The ninth month of a baby’s life begins a transitional period. Infancy is over and your baby will be a junior.
Mush or lumpy meal?
During this time, you must finally give up smooth and blended mush and replace them with more lumpy meals. The baby already has teeth that will allow him to grind food. If we delay the introduction of this type of food, later the child may have problems with accepting a different consistency of food. In addition, this type of food stimulates the development of the speech apparatus.
Independence is the basis.
The toddler has definitely better eye-hand coordination, so it’s worth letting him eat on his own. There will be a mess, but it is worth being patient and spreading around the child, e.g. foil to protect the furniture from getting dirty. The child can be given, for example, corn chips, biscuits, finely chopped fruit or cooked pieces of vegetables.
Thanks to independent eating, the toddler practices manipulative functions, learns about the taste, texture and smell of the food eaten.
It is worth thinking about interesting and colorful accessories: a plate, a bowl, cutlery, bibs. Colors will arouse the child’s curiosity and make eating interesting fun.
Drinking from a cup
This month, your child is perfecting the skill learned in the previous month. Now it does it much better and more efficiently.
Properly selected ingredients.
A child ending 9 months should eat 5 meals a day: a dinner consisting of two courses, i.e. a soup and a second course. You can introduce new ingredients to the meals that your child knows, which will enrich the menu. It is worth composing a child’s diet so that it is rich in new products, textures and smells. Thanks to this, the child will get to know them as much as possible.
A portion just right for a toddler.
Children in this period eat 5 meals a day, including 3 with a capacity of about 180 ml, 1 meal with a volume of about 200 ml and one with a volume of about 150 ml. The frequency of serving meals should depend on the child’s age, but also on the child’s individual needs, which result from the growth rate and physical activity.
Age-appropriate meals.
When preparing meals, remember to properly introduce new products. Tables for expanding the child’s diet can be found on parenting websites and at our pediatrician. When buying ready-made meals in jars, look at the markings on the label. There are indicated periods when we can introduce the dish to the child’s menu, e.g. “after 8 months of age”. They are placed in visible places, so there will certainly be no problem finding them.
What do we introduce into the diet?
Fruits: peaches, cherries, kiwi, melons, greenberries, plums, dates, grapes, watermelon, blackberries, blueberries, currants, cherries.
Vegetables: asparagus, kale, onion, peas, sorrel, spinach.
Products grain: amaranth poppy and grain, barley, millet.
Spices: basil, savory, tarragon, oregano, rosemary, thyme.