Thursday 20 October 2016

Thinking about weaning baby?

If your baby is lesser than six months old, dear mom, go ahead and breast feed.No hurry to wean him right now.

Weaning your baby for the first time can be confusing.All this time your baby was on breastmilk.That means no sterilization,no storage ,no preparations and no fear of contamination!! Its just easy!

From my own experience with my two children, babies who are exclusively breastfed for first 6 months ( no water too.Breast milk is watery in the beginning, then gets thicker) hardly get any stomach disorders like indigestion and loose stools.The baby's digestive system is mature by about 6 months of age and added to that, you must have supplied your bub all the antibodies in form of Brest milk.

So do not fear and go ahead with solids.

The general rules for any food is as below. 

1. Start with simple starchy foods that are easy to digest.
2. Give one type of food for a couple of days to check if it suits your child.For instance if you have given dal and potato on the same day and your child has gastric issues, then you won't be able to make out which one caused the issue.
3.Avoid cow's milk until the baby is one year old.Cow's milk has fat and protein suitable for calves and not human babies! Mother's milk is best for your baby.
4.Avoid packaged food even if it says no preservatives and additives. One common sense fact is that no food can exist in store shelf for so long without processing
5.Do not use mixie to puree foods as it will destroy the taste,texture and nutritive value of food .Use a Blancher instead.Or even your fingers.

Fruits
 I have fed my kids all kinds of raw indian fruits except very fiberous and sour fruits.Prefer sweet and fleshy fruits.They can be given raw.
Bananas are excellent source of potassium and carbohydrate for your baby.Choose sweet varieties.

Vegetables
All vegetables as soup.
Mashed sweet potato , potato ( be very careful with sweet potatoes and potatoes.As they might contain a greenish tinge on their skin.Will create severe stomach ailments when consumed.Yes, I did that mistake of accidentally feeding it to my kid.)
Mashed carrots,sweet pumpkin, blended greens.

Lentis
All lentis without skin until the baby is a year old.Example, giving green gram or urad dhal with skin might cause loose stools in some babies that might last for even two weeks.
Try to add some tomatoes, hing  or garlic,turmeric powder while you Cook lentils for easy digestion.Avoid Rajma as this is very hard on stomach for babies

Kanji's or porridges
Multigrain kanji is prepared by roasting and grinding creals,nuts,spices .It is ready available in store. I buy organic multi grain porridge mix.

You can feed you child just plain ragi porridge too.It is one of the trusted and well know health food for babies.ragi can be finely ground with skin and must be cooked well for at least ten minutes.Ragi does take time to cook.

Water
Feed you baby with jeera water everyday.This improves digestion and keeps baby healthy.