As a mother of newly born baby, there are loads of responsibilities on your shoulders to take care of your baby during such a testing period where even a slight carelessness on your part can really cause harm to your baby. On the other hand good, caring and nurturing of a baby in a peaceful surrounding, can go a long way in deciding the fate of your baby’s future. For all those beautiful mothers of newly born baby, here is the compilation of tips for right alimentation of your baby to have a look at:
If you have a young infant (Age<6 months):
- Breastfeeding: Needs no mentioning breastfeeding is easily the most reliable and much needed nutrition to feed your infants. Breastfed infants should be getting the Vitamin D nutrient an average of 10 micrograms each day more than enough to prevent Vitamin D deficiency!
- An alternative to breastfeeding is the commercial infant milk, which contains Vitamin D if you are not able to breastfeed your baby as much as required. But remember breastfeeding is the best possible way to nourish your infant!
If you have an older infant (Age between 6-12 months):
- Continue breastfeeding your infant till the age of 2 years or even more depending upon the needs of the infant.
- Along with breastfeeding start giving your infant some iron rich foods. Foods containing iron in large proportions aid baby’s growth and development. Foods like banana, cheese, some soft cooked vegetables or meats like poultry, fish, and beef will do.
- If you are thinking of giving more of cow’s milk, wait for some more time. Start giving your infant homogenous cow’s milk and NOT partly skimmed milk when he/she is 9 years old!
- Don’t ever force your baby to eat too much if the baby is not interested in at that time. Choose your time and the amount of food wisely! Maybe it’s a perfect moment to try some free samples so you don’t waste your money.
If you have a young child (Age 12-24 months):
- Breastfeed your child as long as the child wants along with Vitamin D supplement of 10 microgram.
- If for some reason you are not able to breastfeed your child, start giving 500 ML of homogenous milk (NOT partly skimmed milk) but not overdose it as it may hamper other intake of foods.
- Provide higher-fat, nutritious foods like homogenous milk, cheese, butters and some selected fish.
So you know what your infant needs at what time and you have all the know-how of what foods you need to feed to your baby. But you don’t know the right practice of feeding of how to feed your infant. Now that’s tricky because if you don’t know the right way to feed, probably your baby might not want to eat as much as he/she should. So know the right way:
- Always supervise your child when eating
- Do not offer solid foods that are hard, small and round, or smooth and sticky
- Cook all meat, eggs, poultry, and fish well.
- Introduce common food allergensone at a time.
That’s all for hopefully nurturing and taking care of your baby the right way possible!
