Anna asks: “A 7-month-old breastfed baby (HB) refuses to eat complementary foods: he closes his mouth, it’s hard to put something from a spoon into his mouth, even fruit puree. Whereas in the nibbler she likes an apple and a pear (they recently gave it after the introduction of vegetables). If it gets into the mouth, it more or less swallows some vegetables or porridge. How to be? Songs, dances, cartoons, etc. do not help. "
The introduction of complementary foods is often accompanied by difficulties: pushing out new food with the tongue and a categorical refusal to swallow even a spoon.
The cause can be one or several factors at once.
- The baby is not ready to introduce complementary foods. The timing of the introduction of 6 months is calculated for the average child. The double weight, the appearance of the first teeth, the ability to sit, the extinction of the reflex of "pushing" new food will tell about readiness. Not all children are ready for complementary foods by six months. For example, the defensive pushing reflex can fade away in some as early as 4 months, while in others it persists for up to 7 months.
- The introduction of complementary foods coincides with the malaise of the baby. Teething begins from 6 months. What affects the well-being of the baby: temperature, soreness in the mouth, irritability. And this is not the best time to get to know new food.
- The child has no expressed food interest. When the baby, while feeding, is keen on the game (in your case, songs, dances, cartoons), but is indifferent to the food offered. On the other hand, an outstretched spoonful of food during fun activities can cause irritability and moods.
If the readiness to get acquainted with new food depends on the physical development of the child, parents need to try to create food interest. And here the participation of the crumbs in the family meal in a highchair is important. If you express a sense of satisfaction with the food, over time, the child will develop an interest and desire to taste the food on offer.
Complementary foods are introduced only before breastfeeding. A hungry child is more likely to try a new dish and refuse it if he has previously had enough breast milk.
Alternatively, you can delay the feeding time by 1-2 hours.
An unsuccessful attempt is usually repeated after 7-10 days.
Refusal of ready-made vegetable complementary foods from the supermarket does not mean that the same mashed potatoes from another manufacturer or cooked with your own hands will be rejected.
And one more thing: a baby under one year old does not need additional salt or sugar, so do not rush to give cereals and mashed potatoes to your liking.
The purpose of complementary feeding with hepatitis B is only an acquaintance with a new food that differs in taste and consistency from mother's milk. But breast milk will still be the main source of nutrition for up to a year.
The older the baby becomes, the more varied his nutrition should be. Newborn babies eat only mother's milk or a specially adapted mixture, but already in six months they need to be gradually introduced to adult food. As practice shows, such an acquaintance is not always successful. So, we will discuss what to do with the child if he refuses complementary foods as early as 7 months.
The kid can refuse new food for a variety of reasons. Sometimes he simply cannot taste it in any way and prefers the familiar and dear mother's milk or mixture. Sometimes children feel a new food completely tasteless, and if the first attempt at acquaintance with complementary foods was frankly unsuccessful, it is possible that they will persistently refuse the next crumbs. Also, children may not eat complementary foods if they are not feeling very well: they are hot, their teeth are teething, or some kind of disease develops.
What to do?
Having seated the baby in a highchair, put a doll next to him, or even better, dad. Pretend that the toy or adult is happy to eat food intended for the child, then invite him to try. Even if the crumb eats quite a bit, be sure to praise him. But remember, you cannot arrange a game or a circus performance from a meal.
Of course, the baby will refuse complementary foods if he does not feel hungry. But if the crumb is already too hungry, then he will not wait for the not too familiar food, but will want to get enough of the usual food as soon as possible. Therefore, control your baby's appetite. By the way, exercise, active crawling, walking in the fresh air, bathing helps to awaken the feeling of hunger.
Try to let your child eat on his own. Place him securely in the highchair, place a plate in front of him and hand in a spoon. Of course, he is unlikely to convey much to the mouth, but a start will be made.
Perhaps the child does not like what you offer him at all. Do not rush to add salt or sweeten food, just offer your baby an alternative. Some children enjoy the weird broccoli puree, while others are madly in love with cauliflower and carrots. Do not try to offer your child tastier fruit purees as a substitute for vegetable ones. After all, vegetables should also be present in his diet.
Try to study the information about pedagogical complementary feeding, and after cooking dinner, sit the child on your lap. Perhaps he will be interested in the contents of your plate. But be careful, he should not eat unfamiliar food without measure. The purpose of the first feeding is not to achieve satiety, but to familiarize the baby's stomach with new food.
