develop a persistent aversion to "adult" food. There are certain signs of non-perception of food. The main thing is that the pushing reflex is triggered in the child, this is a kind of protective reaction against accidental swallowing of foreign objects.
Features of the child's body
An important factor is the readiness of the child's digestive system. Breast milk can be completely absorbed by the body, for the digestion of "adult" food you need a sufficient amount of enzymes and good intestinal motility. It is believed that the gastrointestinal tract matures earlier in artificial people, since they receive "foreign" food from birth. Therefore, complementary foods are introduced to them a month and a half earlier.
The choice of early complementary foods is of no small importance. Many parents, sometimes on the advice of Soviet pediatricians, start complementary foods with juices. Juices even for an adult are junk food, they contain a large amount of sugar (fructose), for 100 g of water about 3 tbsp. l., even homemade. In addition, at 5 months, the baby does not have enzymes that would help him digest fruit juice. As a result, diarrhea or allergies can occur.
Where to start and how to cook
Early complementary foods begin with a homogeneous vegetable (liquid, lump-free) puree. You can either cook it yourself or use a canned one. When choosing industrial purees, it is imperative to pay attention to the composition and packaging. There should be no excess in the composition, except for vegetables and water. If the lid does not emit a cotton when opening the jar, the puree should be thrown away immediately. You can store an open jar for no more than a day, so if you do not want to finish eating after a child, you need to ruthlessly throw it away.
When preparing mashed potatoes on your own, it should be remembered that you cannot salt food until a child is one year old. He receives the required amount of sodium with his mother's milk (or mixture). Of course, not a single adult will eat fresh food, but the child does not yet have his own taste preferences and does not need to be imposed. The task of complementary feeding is to introduce you to new food, gradually accustom you to the common table.
Vegetables for the first supplement are selected from the white and green groups: broccoli, cauliflower or zucchini. Cooking yourself is pretty straightforward. A piece of the selected vegetable is steamed or in water until soft. Then it should be grinded or chopped with a blender. The puree must be cooled to body temperature before feeding.
In rare cases, complementary foods start with porridge, but you need to choose dairy-free, they are bland, but this is not a reason to "improve" the taste. For the first acquaintance, gluten-free cereals are suitable: buckwheat, corn, rice. The selected cereal is ground to a flour state and brewed.
The amount of complementary foods
Complementary feeding begins with 1/2 teaspoon, gradually increasing the portion, carefully observing the condition of the child. Within 10 days, the portion size is increased to 80 grams, the child gets used to the introduced product for a week, and then a new one is offered. If the baby does not want to eat the offered food, there is no need to force, the child has the right to choose what to eat. In this case, something else is offered, and you can try to give a product you don't like in a month.
A healthy child needs to be introduced to new food in the interval between vaccinations. A negative reaction can appear not only to the product itself, but also to its quantity, so you cannot try to feed as much as possible, even if the baby asks.
