Feeding a baby is relatively easy: either you give it milk or you give it milk. There is no menu to choose from and there is no other option, so the only thing that must be clear is that we must give breast milk, or in its artificial defect (no plant inventions) on demand and, after six months, start the supplementary feeding.
Years ago, allergies, symptoms and beliefs led us to talk about complementary feeding with extensive guidelines full of rules and recommendations that seemed mandatory. Now things have changed, we know much more about different foods and we can say that everything is much easier. Easier, but we must also explain it, so today we talk about the supplementary feeding and we make you one complete guide so you don't have problems when it comes to start.
What is complementary feeding?
The first thing to do is define what complementary food is, to know what we mean. The main feeding of a baby until the year of life is milk. He is a human "puppy" and, as such, needs his mother's milk to develop as expected. In the absence of breast milk, artificial milk is given, which is not the same, but it solves the basic nutritional needs of the baby (not the issue of immune development, etc.).
Breast milk is the food that babies should take up to six months of life. Until that date, there is nothing better to offer them, so it is not recommended that they take anything else (the rest of the food, or will have fewer calories or be less nutritious). In case you drink artificial milk the recommendation is the same, better until 6 months with only artificial milk. However, since artificial milk does not have the same properties as breast milk, it is allowed in many guides that babies who take a bottle start with complementary feeding before, between 4 and 6 months. Never, never, should start before 4 months.
The goal of starting to eat at 6 months is start supplementing breast milk. Not replace, really, but complement. Continue to breastfeed on demand, but start feeding them with a spoon so they start trying new flavors, getting to know new textures, chewing and eating, and the food they will eat for the rest of their lives.
How much should a baby eat?
Since everything is a matter of learning, there is not really a predefined amount of food to eat. In fact, at the beginning, it is suggested that you be given one or two tablespoons of the ingredient that will be offered and, every day, if you accept it, increase. In this sense it is said that, in the same way that up to 6 months the baby drank milk on demand, after 6 months you have to keep eating on demand.
In case there are any doubts in this regard, I rescue a graphic that I published a long time ago that makes it quite clear how much children have to eat:
You see it A six-month-old child may need to eat more than a 2-year-old child (the maximum of 6 months is 779 kcal / day and the minimum of 2 years 729 kcal / d). As we do not know what our child is, if the one who needs the maximum of what the table says or is the one who needs the minimum, wanting to know how much a child has to eat is unnecessary, so it must be the child who decides how much to eat.
Crushed or porridge?
Until a few years ago the complementary feeding was always offered in porridge so that the baby did with her the same as with the milk, to swallow without chewing. However, some theorists began to think that it was a bit absurd to get used to the porridge so that they then had to get used to the semi-solid texture, and recommended feeding directly with pieces. This current was called "Baby Led Weaning" and children who have tried it successfully have left their parents speechless and very happy, since almost from the first day they eat the same as them.
It is not a technique that works with all babies (and I say it from experience), as many children choose to move food in their mouths and spit it out. Others choke until they can no longer and, as every mother has a limit of scares, which she sees happens two or three times, she prefers to leave it for later and recover the tradition of decades ago.
Come on, the ideal is to eat pieces from the beginning, because it is the most comfortable for everyone, but the option of mash or porridge is always there just in case it is considered necessary. If you do not know very well how to make them eat pieces, I leave this entry in which we offer a few ideas.
Did you say spoon, or can I put the food in the bottle?
Well, the only thing that can be put in a bottle is cereals and juice, because I know of mothers who have tried to put vegetables and have not been very successful. The juice is not a highly recommended food for babies or children, because it is highly caloric and poorly nutritious, so you better eat fruit. The cereals in the bottle are also not recommended, as they do not generate any learning in the child and because, if done in all bottles, the concentration of the food may be too high (in reference to the amount of liquid) and be harmful.
How to start?
Long ago there were many rules regarding food. Some were given at a certain age, others to another, had to wait a lot of days between meals, gluten was late and, in general, it was all a bit complicated. Now we know that in reality it is all easier than we explained and you can almost say that, in this matter of giving food to babies, there is only one rule: offer food one by one.
One by one means that the first day we offer you something to eat we can only give you one thing (which we will call ingredient A). The first day we give him the ingredient A. He tries it, he spits it out, he tries it again, he swallows a little, he throws another one on the floor, he rubs the rest on his face, clothes and hair, he tries another bit, he swallows another little and asks for a tit (this will almost always happen ... that after eating, however little or a lot he eats, he will ask for a tit).
During the evening and the night we observe that everything is fine: Do not vomit, do not have diarrhea, do not make eczema or hives on the skin, do not swell your eyelids, tongue, etc. (If something swells, running to the hospital). Come on, you have to observe for a day that the food you have tried does not feel bad so that, in case we suspect allergic reaction or intolerance, we remove it from your diet.