The most important thing in introducing complementary foods is not to force the baby. Therefore, be patient and control yourself - do not swear or shout.
For the first four months, the baby ate exclusively breast milk or formula. The time has come for the first feeding, since by the fifth or sixth month the baby will not have enough milk nutrients for full growth. By the first half of the year, the mucous membrane of the baby's neck can already adapt to swallowing solid food particles.
It is worth introducing the first complementary food for a child only when he gains weight twice as much as at birth and will sit steadily. The baby must have a so-called "food interest", he must be interested in the food consumed by the rest of the family.
We accustom your baby to new food
It is better to start feeding a child with vegetable puree. It has all the benefits you need for a new infant nutrition:
- A varied composition of mineral salts necessary for the growing skeleton of a baby.
- A large number of vitamins and biostimulants.
- Vegetable fiber, which regulates bowel function.
- The content of alkaline salts is necessary for a good metabolism, improving breathing, toning the nervous system and removing excess water.
- The lack of sweetness will help the baby to better perceive the second complementary food - porridge.
- Keeping the puree in lumps will prepare the throat for swallowing solid food.
It is necessary to accustom the child to complementary foods gradually. Start with a spoon or two before your second or third breastfeeding. In addition to vegetables, you can add half the yolk and a little vegetable oil to the puree. For a month, the amount of mashed potatoes is brought to 150 g (three quarters of a glass) and one breastfeeding is completely replaced. You can also divide complementary foods into several receptions. It is important for the baby to enjoy the meal.
Nutritional innovations often do not go smoothly, sometimes the child does not want to eat complementary foods. Of course, not all children eagerly join new food. Taste buds in babies are well developed and from the very birth they get used to the sweetish taste of milk. It is important to immediately establish contact with the baby in relation to food, otherwise further feedings will turn into torture on both sides.
What to do if a child refuses to eat complementary foods
So, the first and second attempts to feed the baby failed. The child does not want to eat complementary foods and what to do if he spits out food or even starts to vomit.
- First, don't be afraid. At this time, they have a functional origin. Most often, gagging occurs when the period of breastfeeding is prolonged.
- Secondly, the desires and tastes of the baby must be reckoned with, but still tenderly insist on their own. Taste can be developed not by coercion, but by using little pedagogical tricks.
Here are some practical tips if your baby is reluctant to eat complementary foods:
- give a new type of food on an empty stomach;
- observe the diet - the baby must want to eat;
- first sweeten the puree with breast milk or formula a little;
- find out the baby's taste preferences: some children eat mashed potatoes better, others from Brussels sprouts, and serve a mix of different vegetables to the third;
- if the baby does not like the new dish, do not insist, try to offer another dish, and return to this in ten days;
- introduce new products gradually, feed one kind of puree for a week and then try a new one;
- sit your baby at the table during a family meal, show and tell how you enjoy eating. Give him a few grains from your plate, let him try;
- the most important thing is no violence, it’s not scary, if once the child remains hungry, it’s better to eat a little, but with pleasure;
It happens simply, the child does not feel well: or therefore he refuses to eat complementary foods.
Don't distract your baby with toys or try to feed them discreetly. In the first case, the formation of the wrong habit of eating while playing will begin. Invisible feeding will not bring any benefit to a small body. When the baby does not want to eat, the salivation in the mouth and the production of gastric juice are reduced, and the food is poorly digested.
An excellent way to accustom your baby to new food is the pedagogical feeding method. The child is simply seated at a common table and allowed to taste whatever he wants in miniscule amounts: a pea-sized piece or a sip of liquid.
Doesn't want to eat from a spoon
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Doesn't want to eat porridge
A small family member begins to give porridge from 6 to 7 months. First, one teaspoon of buckwheat, rice or corn. Gradually, the volume of complementary foods increases to 150 g, and the range of cereals is expanding. It is necessary to cook porridge for a six-month-old baby in water or a decoction of vegetables, without adding milk and sugar.
As with vegetable puree, it happens that the child does not want to eat porridge. In this case, it is also worth cheating a little. Add a little breast milk to the finished dish. The taste will become more familiar to the baby, which will allow him to quickly get used to the new diet.
Complementary feeding is not always a substitute for breastfeeding, but only a necessary addition to the baby's nutrition. It's like getting to know "adult" food. It's okay if the child flatly refuses mashed potatoes and porridge. Be patient. Watch the baby, because in this case he is the most important advisor.
On the topic of complementary foods:
- We enter:;
- We enter:.
