I mentioned the 3-day rule, but what is Supplementary Nutrition?
When our baby is 6 months old, it is now necessary to supplement breast milk with a number of foods in addition to breast milk, but the baby needs a period of adaptation from breast milk, which is completely liquid and has a neutral taste, to a number of foods. The 6th month complementary feeding should be organized accordingly.
How should we give it?
- With a spoon
- With a glass
- Not the bottle!!!
Introduce each food one at a time according to the 3-day rule and never reduce breast milk in the meantime What to give?:
Recommendations for starting may vary from country to country and from doctor to doctor. My recommendations:
1. Yogurt, kefir (fermented at home)
2. Homemade unsalted cheese, labneh
3. Boiled or steamed: Potatoes, zucchini, pumpkin, carrots, peas, broccoli
4. Apples, Peaches, Bananas, Pears, Apricots
5. Oat flour
How many meals?
At 6 months, one meal will be enough. Let’s not forget that the goal at 6 months is to establish a palate, to introduce these completely different foods to his palate. Not to try to fill him up with additional food!
It can be translated as baby-led feeding, where the baby is allowed to eat its own food. I also talked about BLW in a separate post.
SUPPLEMENTARY NUTRITION – 3 DAY RULE
Today I’m going to talk a little bit about the 3-day rule when starting supplementary feeding.
* Before supplementary food, our baby was fed exclusively with breast milk or formula, with supplementary food he/she is introduced to new foods.
Let’s not forget that when we start supplementary food, our aim is not to feed our baby with supplementary food. It is called “supplementary” and our main source of nutrition is still breast milk. The aim is to introduce supplementary foods and to monitor whether a reaction develops.
So how should we do it?
We should give each new food in increasing amounts for 3 days in a row with only that food and follow whether it has any effect. Increasing amounts can be as follows, for example, let’s say we started with yogurt, we can give a few teaspoons on the first day, 4-5 teaspoons on the 2nd day, 5-6 teaspoons on the 3rd day.
So what kind of symptoms should we consider allergy when we say reaction/allergy?
- Redness, rash on the cheeks, around the mouth
- Rash all over the body, diaper rash
- Bloody diarrhea or mucus in the stool
- Sudden onset of restlessness
- Difficulty breathing wheezing
- Swelling of the lips
In case of such a finding, definitely take it to your physician for an examination.
I will share the content and amount of meals according to the months for supplementary nutrition in other content.