The nutrition of children in their first year of life is very important. Right now, the gastrointestinal tract is tuned for full-fledged work, and a growing body requires an increasing amount of nutrients. In the first months of life, the baby only needs breast milk, but very soon the situation will change. Moreover, it is very important not to start introducing into the child’s diet foods that his body is not yet ready to absorb. Today we want to talk about how to introduce meat into lure.
First difficulties
Not all children are happy to eat meat. If you started lures with fruit purees and cottage cheese, then most likely, the baby will not like it. Therefore, it is very important to adhere to the lure calendar, which your pediatrician should have talked about. Up to 6 months, additional foods in the diet are not only not healthy, but harmful. The baby’s body is not yet ready to absorb something other than breast milk or its substitutes. Up to 6 months, the body of the child does not yet have the necessary enzymes that could digest new types of food.
We act according to plan
Since meat should only be introduced into complementary foods from 7-8 months, and at 6 months, the baby’s body already needs additional products, let's look at the optimal diet. Starting from six months, you need to offer your child vegetable purees. Be sure to first accustom him to vegetables, because after a sweet banana and an apple, he definitely will not like an ordinary pumpkin. It can be zucchini or cauliflower, carrots or broccoli. Vegetables should be well stewed and chopped in a blender.
From 7 months add a little dairy-free cereal. This can be buckwheat, rice or corn grits, cooked on water and well chopped in mashed potatoes. Gradually, you will teach the baby's body to absorb ordinary food, now you can go to the next stage.
Best source of protein
It is by the age of 7-8 months that a baby needs to build muscle. He learns to sit, crawl, walk, interact with various objects, which means that he can not do without muscles. Now the child is recommended daily intake of meat. If the baby has symptoms of anemia, then he is recommended to give meat from the 5th or 6th month of life.
How to introduce meat into lure? This is an important moment in the life of the baby, since such products are extremely important for the renewal, construction of tissues and the formation of body cells. They also give the baby the most important vitamins A, B12, which are easily absorbed. However, you need to start giving it in small portions, literally a spoon, carefully monitor the condition of the skin and stool of the child. Until you understand how the body adopted the new product, giving anything else is not recommended. Even the cereals and mashed potatoes that you have mastered today are temporarily canceled. Since it is necessary to introduce meat gradually into lure, we will give a scheme that you can use.
Allowable dosage
The most important thing that you should remember: at the first signs of an allergy, you must definitely stop giving the child meat, until the full restoration of the condition. Then you can try again. If everything goes well, the baby does not suffer from allergic attacks, then you can gradually increase the dosage. We start with 5 g per day, this is a quarter of a teaspoon of mashed meat. For a week, daily adding quantity, you bring the daily dosage to 30 g per day. So, when to introduce meat to the baby, we have already indicated (starting from 7 months). The adaptation period ends, and from 8 months you can already give 50 g per day. After 9 months, boldly increase the dosage to 60-70 g per day.
What products to choose
In terms of time, you can vary a little, depending on the condition and development of the child, his weight gain. You can also discuss with your pediatrician about when to introduce the meat to the child, how to do it correctly. And which meat is best to choose, so that the child’s delicate body perceives it most easily? Give up the idea of offering him pork or lamb - fatty meat is too heavy for the baby. Low-fat beef, turkey, or rabbit may be ideal. These are hypoallergenic and easily digestible varieties that will help the body adapt to a new type of nutrition.
Ready-made canned food
They are sold in every store, it is very convenient to use them. Just click the lid - and the finished lunch is in front of you. However, even when it is possible to introduce meat into complementary foods, it must be remembered that the child’s body is still poorly prepared for such loads. Therefore, for the time being, give up experiments such as "rabbit-turkey with broccoli." While the simpler the better, choose one-component canned mashed potatoes. This is especially true for allergic children, the selection of products for which is of certain difficulty. Gradually, you can expand the diet due to meat and vegetable components, but the more smoothly this process will take place, the better.
pay special attention
Never hesitate to contact a pediatrician for help, at any time you can ask how to properly introduce meat into complementary foods. There is an important point: meat with vegetables is very useful, and from 9 months it is very good to give the baby combined mashed potatoes. If they contain broccoli or zucchini, you can safely enter them as a daily product. But mashed potatoes with carrots can be given no more than twice a week to avoid the appearance of carotene jaundice.
Cooking yourself
Many parents decide that they will cook for the baby themselves, so that only fresh products are in the diet. This is the right decision, since canned food in any case is more an option for an emergency snack than a daily food product. And again the question arises: what kind of meat should be introduced first into lure? It’s best to use lean beef. To do this, a suitable piece must be cleaned of veins and films, boil well and pass through a meat grinder twice.
Do not forget that only the freshest foods should be in the child’s diet. Therefore, you need to cook meat every day, immediately before eating. If your baby refuses such a treat, you may need to wait a little longer. All the tables that tell us at what age to introduce meat into complementary foods give average values that your child may not fit into. Therefore, do not force, just offer the meat again in a few weeks.
Parents often go for a little trick. First, having taught the baby to soups and mashed vegetables, they begin to add a small piece of meat to these dishes and grind in a blender. The most important thing is that there is little meat, so that the taste does not change too much. Gradually increasing its rate, you will accustom the child to an important product.
Cooking food
Mom will have to comply with all sanitary and hygienic norms and rules for preparing dishes for the little man. We will list the main ones so that you can use this list as a practical guide:
- Do not add sugar and salt to dishes. The child must get used to the natural taste of the products. Of course, the body needs salt, but so far it gets it from breast milk. After a year, you can slightly add salt to the dishes. Acid compotes and jelly can be sweetened with honey if the child is not allergic to it, or fructose.
- It is necessary to introduce meat-lure in a well-prepared form. It is best to boil in a small amount of water or steam. Such food is softer and retains all useful substances, vitamins and minerals.
- At the time of introducing meat into the diet, the child sometimes already has 1-2 teeth, so you need to wipe all the products to the maximum level of puree. However, soon the need for this will disappear, it will be enough just to cut into pieces.
- Be sure to cook meat for one meal only.
The use of offal
Since meat is introduced into complementary foods, babies start from 7 months old when they still have no teeth (as a rule), then you can not ignore products such as the tongue, heart and liver. They are much easier to grind, since they contain less connective tissue. It is very useful to include a heart in the diet of a child up to a year . It is low in fat and high in protein. The language has similar advantages. But the liver, despite its benefits to the body, is included in the diet only after a year. This body is involved in the neutralization of harmful substances, which means that cooked dishes may contain products of their decay.
Fish dishes
After the baby has mastered meat products, it is recommended to offer him fish. This must be done no earlier than he will be 8-9 months old. At the same time, sea fish is selected, low-fat and most useful. It can be pollock or cod, hake or tuna. If your child accepts fish properly, then this is very good. It will be an excellent source of protein and essential amino acids, fatty acids. However, it often causes allergies, so fish should be introduced into the diet carefully. It’s easy to cook dishes from it; just steam it, take out all the bones and grind it. The maximum amount of mashed fish for an 11-12-month-old baby is about 30 g per day (you need to give a couple of times a week).