An infant diet consisting of breast milk or an artificial mixture should be more diverse by five to six months. Vegetables and fruit purees, cereals, and sour-milk products for children are usually given first. Additional nutrition prepares the baby for weaning, develops a masticatory apparatus and stimulates the production of digestive tract enzymes.
Optimal age
WHO pediatricians, with the support of the UNICEF Children's Fund, recommend introducing a child to solid food no earlier than four to five months with artificial feeding and no earlier than six with breastfeeding. Until this time, the body can not take other food than breast milk or a mixture, and does not need other foods. The recommended terms are conditional. You can delay the introduction of the first complementary foods for one to two weeks, if necessary. What vegetables to start complementary foods with, how to cook porridge and when to give dairy products - is described below.
Signs of baby readiness
Not only age should be guided, determining the optimal time for the first feeding. Vegetables, cereals or dairy products should be given when the baby is ready for this. The transition to new food is possible and will pass without problems when the child is already confidently holding his head, can sit for quite a long time, turns away, or in another way shows that he does not want to eat.
You can introduce the baby to “adult” food when he begins to show interest in the contents of the plates of his parents, to examine vegetables or fruits that have fallen into his hands. It is good that at the beginning of the introduction of complementary foods the child has at least one milk tooth, and the weight doubles relative to the birth weight. A sign of readiness is an increased appetite - crumbs are often applied to the chest.
It is advisable to give new products to try if the baby is healthy, and during the next three days there were no (or are not coming) preventive vaccinations. If there is an allergy or an adverse reaction to the vaccine, it will be more difficult to figure out what is the reason for the deterioration of health and how to help the baby.
Early Lure: Problems
Early feeding provokes allergies, gastrointestinal dysfunctions and food intolerances. Up to three months, the intestinal mucosa has increased permeability, and local immunity is formed only after reaching four months of age. The ability to digest and absorb nutrients from food due to fermentation ripens only after three months.
Late Feeding Difficulties
Late complementary foods are a poor diet that often causes hypotrophy, rickets, anemia, or hypovitaminosis. Lack of nutrition provokes a delay in physical and mental development, growth. New skills, such as chewing and swallowing, are also delayed. The ability to swallow food in a solid state without reflex pushing out the tongue and spitting up appears only after five months. Around the same age, it is advisable to introduce complementary foods.
The meaning of feeding
What vegetables are better to start complementary foods? Restless mothers have been thinking about this issue since the age of four months, fearing that he does not receive all the necessary set of useful substances and trace elements. But the point of introducing complementary foods is not at all to saturate the body with some vitamins.
The first lure is just training the digestive tract of the baby, another stage of adaptation. The digestive system has just "learned" to properly digest breast milk or an artificial mixture, and already has to "learn" to absorb fermented milk products, vegetable purees and cereals. Therefore, it is so important to adhere to the feeding strategy and the recommendations of pediatricians.
During the period of feeding, the child learns to drink from a cup and hold a spoon, that is, coordination of movements and social skills improves. Eat the baby should in a calm atmosphere in the same place to create some kind of ritual of eating. It is better to use the same objects: a highchair and special children's dishes. This disciplines the child and forms a positive habit.
Basic Rules
Any new product can be offered if the child is absolutely healthy. As indicated above, a temporary contraindication to the introduction of complementary foods is a recent or upcoming vaccination, recovery from colds and pathologies of the gastrointestinal tract.
Feeding should be given before breastfeeding (except for juices). Judging by the reviews of the mothers, it is enough to start to give the baby crumbs a half teaspoon, about 5 g, and gradually, that is, in one to three weeks, bring the volume of new food to 150 g. All this time you need to observe the appearance of an allergy or other adverse reaction.
Food for the first feeding must be freshly prepared. Do not store finished products in the refrigerator, as this leads to a deterioration in their quality. Lure is given warm, with a spoon, in the position of the child sitting. It is undesirable to give the same type of new food twice a day.
New products are introduced only one at a time and gradually. To give, for example, vegetables or other food, depending on the introduction of complementary foods, is possible only after full adaptation to cereals. In this case, you need to monitor the stool of the child. Judging by the reviews of the parents, if the stool remains normal and there are no undesirable reactions (most often a skin rash occurs), then the next day you can safely increase the amount of complementary foods.
Nutrient Administration Schemes
More often than not, the first foods a child tastes are vegetables. What vegetables to start complementary foods? Much depends on gastronomic habits. In Israel, for example, they give avocados, and in Cuba - orange puree. If parents practically do not consume broccoli or cauliflower, then the child should not give them as a first meal. Most likely, the crumbs will try vegetables only in the form of mashed pots from a jar. Therefore, the general rule of choosing the first product is to consider what is included in the usual diet.
