When can babies eat complementary foods? Remember these points

If the child shows the following 3 signals, you can add complementary foods to the baby. There is no authoritative regulation on how many months the baby can start eating complementary foods, but according to actual statistics, complementary foods are needed within one year old. Let's take a look at the 3 signals.

When can babies eat complementary foods?

When adding complementary food, you should first pay attention to the timing. The baby's stomach and intestines are not fully developed yet and are too delicate, so it is not good to add complementary food too early or too late. Some mothers will ask, when should I add complementary food to my baby? In fact, babies will send small signals to their mothers in life! If the baby shows the following signals, it means that complementary food needs to be added.

Signal 1: Grab something and put it in your mouth

When the baby puts anything he grabs into his mouth, parents should think that the baby wants to add complementary food. During this period, it is even more important to prevent the baby from accidentally swallowing harmful things, such as medicines.

Signal 2: The baby cries at night because he is not full

Many babies can sleep through the night, but recently mothers have found that they often cry in the middle of the night, or their sleep time is getting shorter and shorter. Mothers usually solve this problem by comforting and feeding at night, but the baby is still crying. This is because when the baby has a growth acceleration period around 6 months old, simple breastfeeding or formula milk can no longer meet the baby's growth needs! It's time to add complementary foods to the baby!

Signal 3: The baby's tongue-sticking reflex disappears

If the above signals are not obvious enough, mothers should pay attention to the baby's tongue sticking reflex! Have you noticed that babies often spit out what they have just put into their mouths? In fact, this is a kind of self-protection for babies. We call it tongue sticking reflex. The tongue sticking reflex usually disappears around 4 months old. It is recommended that mothers start to add complementary food to their babies after the tongue sticking reflex disappears. If you insist on feeding complementary food before it disappears, and force it in, not only will parents feel frustrated, but the baby will also feel unhappy.

Principles of adding complementary foods to babies

1. Add complementary food at the appropriate age

The complementary food you add must be adapted to the baby's age! You should know that the baby's oral development is not yet complete, and the food they can accept is also different. When the baby is 6 months old, you can add porridge, egg yolk, fruit puree, or thin noodle soup with chopped vegetables and a little cooking oil. From 7 to 12 months, you can add soft noodles, egg custard, tofu, wontons, various chopped vegetables, lean meat, small biscuits, etc. Start with cereals and transition to vegetables, fruits, fish, meat, poultry, eggs, bean products, etc.

2. From one to many From one to many, that is, to increase the types of food according to the baby's nutritional needs and digestive ability. At the beginning, only try one complementary food for the baby. After trying it for a week, if the baby's digestion is good and the bowel movements are normal, try another one. There is another advantage of doing this. If the baby is allergic to a certain food, it can be observed within a few days of trying. If there is no adverse reaction within a few days after eating, it means that the baby can accept this food.

3. Add complementary foods from fine to coarse

When adding complementary foods to babies, you should also follow the rule of starting from fine to coarse. At first, the food particles should be small and the taste should be tender and smooth, so "mud" foods such as vegetable puree, fruit puree, steamed egg custard, meat puree, etc. are the most suitable. This not only exercises the baby's swallowing function, but also lays the foundation for the gradual transition to solid food! In addition, these mud foods contain cellulose, lignin, and pectin, which can promote the baby's intestinal peristalsis and help digestion. When the baby is about to grow teeth or is growing teeth, mothers can gradually make the food particles coarse, which is conducive to promoting the growth of the baby's teeth and exercising the baby's chewing ability.

Misconceptions about adding complementary foods

1. Stop breastfeeding after adding complementary foods

Adding complementary foods does not mean the end of breastfeeding. Many mothers reduce or even completely stop breastfeeding after adding complementary foods to their children. This is equivalent to treating complementary foods as regular meals. The baby's underdeveloped stomach and intestines are difficult to fully digest and absorb all the nutrients in the complementary foods, and may even cause diarrhea. Over time, it will also cause malnutrition. Therefore, after adding complementary foods, mothers should still breastfeed on demand.

2. The more broken the complementary food is, the better

The fineness of complementary food is closely related to the baby's age. In the early stage of complementary food, mothers need to feed their babies enough broken and mushy food. But as the baby grows older, in order to promote the baby's chewing ability and maxillofacial development, complementary food does not need to be too fine all the time! Especially around 1 year old, the baby's teeth continue to erupt, and the chewing and swallowing movements will be more coordinated, and the teeth can be used to bite and grind the coarse and hard food into fine pieces. These movements can exercise the tongue and the entire maxillofacial muscles, laying a good foundation for the baby's speech development.

3. Add salt to complementary foods

Many mothers worry that complementary foods have no taste and their babies will not like them. In fact, babies' sense of taste is not fully developed yet. It is generally recommended to let babies eat very small amounts of salt after the age of 1. If mothers add strong-flavored fruit juices and adult foods with strong salt taste to their babies' complementary foods too early, it is easy for the baby to lose interest in regular complementary foods and affect the baby's gastrointestinal health.

Why add complementary food

1. After 6 months of breastfeeding, the mother's milk secretion will gradually decrease, and the baby's appetite will also begin to increase. At this time, drinking breast milk alone is not enough to provide the baby with one day's nutrition.

2. Babies aged 6-12 months are in the critical period of developing chewing and swallowing. For babies, the ability to chew and swallow needs to be learned. If they are not practiced, they will refuse to try after the age of 1. Even if the baby is willing to eat, sometimes he will spit it out immediately, causing feeding difficulties.

3. Complementary foods can provide more diverse and complete nutrition, including calories, iron and vitamins, and even trace elements such as zinc and copper. Giving different types of complementary foods gradually can help babies get used to a variety of flavors and avoid picky eating in the future.

4. When the baby is 4-6 months old, gastrointestinal amylase and various digestive enzymes have begun to be secreted, indicating that the digestion and absorption functions have gradually matured. At this time, you can start practicing eating complementary foods to increase gastrointestinal function. At the same time, the baby must have enough nutrition to thrive.