The World Health Organization recommends that babies can be introduced with complementary food after 6 months, and babies with faster development can be slightly earlier, but not earlier than 4 months at the earliest, and no more than 8 months at the latest.
But some mothers are very puzzled: I rarely give my baby snacks, let alone salty polysaccharides, high-calorie, indigestible complementary foods, but why does my baby still grow behind other people's babies?
I think it is likely to be the baby's complementary food, often appear those that seem to be very nutritious, but in fact have a very low nutrient density, such as the following 4:
1. Homemade rice noodles
Some parents want their children to eat healthier, so they want to make their own complementary foods at home. Usually, children start with mush. Therefore, the first choice of parents has become homemade rice cereal.
I have to say that such rice cereal is indeed very safe. However, in terms of nutrition, it is relatively lacking. There aren't many nutrients other than starch. The baby's stomach capacity is very small, and if you only take a little starch, you can't keep up with the development.
2. Fruit juice
When it comes to adding complementary foods, my mother first thinks of fruits. Indeed, fruits are rich in vitamins and dietary fiber, making them ideal for adding to complementary foods for babies. However, many mothers are lazy and prefer to let their babies drink juice rather than adding it to complementary foods.
Once your baby has tried the juice, it's like discovering a new continent and will instantly fall in love with this amazing drink, so that he loses interest in breast milk and water. However, a glass of juice is squeezed from several fruits, and a baby drinking a glass of juice means eating three to four fruits, and it is easy to overfeed and overweight.
In addition, fruits are high in sugar, and the fruit juice remaining in the mouth can breed a lot of bacteria after fermentation, which can induce tooth decay. In the process of moving from fruit to juice, a large amount of dietary fiber is destroyed, which greatly reduces the nutrition of fruits.
3. Porridge
Porridge is light and easy to digest, and the baby will not get angry when he eats it, and many mothers will regard porridge as the most common supplementary food for their babies. But the bad thing about it is that the nutrient density is very low, except for starch, which is water, and it lacks nutrients such as protein and vitamins. And the longer the cooking time, the more vitamins are lost, and it is difficult to meet the needs of the baby's growth and development.
Nutrient density refers to the concentration of important nutrients (vitamins, minerals, and proteins) in a food on a unit calorie basis. The higher the amount of nutrients such as vitamins, minerals and proteins at the same calorie level (e.g. 1 kilojoule), the greater the nutrient density.
Babies are in the growth and development period, and at this stage they have a small appetite, that is, they need limited calories, but they have a great need for nutrition. If we don't pay attention and feed our babies a lot of "low nutrient density" foods like porridge, then they will unconsciously eat a lot of things that occupy the stomach, resulting in a sense of satiety, affecting the intake of milk, so that the body does not get enough nutrition. In the long run, it will affect the baby's intellectual development and physical development.
Mothers should take porridge as a basic ingredient of complementary food, add different ingredients, such as egg yolk, minced meat, mushrooms, various seasonal vegetables, etc., and boil it into complementary food porridge to improve its nutrient density.
4. Soup and rice
Tangpaorice is a mixture of soup and rice, in which the nutrient density is low, and the baby is easy to feel full after eating, affecting the intake of other nutrients;
The baby's digestive function is not fully developed, and a large amount of soup will enter the stomach when eating soup and rice, dilute gastric acid, affect digestion and absorption, and cause indigestion in the baby;
There is more water in the soup and rice, and the rice will become soft and easy to swallow, so it will lead to a decrease in chewing time. The baby's complementary food needs to transition from eating pureed food to soft solid food that needs to be chewed.
Principle of Complementary Food Addition:
1. Step by step: from less to more, from fine to coarse, from thin to thick, from single to mixed. Food characteristics should match your baby's chewing ability.
2. Pay attention to allergies: only eat a small amount of new food, observe for 3 days, and add the next one without adverse reactions.
3. Complementary foods should include four categories of food: grains, vegetables, fruits, meat, fish, eggs, and legumes, starting with iron-containing foods.
4. The food is light, salt-free, less sugar and less oil, which is more conducive to the baby's absorption.
If you want your child to eat healthy and healthy, mothers need to work "eating", it is recommended to give children a reasonable match, balanced nutrition is the eternal theme of the baby's meal, mothers can plan the type of food that the child wants to eat in a week, record it, so that it is easier to do rich and diverse!
Eating good complementary food is very important for the growth of children, whether the complementary food is eaten well, directly related to the child's intellectual development, physical growth, immunity strength, therefore, want to feed a healthy and intelligent, strong immunity, do not love to be sick baby, a good complementary food book is essential.
Here is an authoritative book on complementary food "What to Eat Every Week", the author of this book is Liu Changwei, a nutritionist and master of nutrition from Nanjing Children's Hospital, and this book has been strongly recommended by Zhang Silai, a parenting expert.
This thick complementary food book is very informative and solves almost all the problems that babies will encounter in complementary food feeding.
For example, what is the basic principle of adding complementary food to babies? What are the misunderstandings of parents about adding complementary foods that are easy to enter? What are the problems that tend to occur in the process of adding complementary foods? What tools do you need to prepare for baby food? Wait a minute.
What to Eat Every Week teaches parents to avoid misunderstandings, and gives weekly recipes for complementary foods. It lists the complementary food recipes that children should eat every week from 6 months to 1 year old.
**It is also very cheap, as long as 69, you can ensure the nutritional balance of your child's complementary food, why not? If you want to know more about this book "What to Eat Every Week", please click on the link below to learn more and make a purchase.