I want to share my experience regarding the food diversification of the diet of my daughter. This blog is not a nutrition guide for moms, there are many other sites specializing in infant nutrition, but it simply shows how we have managed from the age of 9 months to cook the same food for all of us because we have admit it, it is difficult to prepare food only for the baby.
We started to offer solid food earlier than 6 months(5 months and a half) and the first served was vegetable soup. Up until then she had been exclusively breastfed. I thought it would not be so hard, none of us are fussy about food as adults or even when we were children, but it was a bit difficult. It depends very much on the child, to some it is more difficult, others accept solid food without problems. Until 7 months of age our daughter was 100% breastfed, she hardly accepted anything else but breast-milk.
Please see below some ideas, you should refer this to your pediatrician and ask other parents or even read on the Internet.
6 months:
Morning: Milk
9-10 AM fruit meal. You should begin with simple grated apple. We started with baked apple, because our daughter had trouble with gastrointestinal reflux. Later I added other fruits with big pip: peach, apricot, pear mixed with fruit juice, home made cheese fed with a teaspoon appropriate for the baby's age.
Lunch:
Vegetable soup, which is initially made of: carrot, parsley root (not leaves!), parsnip, celery. Add 200 ml of water to boil and add a small part of each vegetable, about 2cm(around 0.8inches). It is better to cook fresh food every day, at least for the beginning. The rest of it you can eat yourself or throw it. Also it is better to cover the pot with a lid so that the vitamins are kept with the soup. When the vegetables are soft enough to be mashed, mix them using a blender and add a teaspoon of extra-virgin olive oil and don't add salt. When you begin to serve soup, it should be more watery, slowly day by day increase the consistency by adding more vegetables to boil until you get to a vegetables purée.
Vegetable soup, which is initially made of: carrot, parsley root (not leaves!), parsnip, celery. Add 200 ml of water to boil and add a small part of each vegetable, about 2cm(around 0.8inches). It is better to cook fresh food every day, at least for the beginning. The rest of it you can eat yourself or throw it. Also it is better to cover the pot with a lid so that the vitamins are kept with the soup. When the vegetables are soft enough to be mashed, mix them using a blender and add a teaspoon of extra-virgin olive oil and don't add salt. When you begin to serve soup, it should be more watery, slowly day by day increase the consistency by adding more vegetables to boil until you get to a vegetables purée.
After a week when you are sure that the baby well accepts the soup, you can add other vegetables like a thin slice of leek and/or squash. Be careful with onions and potatoes, they may cause gas. They will be used a month later on. In a week you may add meat to your baby's menu, boiled separately since the meat and vegetables have different cooking times. You can serve chicken or beef/veal or turkey. Recommended ratio of vegetable/meat is 1 tablespoon of meat, 2 tablespoons of vegetables. Serve as much soup as the baby wants to have and the rest of the meal is milk(breast-milk or formula).
You have now replaced 2 meals of milk with solid food: fruits and soup, the rest of the meals remain milk
7 months:
Morning: Milk
9-10 AM : fruit meal, you can add a teaspoon of home made cheese or a teaspoon of cereal according to your baby's age.
Lunch:
Vegetable soup you in which besides meat, you can add hard boiled organic egg yolk. The egg yolk should be introduced slowly: start with a quarter of yolk per day and gradually increase up to 2 yolks per week. There should be: days with soup and meat and days with meat, egg yolk. It is certain that no day should pass without meat or egg. The baby needs iron supplements during this time of age. Do not serve egg whites until 1 year old because it is allergenic. Now you may add to the soup onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes, green peppers and tomatoes without the skin and seeds. Please follow doctors recommendation: one ingredient every two days to observe side effects: vomiting or stool changed. These problems rarely occur but it is best to be aware. Our daughter had no problems with that.
Vegetable soup you in which besides meat, you can add hard boiled organic egg yolk. The egg yolk should be introduced slowly: start with a quarter of yolk per day and gradually increase up to 2 yolks per week. There should be: days with soup and meat and days with meat, egg yolk. It is certain that no day should pass without meat or egg. The baby needs iron supplements during this time of age. Do not serve egg whites until 1 year old because it is allergenic. Now you may add to the soup onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes, green peppers and tomatoes without the skin and seeds. Please follow doctors recommendation: one ingredient every two days to observe side effects: vomiting or stool changed. These problems rarely occur but it is best to be aware. Our daughter had no problems with that.
No salt yet !
5 PM:
Plain yoghurt or yoghurt with a teaspoon of cottage cheese
Plain yoghurt or yoghurt with a teaspoon of cottage cheese
Rest of the meals: Milk
When the baby is about 8 months (ie 2 months since you started diversification) he/she should have tasted from most of the vegetables. Increase the consistency of the soup until it become mashed vegetables, add broccoli, cottage cheese. By this stage you should be able to see what the baby likes, if something is not to baby's taste do not insist, try few days later.
At this stage you can prepare soup for everyone in the house with broth /tomato paste and even sour soup, or cook any food you usually eat but be careful with prohibited ingredients and no deep-fried foods, regardless of the advice coming from grandparents, great-grandparents or "experienced" aunts.
I created this blog to present some ideas of the well-known recipes, but adapted so that the baby could eat from the age of 8 months just as my baby. This blog will grow in time with my daughter.
I created this blog to present some ideas of the well-known recipes, but adapted so that the baby could eat from the age of 8 months just as my baby. This blog will grow in time with my daughter.
Great post which is truly informative for us and we will surely keep visiting this website.
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