Secrets and tricks of the first feeding
Your baby has reached the age of six months, he has already had his first tooth, and now the period for introducing complementary foods has come. A logical stage in the development of each toddler is the transition from a diet consisting exclusively of mother's milk or formula to a variety of adult foods. These are dairy and dairy-free cereals, vegetables, meat, fish and fruit purees, dairy products, bread, cookies. Some mothers prefer special baby food - a safe but expensive option for complementary foods. Some begin to give the crumbs immediately grated adult food, for example, borscht or cutlets, as our grandmothers did. There are many options for complementary foods. The main thing is that the baby should gradually get acquainted with more adult food, no one keeps babies up to a year old on milk alone.
After about six months of age, children slowly begin to try new products.The situation can turn out in different ways. It happens that the crumbs start eating cereals and vegetables with great pleasure, and sometimes they don’t want to eat them. The unusual taste of food causes an internal protest in them, the babies continue to demand only their mother's breast or a bottle with the mixture. You can often hear from a young mother that she complains about her baby, they say, she wants nothing but her breast, turns away from porridge, spits out puree. Every attempt to feed the baby in an adult way becomes a real struggle - the mother and the child are under stress, a lot of food has been transferred. What to do when a child refuses complementary foods?
We transfer the crumb to adult food
The main food for crumbs up to six months is mother's milk in the case of breastfeeding, an artificial mixture if the mother does not have milk, or a combination of the first and second types. The essence of complementary foods is that the child must be gradually transferred to more adult types of food, this is required by the physical growth of a person, first of all, the development of the gastrointestinal tract. It is necessary to carefully introduce the baby to "human" food, since the gastrointestinal tract has already tuned in exclusively to milk. New food is stress for the body, it can provoke a new surge of colic, constipation, diarrhea and other manifestations of dysbiosis. In order to neutralize the negative consequences, you need to follow the rules for transferring to complementary foods.
It is necessary to introduce complementary foods carefully, since the baby's stomach is still designed exclusively for breast milk When to start?
Previously, it was believed that you need to start after reaching six months of age and the appearance of the first tooth. Modern pediatrics is more loyal to the issue of time - it all depends on the individual characteristics of the child's development. Often, even doctors and nurses advise to introduce apple juice drop by drop from 3-4 months, and even purchased, and not freshly squeezed, mashed zucchini. What does WHO and Dr. Komarovsky advise on this:
- Ideal age is after 6 months. It is forbidden to introduce new food earlier than 4 months (we recommend to read :).
- Ideal weight - at least 6.5 kg. The baby should double its weight by the time the new food is introduced.
- The baby must confidently hold the head and turn it in different directions.
- The child sits without problems. It is problematic to feed a not-seated baby with anything other than milk.
- The tongue pushing reflex is leveled.
- The baby knows how to pull the lower lip forward, which means that he can take a spoon with his mouth.
- Ideally, a baby on GW takes an interest in “human” food when he sees adults eating. This indicates the moral readiness of the crumbs to be transferred to a new table.
- The baby is active, he crawls, plays, energetic and asks for food.
Rules for successful transfer to adult food
Sometimes you can hear from mothers that they are trying to introduce a variety of types of complementary foods with a time interval of 5-7 days. Like, the zucchini did not go - in a few days we will give cauliflower. The crumb turns away from the buckwheat, we immediately give the oatmeal. The result - the child refuses to feed, suffers from colic and diarrhea no less than a newborn baby. This is mistake. Here are some simple but important rules that will help you not to harm your baby.
Consult your doctor
Trust not only your own intuition, the advice of grandmothers and girlfriends, the Internet.
Your main assistant in raising your baby is a pediatrician, experienced, but at the same time following modern medical trends. An ordinary local doctor can only be guided by generally accepted norms and give generalized advice, without taking into account the individual characteristics of your child.
Listen to yourself
A good mom, although she can make a mistake, but not often. If you see that the baby is not yet ready to introduce complementary foods, take your time. Maybe you feel the psychological instability of your baby. No one except you knows the child's body so thoroughly. Doctors, for example, often miss small signs of allergies and dysbiosis - redness of the lips or hands, flatulence. This may be a reaction to a new product.
Mom should trust her intuition, because she feels the needs of the child best of all. Breastfeeding and bottle feeding - no difference
It used to be thought that bottle-fed crumbs needed earlier introduction of complementary foods. The amount of nutrients in the mixtures is not enough, babies need to diversify their diet as soon as possible. Modern pediatrics has a different opinion - it is not so important what kind of feeding the baby is on, the timing aspects of introducing new food are universal.
