Every mom wants to make sure that her baby receives the essential nutrition! Well, for the first six months, mother’s milk, i.e. the breast milk is sufficient as it provides all those essential nutrients required by the baby! Here is your simple guide about nutritious food choices for the baby:
Start feeding nutritious solid food from the six months onwards!
Six months have been the crucial stage for every baby not just in the development aspects! It is the stage where solid foods are introduced to the baby, which impact the health and growth of the baby in the long run! Meeting the nutritional requirements of the baby, who is more likely to grow very fast, has additional energy requirements.
Increased nutritional needs of growing babies
Your little bundle of joy starts moving around the home, try to sit by itself, take a troll by balancing with walls, understand and play with things, start teething, more importantly starts uttering the first word, and much more! So, the liquid diet, breast milk, although is nutritious will not be sufficient, as the growing baby has additional nutritional requirements. Besides the dramatic changes in overall activities, the child development is greatly influenced by the nutritious food the baby consumes.
Choosing the right choice of foods provide essential baby nutrients.
Now, your question is what are the ideal foods that you can feed your baby from 6 – 12 months? Remember that the nutrition requirement for the baby that is 6 months old is different from the baby that is approaching one year! Because, the baby almost weighs double the birth weight when they are six months old and triple the weight when they are one year old!
What are the essential nutrients required by growing baby?
Start with these foods for 6 to 7 months:
Initially, start with potatoes and carrots, apples, avocados, cereals, iron fortified cereals, vegetable purees sprinkled with cheese, etc.
Don’t give any raw fruits to the baby until 8 months.
If your child starts teething, you can buy her teething biscuits! Make sure that your baby drinks sufficient milk to get the daily dose of calcium.
For babies aged 8 to 10 months:
In addition to above mentioned foods, add citrus fruits, boiled broccoli, banana, deboned fish, oats or rice porridge, etc. This is the right stage to feed bananas, beetroot, and other fruits.
For babies from 10 – 12 months:
You would love to see that your baby eat a variety of foods. Of course, not all babies! Now you can add meat, vegetable soup, peaches, mango, pears, toasted bread, nuts, dark green leafy vegetables, etc. You can introduce white rice, dal, chick peas, green beans, eggs, yogurt, multigrain porridge, etc.
Introduce various flavors to baby! No harm to feed mother’s milk until 1 year along with other foods, yet make sure baby eat foods various different groups to get all essential nutrition!
Quick Tips:
- Feed one new food at a time: If you introduce a new food to the baby, don’t try another food at least for the next 3 – 4 days. Make sure that the baby’s digestive system adjusts to the new food.
- Don’t feed half cooked or raw foods to the baby except fruits!
- Needless to say that, you should maintain hygiene and cleanliness, when you cook and when you feed.
- Avoid feeding citrus fruits when your baby has nappy rashes.
- If you find any allergic reaction or loose tools after eating certain food, don’t hesitate to check with your doctor.
- Irrespective of the variety of foods fed to your baby, don’t skip feeding milk!
Remember that all babies are not same and so is their nutritional requirements and digestive capacity.