Pediatricians agree that complementary foods should be homogeneous and one-component. What vegetable is better to start the first lure with? It can be mashed broccoli or pear, but it should consist of one product. In Russia, the introduction of complementary foods begins with cereals (dairy-free buckwheat or rice), vegetable (cauliflower, broccoli) or fruit (pear, apple) mashed potatoes. It is necessary to take into account the condition of the child, the reaction to products and, of course, taste preferences.
Vegetable feeding scheme
What vegetables to start complementary foods? The recommended administration sequence is: zucchini, cauliflower, broccoli, potatoes, carrots, pumpkin, green peas. With caution, carrots and pumpkins with orange pulp are introduced, because there is a possibility of an allergic reaction. It is important to remember that the first vegetables introduced into complementary foods should be familiar to adult family members. That is, it makes little sense to give the baby cauliflower if the family usually does not cook it.
What vegetables are the first to be introduced into lure? Zucchini, broccoli, potatoes are suitable for a wave, but legumes are better to be postponed to an older age (from a year). Pure mashed potatoes are not given in pure form because they contain little calcium and a lot of starch. Potatoes are added to the products introduced previously, but so that its content does not exceed 50%. The content of carrots or beets in the finished puree when introduced into complementary foods should not exceed 25%.
Vegetables for the first feeding are stewed in a small amount of water or steamed, and then chopped using a blender. If the puree is too thick, then you can dilute it with boiled water or the liquid in which the vegetables were prepared. You should not add salt, sugar or pepper, even if the food seems fresh to the taste. In vegetable puree add only vegetable oil (preferably olive) in a small amount.
Additionally, you can give fruit. It is good to get mashed potatoes from an apple or a banana, baked in a microwave. You can make pear puree. A pear and a green apple have a beneficial effect on intestinal function and children like it, but some mothers say that if a baby tastes sweet fruits, then it starts to refuse vegetables and cereals.
Scheme for the introduction of cereals in the diet
Porridge is introduced at seven months with breastfeeding, at six and a half or a little earlier - with artificial. The best porridge for feeding is buckwheat. Then you can start giving hercules (oatmeal), rice, wheat, millet and corn porridge. In the first two or three days, 5% porridge is introduced, that is, 95 ml of water is added to one teaspoon of ground cereal. You need to cook until cooked (5-7 minutes).
In porridge, you can add a little butter, egg yolk. Oatmeal is not necessary to grind before cooking. Over time, you can start cooking in half on water and milk, provided that it is tolerable. You can give cereals industrial production ("Agusha", "Diaper", Nestle, HIPP). Semolina is introduced after a year.
Sour milk products
What vegetables in the first lure to give the child? It is better not to experiment and follow standard schemes (broccoli, zucchini, cauliflower, carrots, potatoes, pumpkin and so on). But you need to prepare for the fact that after the mother’s milk or artificial mixture, the child simply does not want to eat unsweetened vegetables. Therefore, the same product must be offered 10-12 times intermittently. If the baby stubbornly refuses all this time, you can move on to something else. What vegetables to start complementary foods? If you didn’t like cauliflower after several attempts, then you can try to give the next product according to the scheme, for example broccoli or carrots.
Usually, they go on to cereals or dairy products. When breastfeeding, it is advisable to give dairy products no earlier than eight months, with artificial - 7-7.5. It is best to purchase a special children's kefir or cottage cheese. From the pure state, children often refuse pure cheese, so you can add it to fruit puree. The minimum amount is 50 grams two or three times a week. It is advisable to give in the morning.
Sample menu for different ages
According to WHO recommendations, at five months the first food supplement is introduced - fruit juice. From six-day feedings, at 6:00, 9:30, 13:00, 16:30, 20:00, 23:00, you can give 20 ml of juice at 9:30 and 20:00, 40 grams of fruit puree per dinner. What vegetables to start the first lure with? At six months for breakfast, you can give mashed squash or cauliflower 150 grams with vegetable oil (5 grams) and half an egg yolk. Fruit juice (30 ml) is left for breakfast and dinner, 40 grams of fruit puree can be given for lunch.
At seven months, cereals can be added. The first morning feeding remains (breast milk or adapted mixture), for breakfast you can give the baby a little 10% cereal (105 grams) with butter and half an egg yolk, fruit puree - 50 grams. For lunch, give 110 grams of vegetable puree with vegetable oil and minced meat (30 grams), fruit juice - 30 ml. For dinner and the last meal, only breast milk or an adapted mixture and fruit juice remains before bedtime.
Next, you can enter dairy products, biscuit cookies and crackers. It is advisable to give cottage cheese or kefir for dinner, while increasing the amount of solid food for breakfast and lunch. Most mothers by this age of the baby leave only two breastfeeding or adapted milk formula at 6:00 and 22:00 hours.