New food - only for healthy baby
Tastings are contraindicated for children who are in any kind of unhealthy condition. Temperature, dysbiosis, cold or viral infection, stress, time before and after vaccination are the periods prohibited for the introduction of complementary foods. The body is already in a stressful state, it fights against negative factors - new food will not be perceived as needed.
Everything is new - little by little
Each new product should be given to the crumb with a minimum amount, only in this way you will not cause a serious allergic reaction. Perhaps your child has an individual apple intolerance or he will strongly vilify cauliflower. You cannot know anything in advance, because a person will try each product for the first time in his life. The optimal dose is half a teaspoon, even if you are giving the product to a baby who is 8 or 10 months old (we recommend reading :). Over the course of a week, gradually bring the amount up to the age norm.
To begin with, you should give the child less than a spoonful of the new product - this will allow you to track the reaction No violence
Take into account the wishes of the child, but without fanaticism. Learn to determine whether the baby is simply naughty, or whether it is the zucchini that is really disgusting to him, and he eats buckwheat porridge with pleasure.
The baby is also a person, nothing can be done with violence. You need to introduce complementary foods, and varied, but do not persist too much, wait it out.
Monocomponent
Start with one product. Do not serve peach pear juice or broccoli puree right away. First, only apple juice, only meat puree, only zucchini. Monocomponent allows you to determine how the child tolerates a particular ingredient. If your stomach hurts, you will not understand which particular product did not suit your baby.
The right start
One of the main conditions for a successful introduction of complementary foods is the right start (see also:). If you start giving your toddler an adult meal made from sweet fruits, he will have great difficulty in eating unleavened vegetables. Where to get tedious to start with:
- with mono-component vegetable purees, if the baby has a tendency to constipation (see also:);
- from dairy-free cereals, if the child often vilifies.
If a child has diarrhea, it is better to start introducing complementary foods with cereals. Why does a child refuse "human" food?
It's time to introduce new food. You did everything according to the rules, guided by your own intuition, the advice of a qualified pediatrician. The kid still refuses to eat new food. Possible reasons for the baby not eating complementary foods:
(we recommend reading :)
- the child is not psychologically ready to switch to a new diet;
- the crumb is not yet used to the new taste, you need to carefully try again;
- the crumbs have a psychological barrier, possibly accidentally created by you;
- the baby does not feel well, teeth may be cut or stomach ache;
- the baby is simply naughty, has an selective taste.
What to do?
What to do if the child does not want to eat complementary foods? You can teach your baby in the following ways:
- Cultivate your crumb's food interest. Sit him down at a common table, let’s taste, drop by drop, what adults eat. The main thing is to give only diet food. Some parents are fond of this process, they can even give the baby a taste of fried potatoes or chocolate candy. Komarovsky calls it "entertainment for moms and dads."
- Give new food to a hungry child. A well-fed baby will not want to eat anything, especially new. After a walk, active games, babies usually have an appetite.
- It is unreasonable to give a child who is not yet accustomed to complementary foods, cookies, bread or other products, from which a piece may break off and enter the respiratory tract. The kid will be frightened, he will have a psychological barrier to accepting new food.
- Does the crumb refuse canned food? Try it yourself. The same vegetable, meat and fruit purees are easily prepared using a blender and a crush. Some crumbs only eat what their mother has prepared.
- Playing with food is not good, but sometimes you can. Cut vegetables and fruits, for example, a zucchini and an apple into cubes, let the crumbs stand in pyramids - during the game and try.
Mom can make mashed potatoes on her own - there is nothing complicated about it Show your imagination and be calm!
Remember the following rules:
- Fight the child's selective appetite, otherwise he will grow up to be a terrible capricious and a little bit. The best method of fighting is hunger. Let the grandmothers call you a sadist, sometimes a hungry child is better than a little child and capricious.
- Be less nervous yourself and do not make your child nervous. Getting hung up on complementary foods, like anything else, is harmful. Remember that there were no children under 3 years old who ate only milk, everyone sooner or later switches to adult food. It is impossible to force a crumb, like an adult.
- Never punish a crumb for an upside-down plate smeared on a bib of mashed potatoes. Remember that he is still very small, he cannot eat neatly.
- Does the crumb refuse the food that he previously liked? Take a break of 7-10 days.
- Combine food and play. Let the spoon turn into an airplane, and the plate of porridge with the image of your favorite toy or cartoon character.
