Every mother wants her baby to be active and cheerful. It is no secret that the child’s activity, his health and well-being largely depend on nutrition. Nutrition for children up to a year should be balanced and complete. The growth, development of the baby, his immune system directly depends on a properly selected diet. The growing body of the child should receive a certain dose of vitamins, proteins and carbohydrates daily. Vitamin deficiency causes hypovitaminosis and vitamin deficiency. Overfeeding contributes to obesity, and lack of protein in food can cause dystrophy. In many ways, the correct organization of baby food for a baby up to a year depends on his parents.
Types of food for children up to a year
So, in order. Eating children up to a year is carried out in three ways. Natural, artificial and mixed. Each method has its own diet for a child up to 1 year old. Below we consider all three methods in more detail.
Natural feeding
Natural feeding - feeding a baby with breast milk. In breast milk of a woman contains all the substances necessary for life and growth of the baby: unsaturated fatty acids, lactose, proteins, fats and carbohydrates. The nutritional value of breast milk is very high. The immune elements that are found in breast milk protect the baby's body from infections until it develops its own immunity. Lactose, which is found in large quantities in breast milk, has a positive effect on bone formation and brain cell function. In addition, during sucking, the child properly forms the muscles of the maxillofacial apparatus. The diet of children up to a year with natural feeding is free: the child eats when he wants. With this mode, lactation is maintained at a high level, which positively affects the health of the mother.
After two to three months, you can switch to a flexible diet: start a meal every two to three hours. The first complementary foods are introduced from six months, but the proportion of breast milk should exceed the proportion of complementary foods. According to the famous pediatrician Komarovsky, it is not worth introducing the first complementary foods into the baby’s diet before six months in any case.
Artificial Feeding
Not every woman after childbirth is able to breastfeed. There may be several reasons for this: lack of lactation, intolerance to the components of breast milk by the baby, mother’s disease, defects in the baby’s sucking apparatus.
How to feed a child up to 1 year in this case? Mother's milk differs in composition from the milk of domestic animals (cows, goats, buffalo). Therefore, the newborn is fed with ready-made milk mixtures, which include dried animal milk mixed with various cereals (rice, oatmeal, buckwheat). Also, the composition of the mixtures includes various vitamins, fish oil, vegetable oils, prebiotics, nucleotides, minerals. Modern infant formula is also hypoallergenic. Additional feeding begins from 4 months, when the growing body of the child does not have enough nutrients contained in breast milk. With artificial feeding, it is necessary to monthly monitor the increase in weight of the baby. It should gradually increase.
The disadvantages of artificial feeding:
- In mixtures there are no immunomodulatory elements that are in breast milk. Therefore, mother must follow the measures for the prevention of diseases in infants: do not carry it to crowded places; monitor the cleanliness in the children's room, air it; to put on a mask for a newborn when one of the family members is infected.
- Nutrients from breast milk are absorbed faster.
- Artists from the mixture may experience allergies, dysbiosis and iron deficiency anemia.
Recommended interval between meals for artisans: 3-4 hours with a 6-hour break at night. In total, 6-7 feedings are obtained per day. Dr. Lukoyanova recommends calculating the required amount of food for the baby, based on the method of calculating calories. A healthy infant up to six months old needs 115 kcal / 1 kg of weight per day, after six months and up to a year - 110 kcal / 1 kg. Knowing the caloric content of the infant formula and the weight of the child, you can easily calculate the volume of the daily portion.
Mixed feeding
With a mixed type of nutrition for children up to a year, nutrient mixtures are added to breast milk in a 1: 1 ratio. There may be several reasons for mixed feeding:
- maternal illnesses;
- cracks in the nipples, due to which feeding turns into a painful process;
- contraindications associated with taking certain medications.
Usually, the pediatrician recommends a mixed type of food for children born prematurely, infants weighing less than the norm, as well as children with central nervous system diseases who have a weak sucking reflex.
Recently, doctors have recommended putting on orthodontic nipples on feeding bottles. These nipples resemble a female nipple in shape, and the baby practically does not notice the difference. The diet for this type of feeding should be clearly defined.
Nutrition in the first days of life
The nutrition of infants up to 1 year in the early days has a number of features. The first feeding of the baby takes place in the walls of the hospital. A newborn sucks colostrum - a female secret from the mother’s breast, secreted before birth and within five days after. Colostrum is fatter and thicker than milk, more nutritious. Three to seven days after birth, a nursing mother develops transitional, then mature milk.
First lure: where to start? According to the WHO resolution of 2002, the first complementary feeding for children on natural feeding should be introduced in six months. The exception is children:
- weighing less than 3 kilograms;
- with intrauterine growth retardation;
- with various diseases.
For children on artificial and mixed feeding, complementary foods are introduced from 4-6 months.
