Precautions for adding complementary food to four-month-old babies

As babies grow up day by day, many mothers will worry about their children's nutrition, because the nutrition needed by the child will not be met as the body develops, especially breast milk can no longer fully meet the child's nutritional needs, so many parents will consider adding some supplementary food to the child, but what should we pay attention to when adding complementary food?

1. Too early

The digestive organs of a baby who has just left the mother's body are very delicate, the digestive glands are underdeveloped, the secretory function is poor, and many digestive enzymes have not yet been formed. At this time, the baby does not have the ability to digest complementary foods. If complementary foods are added too early, it will increase the burden on the baby's digestive function. The indigestible complementary foods will either remain in the stomach and "ferment", causing bloating, constipation, and anorexia, or increase intestinal motility, increasing the amount and frequency of intestinal excretions, and finally leading to diarrhea. Therefore, it is taboo to add complementary food too early to babies under four months old.

2. Too late

Some parents are afraid that their children cannot digest the food and are overly cautious about adding complementary foods. The child is already four months old. Still only eating breast milk, milk or formula. Little do people know that children have grown up and their needs for nutrition and energy have increased. Breast milk, milk or milk powder alone can no longer meet their growth and development needs, and complementary foods should be added reasonably. At the same time, the child's digestive organs have gradually become fully functional, and his taste organs have also developed, so he is now ready to add complementary foods. In addition, at this time the immunity the child obtains from the mother has been basically exhausted, and the child's own resistance needs to be generated by increasing nutrition. If complementary foods are not added in time, the child's growth and development will not only be affected, but also the child will develop disease due to lack of resistance. Therefore, it is necessary to start adding appropriate complementary foods to children after four months of age.

3. Excessive use

Although children can start eating complementary foods, their digestive organs are still very delicate and cannot be rushed. They should be added gradually depending on the condition of their digestive function. If added arbitrarily, it will also cause indigestion or obesity in children. Let your child do whatever he wants, give him whatever he wants to eat and as much as he wants. It will also cause nutritional imbalance and develop bad eating habits such as partiality and picky eating. It can be seen that adding complementary foods excessively is also inappropriate.

4. Too fine

Some parents are overly cautious and feed their children homemade complementary foods or commercially available baby nutritional foods that are very fine, so that the child's chewing function cannot be properly trained, which is not conducive to the eruption of their teeth and the arrangement of teeth after eruption. Food will not produce taste without chewing and will not arouse the child's appetite. It is also not conducive to the development of taste, and cheek development is also affected. In this way, children can only eat porridge and noodles, but not rice dishes. If the preparation is careless, they will feel nauseous and vomit, so they simply don't eat or will spit out the residue after eating. If this continues for a long time, the child's growth will certainly not be ideal, and it will also affect the development of brain intelligence.

Although people's living standards are gradually improving, malnutrition is still a common disease among infants, because many mothers still lack scientific understanding of their children's feeding issues, especially the precautions for their children's supplementary food, so parents especially need to understand the precautions for adding complementary foods.