Your baby now sits, easily reaches for objects, chews and puts every toy in his mouth. The other day, she soaked in delight on tasting the first few granules of mashed rice.
|
Well, your baby is already on board to get acquainted with a variety of new foods other then the nature’s wonder– mother’s milk.
|
As per what health experts believe, a baby as old as sixth month should be introduced to solid foods. Weaning early would increase the risk of infections and allergies as the baby’s digestive system is not well developed. Besides this, it would also devoid your baby from meeting her complete nutritional needs from being exclusively breastfed.
|
Knowing New Foods Better
- To ensure that your baby heads to a healthy start, get your baby used to eating foods from all the different food groups. Resist offering sweet foods to your baby at all meals. Limit its use occasionally or not at all.
You could begin offering your baby these:- - Cereals cooked in milk e.g. suji kheer, rice kheer etc.
- Mashed cooked vegetables like potato, sweet potato, yam or carrot.
- Mashed banana in milk or cooked small cubes of apple and pear.
- Pieces of cooked soft fruits and vegetables that your baby can easily pick up.
| 
|
- Making your baby learn to sip from a cup should also form an important part of learning to feed themselves. Use a plastic and easy to hold open cup without any valves for this purpose.
- Once you observe that your baby is been eating fruits and vegetables well, try introducing small amounts of chicken, fish and meat in minced form. Eggs are highly nutritious, being a rich source of protein. A half a teaspoon of half boiled egg yolk and a dal soup can be easily introduced at around seven to eight months age.
- Introduce one solid food each day and slowly progress to including two and then three solid foods a day for your baby.
- A speedily crawling infant needs more energy to meet the growth spurt, so increase the amount of foods to be served at a meal.
- Don’t abstain from giving full fat dairy products like yoghurt and cheese to meet the energy and calcium needs of your baby.
- From about nine month onwards, an infant should be ideally having three to four servings of starchy cereals like potatoes, bread and rice.
- To meet up with the increased requirement for iron post six months, include three to four servings of fruits and vegetables in your baby’s meal. These foods being rich in vitamin C helps in iron absorption.
- Two servings of meat and fish should also be introduced in your baby’s meal or include two servings of dals, split peas, hummus and other pulses.
|
|
- Always make an attempt to cook your own baby foods instead of piling on ready-prepared foods to your repertoire.
- By knowing to what you are adding to your baby’s recipe, you would be better able to figure out the nutritional aspect and trace out the common allergens.
- One fourth teaspoon of ghee to the bowl of khichadi and one fourth teaspoon of sugar to carrot kheer will surely make it more palatable and energy dense. However, keep away from adding spices or excess salt and sugar to your baby’s food.
- Your baby would start wanting less amount of milk each day as she gets accustomed to having more of solid foods. But this should not refrain you completely from nursing your baby. You could slowly minimize on the number of breastfeeds or nurse your baby at least once a day along with her having new foods at the same time.
|
Food Hygiene
It’s important for you to see that your baby doesn’t contracts any germs during the process of handling food and eating.
|
- Make sure you wash your hands thoroughly before handling baby’s food. Your baby’s hands should also be clean prior to feeding.
- Ensure that the chopping boards and cooking surfaces are also kept clean. Pets should not be allowed to come in close proximity of the area where baby’s food is being prepared.
- Avoid re-using the leftover food which the baby has left half eaten, again in her next meal. This is because, it might result in your baby having an upset stomach.
- All baby foods should be cooked well, cooled to a room temperature and then served to the baby.
|