Acquaintance of a child with "adult" food is a crucial moment in the development of the baby. And therefore, before an important event, you should carefully familiarize yourself with how and when to start complementary foods.
So different approaches
Only 10 years ago, pediatricians insisted that for the first time a child should be introduced to food at the age of 3 months. They should start with the juices that were given to the child drop by drop. Today, infants are first introduced to "adult" food no earlier than 5 - 5, 5 months.
To answer the question of when to start feeding babies, you should, first of all, carefully evaluate the condition of the baby according to some parameters:
- Type of feeding. If it is breastfeeding, then the acquaintance begins not earlier than 6 months, if it is artificial, then in 5-5.5 months.
- Ability to sit independently. In this position, food is best taken and, most importantly, is not repelled by the body.
- Physical development of the child: is he sick, is he gaining weight, is he suffering from constipation when he was last vaccinated.
- Interest in parental food.
The answers to these questions, recorded by the parents, help the pediatrician determine when to start feeding baby for a particular case and with what.
True, these parameters also indicate which scheme should be used when conducting complementary foods: pedagogical, traditional or mixed.
Traditional involves the introduction into the child’s diet of specially processed products of adult food, as recommended by the feeding table developed by the baby’s pediatrician.
Pedagogical allows you to use food “from a common table” as a complementary food. At the same time, the child develops an interest in what the parents themselves consume. This scheme is ideal for those children who abandon the traditional scheme.
Mixed involves a kind of combination of the previous two schemes, in which parents first set an example, only then offer the baby a specific dish.
Different products - different terms
As with the principles of input, in relation to the types of complementary foods, there are also different approaches to what kind of food and when to start complementary foods.
As a rule, in the traditional scheme, the first products are either cereals or vegetables. Following the above recommendations, they should be administered no earlier than 5 months and only by agreement with the pediatrician. So, cereals are prescribed if the child has an underweight. Indication for the use of vegetables is an upset bowel, namely constipation. In addition, vegetables are also prescribed when the weight exceeds reasonable norms.
After cereals and vegetables, fruits are introduced into the diet. This also happens during the sixth month of life. It should be remembered that the first vegetables and fruits should be those that are common in the child's place of residence.
The table of complementary foods for infants suggests that in the seventh month there is an acquaintance with meat products: veal, rabbit, turkey.
At 8 months, meat offal, dairy products, and butter are introduced into the diet. At 9 months, low-fat fish should appear in the diet , and up to a year the child will completely switch to adult food processed by cooking or steaming.
The recommendations presented are generalized, and therefore, for each specific case, it is necessary to agree on the introduction and content of complementary foods directly with the doctor.