How to introduce complementary foods at 5 months: table, recipes, recommendations

The development of the baby is taking rapid steps and every day he needs more and more energy. Most of the baby receives it from the mother’s milk, but with each month the baby’s needs increase.

Involuntarily, parents begin to think about an additional source of energy. How to introduce complementary foods at 5 months, so that it is correct and benefit the baby?

What is lure?

Nutrition is a food that can supplement mother's breast milk or milk formula for crumbs 4-6 months old. This additional nutrition will help provide his body with nutrients, saturate with minerals, energy and vitamins. The key to good health will be the correct organization of the introduction of complementary foods.

Adult food will help the baby's masticatory muscles begin to develop. She will prepare him for excommunication from his mother’s breast, creating active stimulation of the enzyme system of the gastrointestinal tract.

Let's talk about the rules of feeding

There are several rules according to which a five-month-old baby can start eating new foods for him.

The first lure should not be offered in the summer.

Food should be warm, just cooked.

The baby begins to offer new food with 5 grams, within two weeks you can increase the serving to 150 grams. At the same time, the little one must be absolutely healthy.

The second product is permissible to enter only after the body adapts to the previous one, that is, approximately every two to three weeks.

Mom should carefully monitor the condition of her child. With diarrhea, it is better to remove the product from the menu for a while, and after a week try it again.

Three signs that the baby is ready to eat new food

If a mother has questions about when and how to administer complementary foods at 5 months, she should know that there are three tips:

• the peanut has already learned to sit - completely independently or so far with support;
• the crumb mass has doubled (compared to the birth mass);
• when mom offers the baby a spoon, he happily pulls it in her mouth.

If complementary foods are introduced at the optimal time, the child can significantly lose weight, lack micronutrients. The worst option is the lag of the crumbs in development.

If complementary foods are introduced too early, then new foods increase the risk of developing allergies, as enzymes are not yet ready for this in the baby’s digestive system.

We determine the willingness of the baby

Before introducing complementary foods at 5 months, you need to understand that different babies have different physiological abilities and the shelf life of small organisms for adult food. And that can vary within a few weeks. To understand whether new food can be introduced into the crumbs diet, several factors should be considered:

• The baby's age should be at least four months (if the baby was born on time, then new food should appear on its menu at 5 months, if ahead of schedule, then give food a month later).
• The baby should already have a good hold of the head and sit confidently, because if he cannot control the movements of his head, he will not be able to refuse food if he did not like it.
• The weight of the baby from birth should double in size, if the baby is premature, the ratio is 2.5.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The child pulls everything into its mouth - both edible and inedible.
• Interest in what parents, grandparents eat.
• The kid opens his mouth himself when mom brings a spoon with food.
• In order for a small child to be able to eat from a spoon, it is necessary that the inborn effect of pushing out the tongue fade away, which provides protection against the ingress of a random object into the baby's airways.

If the above symptoms are available, the child is ready to receive new adult food. Now the question is how to introduce complementary foods at 5 months and whether it can already be started, should not bother mom. You just need to start feeding.

The amount of necessary food for the baby

Before you figure out how much a child should eat at 5 months, you need to understand that a baby at this age should eat so much so as not to remain hungry. At six months, complementary feeding should replace one of the feedings.

The volume of dishes for crumbs at the age of five months should be as follows:

• mashed vegetables - 100 - 150 grams;
• from fruit - 60 grams;
• buckwheat or rice (these are the best cereals for this age) - 100 - 180 grams.
  
  
  
  
  
  

It is better to offer older, meat, fish or dairy products.

Feed the baby five times a day, breaks between meals for about four hours.

In the first feeding, only breast milk or 150 - 180 grams of the mixture should be present. For breakfast, the baby can be offered mashed vegetables - about 100 - 150 grams and three tablespoons of fruit puree. But for dinner, 150 - 180 grams of milk porridge is suitable. All other feedings should include only breast milk (well, or a mixture, if the baby is artificial).

It is not necessary to feed the baby through force, because such food will not do good. If the mother strictly adheres to the standards, and the child asks for another meal, it is allowed to increase the dose. When asked how much a child should eat at 5 months, you can answer this way: the amount of food that the baby eats depends on his age. And also by weight.

Artificial Lure

How for a child to introduce complementary foods at 5 months of age on artificial feeding? You must know in advance that the daily norm of complementary foods for a baby at the age of five months is no more than five grams.

The digestive system of the baby, which feeds on the baby formula, adapts much more quickly to adult food than the digestive tract of the baby that her mother breastfeeds.

The first portion of complementary foods should be approximately 5 grams (this is one teaspoon) of a porridge of liquid consistency or vegetable puree. After a week or ten days, the dosage of new food should gradually increase to 100 - 150 g per day. As a result, the introduced food can completely replace one of the full feedings with the mixture.

In order to properly feed a five-month-old baby, it is necessary to observe the following conditions:

Nutrition for complementary foods prepared from only one product for easier tracking for allergenicity.

• To offer additional food to the baby before the daily feeds with the milk mixture, which will make it possible to observe the adoption of a new dish by the body.
• If tolerance is good, it is permissible to increase the dosage twice daily until the mark reaches the level of 140 - 150 grams (this is for mashed potatoes).
• The next new dish is allowed to be offered to the baby only after two weeks of successful feeding.
• You can not force the baby to eat a portion that is larger than prescribed, it is better to try to offer the same dish only after a few days.

Important information! The baby’s addiction to a rich diet and the formation of his taste preferences will depend on how correctly the first feeding is introduced. Therefore, there is a need to offer complementary foods in a small volume in order to be able to track the reaction to each intake of an unusual product for a crumb product.

What are the features of artificial feeding?

