Supplementary Feeds
Q. When should I start supplementary feeds and what should I give?
A. A baby is exclusively breast fed till the age of six months. Supplementary feeds starts after six months of age. It’s very simple to plan. We need to give a cereal, a pulse, a fruit and a vegetable to the baby every day. There are only four things. WE cook in a different way and give different names to recipes.
There are few simple rules about supplementary feeds that we need to remember:
1. Semisolid food has more density of calories. Babies are growing very fast and need high calorie food. We need to give them semisolids and not liquids. Hence, we shouldn’t start on rice water, dal water, juice or soup.
2. We need to train our babies about feeding schedule. We want them to have breakfast, lunch, supper, and dinner. Hence we should aim at giving four meals a day starting with one meal and adding one every 7 to 10 days till we achieve four daily meals. If baby doesn’t eat much at a time, we can give additional meal.
3. Babies know their requirements very well. We should leave it to the baby to decide the volume of the meals.
4. Fruits are easy to digest and hence, it is a good idea to start with fruits as the first meal. Rice based meal can be added a week or 10 days later. Wheat based meals are last to add.
Meals:
We can start giving first meal in the morning. Mashed banana, apple or cheeku are good options to begin with. Once the baby starts taking well, we can give all other fruits. We should avoid mixing fruits, so any one fruit is given once a day. It is better to avoid giving watermelon, as it’s a poor source of calories.
Nestum Rice can be the 2nd meal. It can be mixed with expressed breast milk or formula milk or freshly prepared fruit juice. This can be given in the afternoon and started 7 to 10 days after starting the first meal. Nestum Rice is readymade cereal without milk. It’s important that baby gets used to atleast one readymade cereal, so in case if there is a situation when cooking is not possible, we have something with us to give to the baby.
Rice and Moong dal khichdi can be the next to add. Khichdi can be prepared taking 2 parts of Rice and 1 part of Moong dal and mixing with boiled vegetables. One can add potato, beans or any other green vegetable and carrot or any other red or yellow vegetable. This can be given in the evening.
Wheat dalia or Suji sheera or upma can be started at night time as 4th feed. When we start giving cereals, at that time we should start giving 2 to 3 ounces of water in a day. If babies do not like water, we can give that much of soup or juice.
In addition, we can try the following:
Mix half a kg each of Rice and Nachni and add 10 Almonds, grind it like Dalia, roast it and store it. Similarly mix half a kg each of Wheat and Moong Dal, add 10 Almonds, grind it like Dalia, roast it and store it. One can make Khichdi, Upma or Sheera of it. These give us more options. We need to keep rotating so that the baby doesn’t get bored of eating the same thing. Oats is also a good option to try.
Breastfeeding should continue in between semi solids feeds in the day and whenever baby demands at night till the age of one year. The night time feeding is usually the last to go.