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How to properly introduce complementary foods to a child? Video
The best food for a baby is mother’s breast milk. However, as the child grows, he needs more and more various trace elements and minerals, and by the age of six months, most children need complementary foods. For artificial babies, additional foods are introduced into the diet a little earlier than for babies who are breastfed. WHO recommends starting complementary feeding at 5-5,5 months.
How to introduce complementary foods to a baby
How to properly introduce complementary foods to a bottle-fed baby
Depending on the baby’s weight, complementary foods should be started with gluten-free porridge or vegetable puree. For children who are poorly gaining weight, buckwheat, rice, corn are suitable; chubby babies can be given cauliflower, broccoli, and zucchini.
A blender should be used to prepare the first complementary food. If it is absent, you can use a sieve, food processor, or another grinder. The consistency of food should be mushy and homogeneous, without lumps and pieces. So that the taste of the new dish does not differ much from the food familiar to the baby, you can add a little mixture there.
The new product should be given to the child before feeding with formula, starting with half a teaspoon. You can continue to feed the baby if, after the first intake of the new product, an allergy does not appear, and there are no problems with digestion. The volume of the product is increased by 2 times daily until a full portion is obtained.
It should be remembered that you cannot introduce two new products at the same time. This will help avoid food allergies and tummy problems.
After replacing one meal, you can displace the second feed with formula. It can be porridge, vegetable puree, grated fruit. By 6,5-7 months, one morning and one evening feed should be completely replaced.
Entering complementary foods by month
The most preferred product for the first feeding for artificial people is vegetable puree. At 5-5,5 months, green vegetables can be introduced, at 6-7 months, pumpkin, carrots, potatoes, peas. A serving for a half-year-old child is 80-100 grams. You can add a couple of drops of vegetable oil to the puree.
At the age of six months, gluten-free cereals are introduced into the baby’s diet. After 2 months, you can try to give oatmeal, semolina, millet. A small amount of butter should be put in porridge boiled in water without adding salt and sugar.
When the two feeds have changed, the fruit puree can be started.
Apple and pear are introduced first, then plum, peach, apricot
By the eighth month of life, you can start giving your baby cottage cheese (no more than 50 grams by one year of age), kefir, special baby milk.
After 7 months, the yolk is introduced into the diet. It is better to start with a quarter of the yolk of a quail egg, mixed with a small amount of the mixture or vegetable puree.
At the same time, you can feed the baby with chicken, turkey, rabbit meat, after 3-4 weeks it is possible to enter veal, lamb meat into the children’s menu.
Fish (cod, hake, sea bass) and offal should be eaten once a week instead of meat after eight months.
It should be remembered that the result of the successful introduction of complementary foods to the child should be an adequate weight gain, the absence of allergic reactions and digestive problems.