What should I do if my baby is anorexic in summer? What should I do if my baby refuses to eat in summer?

How to deal with baby's anorexia in summer? This problem has become a problem for many parents. In hot weather, babies' appetites are inevitably poor. How should parents properly deal with baby's anorexia? Here are some tips to deal with baby's anorexia.

How to prevent summer anorexia

1. Eat in moderation

Feeding during infancy should be regular and quantitative. After the child reaches 6 months old, the amount of milk should be gradually reduced, and supplementary foods such as noodles, porridge, fish, meat, vegetables, and soy products should be added in time. For older children, it is recommended to eat more light and easily digestible foods, such as mung bean, lily, and millet soup. If you can insist on eating it for two months in summer, it can also reduce the occurrence of other diseases! The dishes should also be light, such as winter melon and rib soup, salted shrimp, steamed fish, steamed eggs, etc.

It is worth noting that children have delicate stomachs, so parents should feed them raw and fried foods and not overeat. In addition, frozen foods can easily damage the gastric mucosal blood vessels, causing the baby's digestive function to decline, so they should not eat too much and should eat less snacks. Generally speaking, if the child can eat normally, there is no need to add additional health supplements.

2. Exercise can stimulate appetite

Increase the amount of activity according to age and choose different forms of exercise. Young children can choose outdoor activities to keep the blood flowing, maintain appetite and keep healthy. For children with poor digestion, they can often massage their abdomen to help digestion.

3. Eat more zinc-rich foods

In the hot summer, the human body sweats more and zinc is lost in large quantities as the body sweats. Therefore, children in summer need more zinc than usual. Parents can give their children more zinc-rich foods, such as seafood, nuts and other zinc-rich foods. They can also give their children zinc supplements.

How to supplement nutrition for your baby in summer

Sweating a lot in summer not only causes the body to lose water, but also takes away nutrients. Zhao Jinmei, a national first-level nutritionist, pointed out that the focus of nutritional supplementation is different for each baby's age.

1. Neonatal period

The most ideal food for a newborn baby is breast milk. Breast milk is rich in nutrients, with a suitable ratio of sugar, fat and protein, easy to digest and absorb, and contains various immune substances needed by babies. Therefore, in order to have the healthiest breast milk, mothers should pay attention to nutritional matching. During this period, it is not necessary and should not be given additional food to the child. If there is no breast milk, or the mother cannot feed the child for various reasons, infant formula milk powder should be selected, and it is not suitable to feed directly with milk.

2. Infancy

Children are in their infancy from 1 to 12 months after birth. During this period, babies grow and develop very fast, especially in the first six months, when their weight can reach 2 to 3 times that of their birth weight. For full-term babies, in addition to continuing breastfeeding, complementary foods can be gradually added after 4 months, such as batter, rice soup, vegetable soup, eggs, lean meat, soy milk, biscuits, etc. Premature babies can gradually add complementary foods after 6 months, but the premise is that the baby is healthy and can add complementary foods.

3. Early childhood

Children aged 1 to 3 years old have weak digestive ability and body resistance. Their physical development slows down, but their brain development speeds up. They need rich vitamins A, C, and E to help absorb nutrients, improve immunity, and promote intellectual development. At the same time, vitamin D can help calcium absorption and provide support for children's tooth and bone development; B vitamins are even more indispensable. Without them, babies will be irritable and cry at night, which affects their healthy growth.

Therefore, for infants, it is important to ensure that they drink 250-500 mL of milk or soy milk every day, and pay attention to the supply of meat, eggs, fish, soy products, vegetables, and fruits. In addition to the main meals, you can also add 1-2 snacks.

How to deal with baby's picky eating in summer

1. Get enough sleep

Sufficient sleep can refresh your spirit and improve your appetite. Because the activity of the digestive tract is closely related to the function of the cerebral cortex, lack of sleep will inhibit the feeding center of the thalamus, significantly reducing the secretion of digestive juices and gastrointestinal motility. Therefore, sufficient sleep is a prerequisite for improving appetite.

2. Food Diversification

In nature, foods of different colors contain different types and proportions of nutrients. The most nutritious way to combine them is to mix 2-3 different colored foods into each meal of baby's complementary food. Therefore, when making complementary food, mothers should flexibly combine a variety of different colored fruits, vegetables and meats, and use rich colors to stimulate the baby's interest in eating. This will not only allow the baby to fully absorb balanced, safe and diverse nutrition, but also help the baby develop good eating habits from an early age. In summer, baby's food should be light and nutritious.

3. Increase interest in eating

Cultivate the habit of children to eat by themselves and allow them to have the freedom to choose food; pay attention to the color, aroma and taste of food when cooking, and change the cooking methods frequently, such as making steamed buns into the shapes of various animals; eggs can be cooked into steamed eggs, boiled eggs, poached eggs, egg drop soup, etc. This can increase children's interest in eating and thus improve their appetite.

4. Create a comfortable dining atmosphere

Experiments have shown that when a person is excited, angry, sad, or worried, the pyloric sphincter will reflexively contract, preventing food from being emptied smoothly and causing it to remain in the stomach, leading to a decrease in appetite. Therefore, the dining environment should maintain a quiet, pleasant, and focused atmosphere.

5. Do not force-feed

Due to the influence of complex physiological, psychological and environmental factors, it is natural for babies to eat more sometimes and less sometimes. However, some parents make a fuss and get very nervous, suspecting that their babies are sick or forcing them to finish the meal. Sometimes, forcing them to eat causes nausea and vomiting. Some even develop aversion and refuse to eat, which eventually leads to anorexia. This emotion is especially obvious in the hot summer.