All young mothers no doubt know that it is best to feed the baby with their breast milk, but in our time more and more often there is an insufficient amount of milk or its complete absence. All this is due to the effects of environmentally dirty substances that have filled our planet, various diseases and so on. Therefore, in our time, many need to know how to feed a child in addition to milk.
Basically, those women who are unable to breastfeed, use mixed or artificial feeding. But still, even if you know that such options are possible, it is best to follow the doctor's recommendations about what lifestyle to lead in order not to lose the opportunity for lactation. In general, whoever says anything, breast milk is the best thing you can give your baby.
Starting from four months, you should start to feed the baby with a spoon, but not earlier. Why not think about how to feed a baby with a spoon before a certain date? Everything is very simple, your baby can only eat liquid food and he is not yet capable of producing special food movements. They also have children under four months of age with a protective reflex, the essence of which is to push out solid food and foreign bodies with the tongue. And after four months, this reflex begins to weaken and eventually disappears completely.
Feeding a baby (not milk) should start at four months old. For each child, this time comes anyway differently. Here it is worth focusing on the above reflex, and if you start to give complementary foods earlier, then in the future it will be very difficult to feed the baby, because he will have a negative attitude to food.
So how to feed the baby? Most begin to give complementary foods in the form of various cereals and mashed potatoes. When parents begin to give their child complementary foods, they can note its activity: the baby opens his mouth at the sight of food. And by the age of five months, children already begin to support the bottle with their pens. By seven months, a child can start drinking from a cup that parents initially hold, and by nine months he begins to support it. At six months, children can start to bind a bib and wash their hands before eating.
At about seven months, a baby can be given a crust of bread in his hands so that he gets used to chewing it. First you need to bring the child’s hands to his mouth, accompanying the action with words, so that he understands what needs to be done. Then you just have to talk, not show. That is why it is worth starting to wash your hands from this age, because the baby begins to keep food with his own hands.
Given that the child is easily distracted, he needs to be put in a quiet, calm place, where there are as few distractions as possible.
By ten months, a child can begin to learn to take a cup of water, to alternate bread with liquid food. Proper nutrition should consist of cereals and mashed potatoes from various vegetables and fruits, inverted meat through a meat grinder (or in a blender), and so on. However, in addition to the question of how to feed the baby, it is worth thinking about how to drink the baby. From the very first days of life, a child can be given boiled water. After a few weeks, you can give your child various decoctions such as apple compote or a rosehip decoction.
We must not forget that any kind of food should be introduced into your baby’s diet gradually and only gradually. Also, you should always give new food only in the morning, so that during the day you can track the reaction. Liquid food should slowly become more solid. You should never overfeed a child, do not shove anything into him if he does not want it. If you introduce new products, you should always do this separately, otherwise in case of an allergic reaction, you will not be able to determine what the allergy is.
Now you know how to feed the baby and how to feed the baby. Following all the tips and tricks, problems should not arise.