How and when to start feeding a baby - advice to moms

Acquaintance of the child with "adult" food is the crucial moment in the development of the baby. Therefore, before an important event, you should carefully read how and when to start feeding a baby.

So Different Approaches

Just 10 years ago, pediatricians insisted that the first time to introduce a child to food costs at the age of 3 months. It was necessary to start with juices, which were given drop by drop to the child. Today, for the first time, the infants get acquainted with "adult" food not earlier than 5 - 5, 5 months.

To answer the question of when to start feeding a baby, you should, first of all, carefully evaluate the child's condition by some parameters:

1. Type of feeding. If it is pectoral, then acquaintance begins not earlier than 6 months, if it is artificial - then in 5-5.5 months.
2. Ability to sit by yourself. In this position, food is best taken and, most importantly, is not repelled by the body.
3. Physical development of the child: whether it is sick, whether it is gaining weight, whether it suffers from constipation, when the last time it was vaccinated.
4. Interest in parental food.

Answers to these questions, recorded by the parents, help the pediatrician to determine when to start feeding a baby for a particular case and where.

True, these parameters also indicate what kind of scheme should be used for complementary feeding: pedagogical, traditional or mixed.

Traditional involves the introduction into the diet of a child specially processed adult food products, as recommended by the feeding supplement table, developed by the child's pediatrician.

Pedagogical allows you to use food "from a common table" as an additional food. In doing so, the child develops an interest in what the parents themselves consume. This scheme is ideal for those children who abandon the traditional scheme.

Mixed includes a kind of combination of the previous two schemes, in which parents first set an example, only then offer the child a certain dish.

Different products - different terms

As with the principles of input, with regard to types of complementary foods, there are also different approaches to what kind of food and when to start feeding a baby.

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 in consultation with the pediatrician. So, porridges are appointed in the event that the child has a shortage of weight. Indication for the consumption of vegetables is a disorder of the intestine, namely constipation. In addition, vegetables are also prescribed when the weight exceeds reasonable standards.

After cereals and vegetables, fruit is 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 place of residence of the child.

The supplementary feeding table for babies assumes that on the seventh month acquaintance with meat products takes place: veal, rabbit meat, turkey.

At 8 months in the diet are introduced meat by-products, sour-milk products, butter. At 9 months in the diet should appear lean fish, and up to a year the child is already completely switched to adult food, processed by cooking or steaming.

The presented recommendations are generalized, and therefore for each specific case it is necessary to agree the scheme of introduction and content of complementary foods directly with the doctor.