For many parents, a healthy child is a child with a good appetite. And if the baby refuses to eat or eats little during the day, then this is a signal: something is wrong with him, he is sick. But is it all so clear? Is poor appetite always a sign of ill health? Let's get it right.
Nutrition for a child up to a year
The question of how to feed a child up to a year, as a rule, does not arise. Up to six months, the baby’s main meal is breast milk or an adapted mixture. After six months, the child begins to try new products that the parent offers. Someone starts with cereals, someone starts with fruits or vegetables. The main rule of feeding is caution. A new product should be introduced gradually, observing the reaction of the baby. Some parents practice pedagogical feeding. The main point of this direction can be stated in the following theses:
- Start trying new foods after 5.5 to 6 months, when the baby shows a nutritional interest.
- Give the baby to try all the healthy foods that parents eat, but only in micro doses, that is, in very small pieces.
- One day - one product. Such tactics will immediately understand what the allergy in the child has arisen to.
- Within 5 days, increase the serving with a micro dose to 1 teaspoon.
- Offer food should be from a plate or give in the hand crumbs, so that the child begins to learn the norms of food intake at the table with diapers. Allowing food to grab from the table is not recommended.
- If the baby does not show curiosity, seeing a new product, you do not need to force to eat.
Nutrition after a year
By the age of many, many children have already tasted basic foods. How to feed a child is a question that should not perplex parents. Now come up with a menu for crumbs for the day is not difficult. The diet of the baby should be varied: meat, fish, cereals, pasta, dairy and dairy products, vegetables and fruits. The time that must elapse between meals is 3.5-4 hours. The daily menu consists of 4-5 meals. In this case, before going to bed, it is better to give the child kefir or yogurt, a milk mixture. To one and a half years in the child’s diet, you can add the "right" sweets: honey, marshmallows, jam. With sweets and chocolates it is better to wait until three years.
Who are the little ones?
Children who do not have a good appetite, and during the day rarely sit at the table to eat the next portion, are called little children. Many modern parents have faced this problem. Someone refers to this as a stage in the development of the child, someone starts to sound the alarm, believing that the child is sick. In order to be sure that the baby really does not receive the necessary substances for the development, a special technique has been developed - a food diary. In the notebook, the parent writes down every day for several weeks what the child ate. Be sure to indicate the number of grams of the eaten product, this is necessary for the accurate calculation of calories. For each age, there is a specific norm for the amount of energy a child receives from eaten foods:
- From six months to a year - 800 kcal.
- From a year to three years - 1300-1500 kcal.
- From three years to six years - 1800-2000 kcal.
- From six to ten years - 2000-2400 kcal.
- From ten to thirteen years - 2900 kcal.
The above indicators are averaged, it is not worth strictly focusing on them, because each child is individual. But if, according to your calculations, the difference is large, then you need to think and consult a specialist.
Why does the child eat poorly
Causes of poor appetite that are not related to health can be grouped into five groups:
- The child eats only those foods that he likes best in taste. Often parents complain that children do not eat cereals, soups, meat dishes at all. But fruits, sweets or, for example, sausages do not need to be forced to eat. In this case, we are not talking about a child’s poor appetite, but selective. If it suits parents, then nothing can be changed. Otherwise, explain to the child that porridge for breakfast, soup for lunch, and cottage cheese casserole for dinner. And there can be no alternatives. If the baby refuses the proposed dish, then let him know that the next meal will be in 3-4 hours. Particularly worried that the child will suffer from hunger, reassure. If you stick to your tactics and don’t offer your child any other food, then soon he will be happy to eat what you have prepared.
- The second reason has a little something in common with the first - it's snacks. If the baby constantly interrupts the appetite with various snacks, then, of course, he will not want to touch the soup that his mother prepared with love. In this case, it is also recommended to limit the child in snacks between main meals.
- A child is an individual. It can have its own digestion, its growth rate, type of character. For example, one kid runs around all day, jumps, doesn’t sit still for a second, and the other way around - loves calm games, sitting with a book, drawing. The calorie content of the daily menu in the first case may be higher, but at the same time, the first baby is thin, and the second is well-fed. Therefore, the child’s appetite is directly dependent on physical activity. Also, the stage of development of the baby affects the desire to eat. Children in the active phase of growth have increased appetite. The main thing to be guided by when deciding to enroll your child in the ranks of youngsters is to match the level of his development.
- The next item follows from the previous one. Children who are actively involved in sports, as a rule, do not suffer from a problem of poor appetite. After all, the energy spent on physical exercises must be replenished. And a sports child will never refuse the proposed dish.
- Often, children who refuse to eat hear from the elders: “Until you eat, you do not leave the table”, “You will not eat, you will not grow up”, “You will not eat, you will not get sweets / toy / cartoon”. Such tactics of manipulation and threats do not lead to appetite. Therefore, if the child refuses to eat, do not force it, if it is hungry, it will eat.