On the second day we offer ingredient B. As you have already tried the A, we can join A and B in the same shot or, if they do not stick or glue, give B at some time of the day and repeat A at another time. Again, we observe our baby a whole day to rule out that the new food B feels bad.
On the third day, we added ingredient C, which will be added throughout the day with A and B, if they both suited you. And so we do it every day until you've tried a few. No need to try something new every day. There is really no hurry, but you have to be clear that everything we want to prove must be separated at least one day from the previous novelty.
It is advisable to offer it at breakfast time or at lunchtime, because so, if there is an allergic reaction, it does not catch us sleeping (no inventions at night). In addition, it is interesting to do it at times when we are mom or dad and have a car, in case you have to run to the hospital. Leaving the grandmother the responsibility of offering new foods, and that in case of urgency she catches her alone with the baby without the possibility of taking him to the emergency room can be a trauma for her and dangerous for the baby.
When to offer each food?
As I say, everything is easier for a while to this part, and this we have to thank the magazine Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolic Care, which published in May 2010 an article entitled "Science base of complementary feeding practice in infancy", that is, complementary feeding from the point of view of science. This article broke hundreds of recommendations from hundreds of pediatricians and nurses who said that first such fruit is given, first such vegetable, such thing at 8 months, this one at 9, and I do not know which at 12, but yes you cook it at fifteen but if you are going to swallow it whole at 18. Come on, there were leaves that drove mothers crazy because there were many pretty strict recommendations and rules, and then these same mothers, talking with others with other pediatricians, They realized that their recommendations were very different. Well, to reach a consensus, in that article they said "let's see, what does science really say about all that?".
And they took the studies to date and made a review to reach the following conclusion: they saw that the main recommendation in terms of food is that of WHO, which recommends start complementary feeding at 6 months. This recommendation is still discussed by some scientific and professional societies and many mothers start earlier, towards 4 months, and some even before (when I did the nursing career the orange juice was given at 3 months). It is currently not recommended to offer food before 4 months, but the European Food Safety Authority published a few years ago a review of studies that concluded that complementary feeding between 4 and 6 months was a safe practice. Come on, what can be done because it does not put the baby's health at risk. This does not mean that children must now be fed at four months, because there are studies that show that feeding from 6 months decreases the risk of overweight in adulthood, for example, and because we know that breast milk is more nutritious and caloric than many of the foods offered after 4 months and, consequently, it is better to offer it exclusively until six.
They also saw that, although many foods were being delayed due to their allergenic potential, it has always been thought that it is better to give them later to avoid allergies, there is no real consensus, there is no scientific reason behind and the fact delaying them could even increase the risk of allergy.
However, they concluded that there is no reason to make inventions and that the most logical thing is to start the complementary feeding, in general, at 6 months, until new randomized studies are done in which it is really demonstrated when it is better to start a food or another and what foods are better to start and which later. Until then, all are recommendations based on what each professional considers best, but not the result of a scientific consensus. That is, as you will see below, most foods are offered at 6 months of age.
Vegetables and vegetables
They are low-calorie foods that are always recommended with olive oil and usually mixed with other foods such as legumes, rice, potatoes and / or meat. At first, after 6 months they can eat all kinds of vegetables, that is, beans, potato, carrot, leek, zucchini, etc. All, except those that accumulate more nitrates, which in our body are transformed into nitrites and are dangerous, being able to oxidize hemoglobin producing methemoglobin, a cell that cannot transport oxygen to tissues. This causes cyanosis or what is known as "blue child syndrome", caused by a lack of oxygen in the tissues. If left untreated, it is a disease that can be serious. Those that accumulate more nitrites are the spinach, chard, beet and turnip, which is better not to offer until 12 months of age (from 6 months they can eat, actually, but better in a very small amount).
Fruit
They are also a type of food with few calories (less than breast milk), so we must offer them in small quantities so they can continue with milk and other foods with more calories. From 6 months can eat any fruit. Formerly expected for peaches until 12 months, for strawberries until 18 months, for example, but as I explained above, there is currently no study that recommends waiting beyond 6 months to offer food potentially allergenic
The juice, although it comes from the fruit, is considered more a hypercaloric soda than a healthy drink. It is, because to achieve a glass of juice two or three pieces of fruit are necessary, and then what a child is drinking when drinking a glass of juice is the equivalent to those 2-3 whole fruits, so suddenly, and without the fiber of the fruit, which has remained in what has been left over. It is recommended that babies consume The less fruit juice, the better. And children, likewise, maximum half a glass of juice a day (it has so many calories from the sugars of the fruit that take away the hunger of the child, when he could be eating other healthier things instead).