Signs by which you can determine that the child is ready for the first feeding:
- the weight of the child doubled by 4-5 months;
- 4 hours after feeding is anxious and requires more food;
- when feeding, it begins to swallow food, and not push it out with the tongue, as before;
- shows interest in the food of parents.
Complementary feeding from 4 to 6 months
Artificial feeding is prescribed from the age of four months. It is necessary to take into account the moment that the stomach of a baby of this age is not able to digest adult food. Therefore, all components of complementary foods should be pasty consistency, cereals are introduced after the eruption of the first milk tooth, solid food - after the appearance of three or four teeth.
Starting from 4 months, you can enter:
- Braised vegetable puree without added salt. Mashed potatoes can be made from carrots, broccoli, potatoes, green beans, spinach, zucchini, pumpkin. Then in the diet you can add sweet fruit puree from bananas, pears, apples, avocados. Some vegetables, such as cabbage, turnips, onions, artichokes, are high in fiber and can cause flatulence.
- Unsweetened compotes from berries and fruits (apples, pears).
- Kissels.
- Egg yolks.
From 6 months you can give pre-boiled cow or goat milk, kefir.
Important! Do not introduce two components into the diet at the same time!
Here's what pediatricians say about the volume and nutritional characteristics of children under 1 year of age (5 months of age):
- The total amount of food consumed at this age should not exceed 900 g / day.
- The total volume of mother's milk (mixture) should not exceed 0.7 l / day.
- Fruit puree and freshly squeezed fruit juices - no more than 40 ml / day.
- Vegetable puree - 15-150 g / day (for breast-fed infants); 10-100 g / day (for artisans).
- It is allowed to add butter up to 4 g / day in cereals and mashed potatoes. The oil must be exclusively natural without the use of chemical additives.
Important! Each product is introduced into the diet gradually, in small portions. If allergic reactions occur, you should immediately consult a doctor!
Porridge in the diet of the baby 6-7 months
Kashi is an important element of the menu of a child up to a year. From six months, pediatricians recommend including milk porridge in the baby’s diet. With dystrophy or underweight, you can enter them in the diet earlier. Porridge is cooked in milk or water. For their preparation use rice, buckwheat, corn, semolina, oats, millet, barley and other cereals. But not all cereals for children up to a year are useful. Porridge cereals containing gluten (wheat, barley, oats, rye) can sometimes cause allergic reactions. Therefore, in the first months of complementary feeding, babies are fed cereals from gluten-free cereals (buckwheat, rice, corn). From 8 months you can give oatmeal, from 9 months - millet, barley and pearl barley. With semolina, children are fed, starting from one year. Milk of animal origin can also cause allergies in the baby, so it is advisable that cereals be boiled in water or breast milk.
Give preference to homemade cereals, as instant cereals may contain vitamins of chemical origin.
Give the baby porridge in small portions, half a teaspoon in the morning. In this case, monitor the reaction of the child's body during the day. If there is no allergy, then the portion can be increased to 150 grams.
How to cook porridge?
The grits must first be washed and dried, ground in a coffee grinder or blender to a powdery state. Then pour into boiling water and cook until cooked.
Cool the prepared porridge to room temperature and only then feed it to the baby. For taste, you can add any vegetable or fruit puree to the finished dish.
Feeding from 7 to 8 months
Starting with fruits and vegetables, from seven months you can gradually introduce more protein foods into the diet:
- Minced meat (beef, rabbit, pork);
- Chicken eggs.
- Beans, peas, lentils.
- Dairy products (yogurt, kefir, cream, custard). Low sugar, preferably.
The exceptions are: sausages, canned food, smoked meats and offal.
At this age, the baby is already trying to eat food on its own. It is necessary to ensure that the pieces of food are small, otherwise the crumbs may choke.
Complementary feeding from 8 to 11 months
Children's nutrition during this period may include starchy foods such as bread, bakery products, pasta, potatoes, rice, fish, eggs, meat. It is necessary to ensure that there are no bones in the fish, but skins on sausages. Sweets and chocolate up to a year is advisable not to give.
1 year old baby food
The diet of a child in 1 year should include a variety of useful components. The composition of food should include amino acids, phosphatides, vitamins, minerals, organic acids.
A child after 12 months does not need breast milk, as before, so many mothers try to excommunicate the baby. Although breastfeeding can last up to three years.
A child’s diet at 1 year old differs little from the diet of an 11-month-old crumb, unless the serving size increases. Consider a sample menu for a day of a one-year-old baby:
- For breakfast, milk porridge with the addition of natural butter, dried fruit compote.
- For lunch, cottage cheese with berries or fruits, cookies, yogurt.
- For lunch, vegetable puree, two steamed cutlets (meat or fish), fruit juice.
- For a snack, a glass of yogurt or kefir.
- For dinner stew with lean mashed meat, fruit drink.