Feeding Children
Employed mothers make such a habit of bottle-feeding children for their convenience that many times the child continues to grow on milk even after turning one year old. Due to lack of any elder in the house or due to the ignorance of the mother, the child’s body lacks essential elements of food, weakness comes in terms of feeding children. In order to reach the nutritional value of food in the child’s body properly and completely, a balanced diet is needed for feeding children and the method of preparing it should also be right.
Why need of baby food?
With age, the diet of the child should increase and especially the amount of iron particles, vitamins, calcium and protein should also be very high while feeding children. Which only mother’s milk or animal’s milk cannot fulfill. That is why between four to six months, along with mother’s milk, a light-digestible diet should be started, which does not need to be chewed.
Perhaps that is why it is said that children and the elderly are alike because both face the same problem in chewing without teeth. But the only end is that a light diet is sufficient for the elderly, whereas the child should be given a diet rich in strength by adding desi ghee or more sugar so that the needs of the grown body can be met. Custard, semolina kheer, curd, molasses, fresh fruit juice, lentil water, fresh vegetable soup, rice pudding, banana, papaya, mango can be started by grinding it well and softening it.
Hygiene Maintenance –
Taking care of cleanliness is very important for feeding children.
• Before preparing food for the child, hands should be thoroughly washed with soap so that they can be germinated.
• Utensils should also be completely clean so that diarrhea and vomiting do not occur due to dirt.
• Food should always be prepared and given fresh. This is the same thing.
• Milk should be covered well.
• If leftover food is to be kept for two hours. It should be given only after heating and it is good to give milk after boiling it again and after cooling it.
How to start solid food for the baby?
In the beginning, one or two spoons should be given to the baby, and then after a day and a half, 8 to 10 spoons and then in a week, the children eat the whole or small bowl.
Some children do not adapt to new tastes quickly and keep coming out of the mouth again and again. In this condition, different tastes should be given again and again after giving some rate so that gradually the child gets used to eating.
Initially, the above food should be given once or twice a day so that the child continues to drink breast milk, then later the food can be done four to five times.
When the child is calm after drinking mother’s milk, then he does not eat the above food. Therefore, after two and a half or three hours of drinking mother’s milk, food should be given from above so that the child can digest the food. Generally, the baby should be pacified after feeding a little heavy at night so that the child sleeps comfortably at night without waking the mother again and again due to hunger.
How does the dietary contents differ with age of baby?
Six to nine months old baby becomes capable of chewing. Therefore, without every home made chili and spices, mashed well and can be fed to the baby such as boiled potatoes or any vegetable, lentils, rice, khichdi, phulka dal or soaked in milk, curd, fruit, idli, dosa, missi roti etc. Eating too much or adding cream to all these things can be made strong.
At this age, high watery things should not be given, such as lentil water or milk mixed with water or vegetable soup, etc., because the child will fill the stomach with water and will be deprived of essential iron particles and vitamins.
All products made from milk like curd, paneer, khova etc. can be fed by adding more sugar. Eggs, fish and meat can all be mashed and fed.
From nine months to one year, the child makes his own taste and demands a variety of delicious food. At this age, there is no need to give the food by mashing it, but cutting or breaking it into small pieces should be kept in front of the child so that he can eat it himself.
Gradually, the child starts taking full food on his own, leaving the mother’s milk. A child above one year should be given everything that remains the answer to everyone else in the house so that the child eats four to five times a day.
A child of one and a half to two years old eats half of his mother’s diet and knows how to express his likes and dislikes. Mother’s milk should be given together till the age of two years, but very little because the child can fulfill the necessary strength for the growth of the body only by external food.
Benefit to mother of feeding baby –
The mother’s own body remains better by feeding the child with milk and the attachment to the child also deepens. Canned food should not be given to the child prepared from the market because freshly prepared homemade food is better and cheaper. The taste of feeding your own child by making it with your own hands is something else. And when the child sees the things made by the mother’s hand for himself, then he also becomes fond of it. Canned company neither the mother nor the soul of fresh fruits and vegetables. So why not make a good soulful connection with baby by feeding children by yourself and see the baby growing healthy.
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