Cereals
Cereals are wheat, corn, barley, oats, rye, millet, rice, quinoa, amaranth, ... and in reality, although there are porridge of 8 cereals, you don't need to try them all if later in your life you won't eat of many of them (I don't know anyone who eats millet, for example). In fact, it is not even necessary for them to eat powdered cereals, since from 6 months we can give them rice, bread, cookies and pasta, being preferable, at first, not to go over with cereals that carry gluten (oats, wheat, barley, rye ,…) That is, that corn and rice without problems, but things that contain gluten, with caution at the beginning.
The current recommendation is to give a little every day for a month or so, so that the body becomes accustomed and the risk of celiac disease is lower. A recent study says that this is not proven to be better, and is probably right, but for now, until a more or less official recommendation is established, we continue to say the same, little start for a few weeks and then increase the amount of cereals with gluten.
Meat
Can eat any meat from 6 months of age. Initially, the most recommended are chicken and rabbit, because they are small animals. Veal, being from a larger animal, has more collagen and digestion can be a bit more difficult. The pork, on the other hand, can also be indigestible and the sirloin is recommended, as it is a more juicy and nerve-free meat.
Sausages, for the amount of salt, preservatives and dyes, and for the low percentage of meat that the baby actually takes, can be offered from 6 months but always in a very timely manner.
Fish and seafood
With the fish they have been dizzy the partridge for many years and we have seen recommendations ranging from 9 months to 3 years, depending on who you ask. Thanks to the review of studies mentioned we know that babies can eat fish from 6 months, although it should be avoided to give them large fish, for the amount of mercury they accumulate (swordfish, shark, tuna and pike), which they can eat in moderation after 3 years (the fault is not the children or the fish , but from the mercury that reaches the sea of industries).
With regard to seafood, it is a specialist in accumulating cadmium, which is also toxic, and therefore it is not recommended to offer it until children are at least 3 years old.
Vegetables
The legumes can begin to be offered at six months and, in fact, being rich in iron, it is recommended to do so, being interesting to accompany them with a food rich in vitamin C so that iron is better absorbed: orange, tangerine, tomato, etc.
If the baby suffers flatulence from the skin of the legumes, it is better to remove it. If even removing the skin, legumes continue to produce flatulence, it is better to wait a while to offer them again, or give them in moderation.
Egg
The egg is another one that was not given until 12 months, but that happens to be able to eat from six months too.
Milk and derivatives
Artificial milk is a derivative of cow's milk, but would not become part of this group because, obviously, in case of need or decision of the parents, a baby can be fed with artificial milk from the first day of birth . From six months onwards babies can drink milk and derivatives, although always in moderation.
Breast milk is still better (it always is) and formula milk is still better than cow's milk, which is not recommended until 12 months. As for yogurts, actimeles, petit suisses and all those things, they can, but the advice is the same, in moderation.
The reason is that they are foods rich in protein and if we put together the egg, meat, fish and dairy, the baby will be taking many more proteins than you need. In the first three cases, the iron intake will be a good reason to offer them, but dairy products are very low in iron. Then you have to choose: not being able to give all foods rich in protein, it is better to give those that are rich in iron.
Ideally, start with them after 12 months and then be whole dairy, because skimmers are not recommended until at least 2 years of age.
The baby yogurts? Exactly the same recommendation. They have such an amount of protein (practically the same as a normal yogurt) that it is not understood too much that they continue to exist.
I say, because they give a child a yogurt every now and then nothing will happen, but it is better not to do it often because for proteins there are already those of foods rich in iron and because, to give him a milk derivative unmodified cow, well for that we breastfeed or, failing that, a bottle of artificial milk, more adapted to the baby.
Other foods
The Salt, as we said when talking about sausages, it is not recommended. It makes children eat more than they need since it is a taste they like. In addition, there is a risk that they will get used to this flavor and find it difficult to accept other less salty flavors. Moderation is recommended, and the longer it takes to start taking it, the better.
He sugar It produces the same effect as salt, causing you to eat too much and get used to that taste, but with the addition that it is a demineralizing food and that provides many calories and few nutrientsWhen a baby needs a lot of calories, but also a lot of nutrients. It is recommended to avoid it as much as possible.
The honey It is the natural alternative to sugar as it sweetens equally, but it can contain spores of Clostridium Botulinum, which can be absorbed by the immature intestine of the infant, producing botulism, and therefore its consumption is advised against in children under 1 year.
The nuts They are not recommended because of the risk of choking, being small and hard.
He oil It can be offered after six months to add flavor and calories to some menus. The best, the olive one.
The whole-grain foods They are healthier since they are less modified, they are recommended above those that come from refined flours from six months.
He Water It begins to be offered at six months and, like everything else, it is taken on demand. If you are thirsty you will drink more, if you are not, you will drink less. Do not force the child to drink it because many foods already carry water and may not be thirsty.
Photos | Thinkstock
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