What to do
Partly, the topic “how to help a child if he eats nothing” is mentioned above. But still a detailed analysis will not hurt. Here are a number of rules, subject to which the relationship of the child and healthy food will improve:
- If the baby refuses food, then you do not need to shove it forcibly. He himself knows when he is hungry.
- Avoid unhealthy foods in your diet, including sweets, cookies, buns, and cakes. They leave no room for healthy eating.
- Snacks should not replace the main meals, so they need to be limited.
- Provide your child with physical activity by age.
- Spend more time outdoors.
- Consistency. If you decide to limit the number of snacks, do not replace the main meals with your favorite foods, then be consistent.
- A parent is an example for a child. In choosing food and favorite foods, mom and dad are the main landmarks.
- Try changing the serving of the dishes. Apply embellishment, art carving of fruits and vegetables. After all, it’s much more interesting to eat porridge, on which with the help of berries and jam a muzzle is depicted, and soup - if “flowers” of carrots float in it.
How to feed children for dinner
This question has been brought up in a separate topic, because eating before bedtime is very important. After all, eating the wrong foods for dinner, a child may wake up from hunger at night or vice versa - sleep poorly due to heaviness in his stomach. How to feed a child for dinner:
- Curd dishes - casseroles, cheesecakes, mixes with dried fruits and berries.
- Dishes from eggs - scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, fried eggs.
- Porridge.
- Dishes from boiled, baked, stewed vegetables - stews, casseroles, etc.
- Vegetable and fruit salads.
- Kefir, yogurt, fermented baked milk.
Parent Tricks
To solve the problem of how to feed a child if he refuses to eat, parents can use small tricks, or, as it is now fashionable to say, life hacks:
- Offer to eat liquid food - broths, jelly, stewed fruit, vegetable broths - through a tube.
- Serve the next dish using a bright package that resembles a candy wrapper.
- Offer the child to participate in the process of cooking lunch, dinner, breakfast, as a rule, children do not refuse the food prepared by him.
- Use bright dishes, forks, spoons.
- Use the original names of ordinary dishes: horse porridge, soup according to the recipe of Winnie the Pooh, cutlets from Puss in boots.
- Sayings, funny rhymes will make the process of eating interesting.
Recipes: how to feed a baby
There are lots of options for dishes that many children will appreciate. Today, many parents share experience in cooking for their crumbs. Below are a few recipes that will allow mothers to solve the problem, than to feed the child if he does not eat anything.
Recipe 1: Curd Banana Casserole
How to feed a child a year? The answer is a cottage cheese casserole. There are a lot of options for this dish. One popular way is to combine cottage cheese and banana.
To prepare you will need:
- low-fat cottage cheese - 200 grams;
- 1 medium banana;
- 1 egg
- 1 tablespoon of sugar;
- 1 tablespoon semolina.
The cooking process begins by mixing all the ingredients. The sequence of adding ingredients is unimportant. Use a blender to simplify. After the products turn into a homogeneous mass, leave it for a couple of minutes so that the semolina is swollen. Then lay the mass on the molds and bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes.
Recipe 2: Chicken Cutlets "Flowers"
A good option for feeding a child at 2 years old can be tender chicken cutlets.
To prepare you will need:
- Chicken fillet - 900 grams.
- 2-3 slices of white bread.
- Crackers for breading (optional).
- Butter.
- Milk, salt to taste.
To begin, soak the bread in milk. Meanwhile, grind the fillet in a meat grinder, for a more delicate consistency, repeat the process several times. After squeezing the bread and add to the resulting minced meat, salt, add the butter. Sweep the meat mass well and form small meatballs. Put them in a baking dish in the form of flowers and put in the oven for 30-40 minutes.
Recipe 3: Potato-Free Chicken Soup
This recipe will go into the piggy bank of quick cooking methods. As a rule, chicken soups are one of the favorite among children. But it happens that kids do not eat potatoes. An option to solve the problem, than to feed the child, if he does not eat potatoes, is chicken soup with pasta.
To prepare you will need:
- 2 chicken drumsticks, peeled.
- 1 small onion.
- 1 carrot, which can be cut in advance in the shape of a flower.
- Curly pasta.
Put the chicken drumsticks to boil. After the first boiling of the broth, drain it. Use the secondary broth for cooking children's dishes. After the chicken is cooked, remove it and let it cool. Since many children do not like boiled onions - throw the onion whole in the broth. Add chopped curly carrots. Let the broth boil for about 15 minutes. Meanwhile, cut the chicken into small pieces and put in soup. The last ingredient will be pasta. Alternatively, boil them separately and add to the soup when serving.