For children who are underweight, milk porridge will be the best food for feeding. Gluten-free cereals - buckwheat, rice or corn are designated as the main component. They contribute to rapid weight gain and will not act as a destabilizer of bowel function.

For those kids who are developing normally, it is acceptable to offer mashed potatoes made of zucchini, pumpkin, baked green apple or broccoli. This will be an anti-allergenic dish that helps the body fill the crumbs with nutrients and vitamins.

Pediatricians recommend adding about three grams of butter or vegetable oil to a serving of vegetable puree or milk porridge. The variety on the menu will be cottage cheese (its fat content should not exceed 1%), which is useful for the development of muscles and bone tissues. You do not need to add salt, sugar and any other nutritional supplements to baby food, because they will provide additional and unnecessary stress on the kidneys and pancreas.

We feed the baby

How to properly carry out complementary foods at 5 months with breastfeeding?

The main food of the peanut at this age should be breastfeeding. When preparing crumbs for complementary feeding, mother needs to introduce him to new products, slowly moving on to adult food. Each pediatrician will say that it is permissible to give new products only in small portions. The selection of these products must be very competent and careful.

What can be introduced into complementary foods at 5 months with breastfeeding? Specialists answer this question unequivocally: vegetable puree and cereals without milk. True, Dr. Komarovsky, known to most mothers, believes that feeding a baby should begin with fermented milk products. He argues his words simply: most of the fermented milk dishes are closer in composition to mother's milk and mixtures. An important factor in favor of fermented milk, the doctor calls the ability of fermented milk bacteria to suppress various intestinal infections and destroy harmful microbes.

How to start the first lure?

Parents are required to competently organize the acquaintance of the baby with unusual food for him. In this case, the following rules must be observed:

• It is necessary to make a menu by choosing a one-component composition.
• The first lure must be introduced in the first half of the day, because that is how it is possible to trace what kind of reaction the baby will give.
• Dishes that are offered to the child should be just cooked.
• The consistency of the dish should be semi-liquid and homogeneous.
• It is unacceptable to start complementary foods if vaccination is planned or the baby is vaccinated the day before.
• The initial amount of the new proposed dish should not be more than one teaspoon. Then offer a dish for a whole week, daily increasing the serving twice.
• When the baby gets acquainted with one new product, enter the second one not earlier than a week or two after the first.

Nutrient foods can be called full when the portion that the baby eats at a time reaches about 100-150 grams. Prior to this, the mother should continue feeding the crumbs with milk or a mixture.

The approximate amount of complementary foods in 5 months in the table below:

We start additional feeding

A few years ago it was believed that for a baby the best first adult product is juice. And although it was permissible to introduce it into lure from the age of five months, pediatricians today do not recommend this for a variety of reasons.

It must be remembered that juices are the most allergenic product that will irritate the intestinal and stomach mucous membranes. Therefore, juices and various fruit purees are best introduced only after the baby's body is fully adapted to cereals and vegetables.

It has long been known that there should be a full and varied baby food. Porridge and vegetables are the very products that will be just perfect so that the baby begins to get acquainted with new tastes. It is very important to understand that if the baby is slowly gaining weight or suffers from frequent unstable stools, then mom should start feeding him porridges.

If the weight of the peanut is normal or even in excess, if the baby is prone to corruption, you must offer him vegetables in the form of mashed potatoes.

Vegetables that are suitable for the introduction of the first feeding

Experts believe that vegetable puree is best for starting a feeding. Such a meal is quite suitable for a child of 5 months of age, because it is in vegetables that there are a lot of useful substances that have a beneficial effect on the proper functioning of children's digestion. You can take zucchini, carrots, several types of cabbage, except for white cabbage.

To enter correctly in the diet of the peanut vegetable puree should be as follows:

• If the mother prefers ready-made mashed potatoes in jars, for a start, one-component homogenized species should be chosen.
• Take one teaspoon of mashed potatoes, a little warm, so that it is warm, and give the baby before morning feeding. If a child, after trying the mashed potatoes, immediately spits it out, mother should not worry, because it takes time to get used to the new food. It is necessary to continue trying for several days in the morning and do not forget to feed the baby with breast milk or a mixture.

If the child, not being capricious, ate the food that was offered to him, it is necessary to double the portion for the next feeding. Servings should be: 1, 2, 4, 8 teaspoons. When their volume reaches 150 grams, one of the feedings can be carried out only in the form of vegetables.

Only when the baby has mastered one vegetable, you can move on to another.

Cooking purees at home

Those mothers who love to stand by the stove and indulge the household with their own cooked food, will be happy to master the preparation of delicious dishes even for the youngest member of the family. But if they are going to cook the dish on their own, you must adhere to certain rules.

To cook any dish follows only from ripe, fresh and environmentally friendly vegetables. They must be washed well and peeled before cooking.

Vegetables intended for mashed potatoes must be boiled or baked. Cooking in a double boiler is also possible - lay the fruits in boiling water.

Since the consistency of mashed potatoes should be very tender, boiled vegetables must either be wiped through a sieve or chopped several times in a blender. For a little toddler, fiber and lumps are unacceptable in food.

Vegetables should be diluted with breast milk or vegetable broth.

Vegetable oil can be added to vegetable puree. Start with one drop, and then bring the amount of oil to one teaspoon per serving.

Dish for kids to salt is prohibited.

Mashed potatoes, which are already ready for use, should be warm and semi-liquid.

If the question arises, how to make pumpkin puree, you can use these tips.

In conclusion

We examined how to introduce complementary foods for a five-month-old baby and what to pay special attention to before that. It is important to remember that the child at this time should be absolutely healthy, and the new food offered is fresh, warm and just cooked.