[su_heading style="default" size="25" align="center" margin="20" id="" class=""]Feeding newborn baby [/su_heading]
Feeding newborn babies can be overwhelming at times and babies grow the fastest during first six months.
There is a growth spur that occurs at this time and they are also facing the world for the first time.
This time your baby needs proper nutrition and you should have a fair idea about what are the essential things that should be present in her baby food diet. child nutrition is an elaborate topic but you can do with the basic as a parent just to ensure your baby’s overall good health.
– Iron
– Calcium
– Zinc
– Protein
– Folate
– Carbohydrates
– Fat
Apart from the above , babies also need all kinds of vitamins to grow and perform all the different functions that they learn each day.
Vitamins
A
B1, B2, B3 , B6 and B12
C
D
E and
Vitamin K
Breast fed babies are blessed and in general they have everything in the form of breast milk that they need to grow.
If your newborn has problems with breast feeding, you can get in touch with a lactation consultant (Visit our services segment to reach our certified lactation and post-partum care professional) who can relieve you from this stress!
As a general rule, you should follow the below:
– Lowers the intake of tea or coffee
– Consumption of alcohol is prohibited at this time
– Increase the intake of fluid. Have lots of water, juices , smoothies etc.
– Do not have opposite things together like milk and curd or hot tea immediately after cool water etc. They may create an imbalance in your body temperature for sometime and that is not very good.
– Eat nutritious home made food instead of ready to eat or fast food
– If you are a vegetarian, You have to keep special attention to your protein intake. You can have pulses, legumes, cheese, yogurt, peas and eggs if you feel. For non vegetarians, there are of course a lot of more options.
At this time it is important that mothers have proper nutrition as it is their food actually that produces the vital ingredients in the milk that the baby needs to have.
[su_heading style="default" size="25" align="center" margin="20" id="" class=""]Diet for breastfeeding mothers[/su_heading]
What should mothers have in their food while breastfeeding a newborn baby?
1. Include as many colors of vegetables as possible on the same day
2. Edible seeds and nuts in small quantities are good to have
3. Keep proper bowel movement with a proper diet. Improper bowel is most often the cause of acidity, gas, constipation, hurt burn etc.
This problem passes to the baby with breastfeeding.
You can have overnight soaked cumin seed on an empty stomach in the morning.
4. Take special care in cleaning your food items.
Sometimes the baby’s stomach can be upset because it did not clean the food items properly.
While we adults can get away with this sometimes because of our stronger immunity, the babies always can’t.
5. Avoid spicy and oily food as this can cause gas and acidity to the baby.
Some essential requirements for mothers who are breastfeeding should take care that they are not deficient in.
In case you are deficient in some of the nutrients from your food, there are chances that you and your baby will also be poor with these essential nutrients.
- Vitamin A, D, B1, B2, B6, B12, Chlorine and iodine have to be sufficiently present in your diet, and deficiency makes the baby deficient too.
For certain nutrients like Folate, Iron, copper and Zinc, the baby extracts these substances from your body through breast milk and may make you deficient if you don’t give a constant supply of the same to your body.
[su_heading style="default" size="25" align="center" margin="20" id="" class=""]Feeding newborn baby?Refill your store![/su_heading]
Milk is produced by extracting these essentials from your body tissue.
So it is essential to refill them somehow constantly.
- It isn’t easy to design your everyday diet measuring all ingredients all the time. So it is good to have all categories of food alternatively in the week. See to it that you have.
- Vegetables of all colors that you can avail of
- Nuts and seeds that are edible
- meat and organ meat like liver if you are a non-vegetarian
- milk or milk products
- Fish
- eggs
- Cereals of different kinds
- pulses of different varieties
- Fruits (It is a good idea to make a smoothie with different kinds of fruits u have with you on a given day)
In case you are a vegetarian, you may consult a dietician or follow tradition.
Traditional food is always the best, in my opinion, for any situation given the fact that they are time tested and primarily based on dietary needs for a particular condition, season or availability of ingredients.
It is also a good idea to talk to your doctor regarding your diet and baby food and let her know if you do not eat a particular food category.
You might be given supplements to make for any deficiency that may occur, considering your food intake.
[su_heading style="default" size="25" align="center" margin="20" id="" class=""]Baby first foods and complementory feeding[/su_heading]
Though breast milk is universal and naturally the best source of nutrition for a baby, we cannot deny that baby food formula is also an inevitable nutrition source to many babies across the globe.
Baby food or formulae is fortified with all the essential nutrients, and they provide mainly all nutritional values required by your baby that is known by science.
[su_heading style="default" size="25" align="center" margin="20" id="" class=""]formula milk preparation[/su_heading]
This is a very important aspect if you are feeding formula to your baby.
You are not supposed to keep the extra formula for more than fifteen minutes. Sometimes bacteria multiplies in the milk and can be a cause of illness for the baby.
In case you need to make formula in advance, please keep it refrigerated immediately after preparation.
Do not microwave the formula to heat it up. It may burn the baby’s mouth as it might create uneven heating or create hot spots. This is also not the healthiest option as research had proved that heating plastic items might leak harmful chemicals in the food. You surely do not want this for your baby.
The best way to heat your baby’s formula is to get a bottle heater. If you do not want to buy one, you can immerse the bottle in hot water and heat the milk. But this might take a while and not the best option when the baby is crying for feed.
[su_heading style="default" size="25" align="center" margin="20" id="" class=""]Feeding newborn baby- formulae milk and bottle sterilisation[/su_heading]
Bottle sterilization is another essential in the life of parents who formula feed babies.
Often this is a boring and repetative activity for parents.
Bottle sterilizer can be a life saver for this time.
You can buy one and use it for all your kids. Make sure it is the best quality in the market to ensure it lasts.
But just in case you are not buying a sterilizer , you may also choose to wash your baby bottles and then use boiling water to keep germs off.
This is however time taking, tedious specially because you have to do this multiple times a day and you need precision for this as well every time.
[su_heading style="default" size="25" align="center" margin="20" id="" class=""]Feeding newborn baby and burp after feed[/su_heading]
Your baby has very narrow food pipe.
To avoid reflux , vomit or choking, burp your baby once between feed and once at the end.
For some babies it takes almost 10 minutes to burp.
Keep your baby vertically on your shoulder and massage her back top-down till she burps.
This is the most common and convenient method.
However you can position baby otherwise depending on your comfort while burping.
[su_heading style="default" size="25" align="center" margin="20" id="" class=""]Feeding newborn baby- formula milk and constipation in babies[/su_heading]
Baby formula is thicker than breast milk, and at birth, the baby’s system is not prepared for anything other than nature’s food, mother’s milk.
This is the reason there might be minor hiccups to get the formulae adjusted in formulae fed babies.
In some cases, the baby might develop constipation initially.
But whether the baby is constipated or not is also tricky to determine.
Babies less than six months who are only on milk can skip passing motions as they are only on a liquid diet.
Especially newborns might poop once in a few days or several times a day, depending on their system. Both the cases are natural.
Consult the pediatrician if you feel the baby is getting constipated with formula, and she will advise.
This is a common question all pediatricians come across.
There are some exercises that you may follow to get the baby’s bowel moving.This works wonders at times. I can personally say that.
Try to be regular with the exercises if you feel your baby is getting constipated with formula.
[su_heading style="default" size="25" align="center" margin="20" id="" class=""]Feeding newborn baby - replacement feeding[/su_heading]
Some mothers have to use combination feed, i.e. breastfeed along with some formula.
In today’s times, this can be a good option where mothers have to look after the entire family and have a full-time job often.
Some scenarios where you might find this a good option are:
– When you have twins
– You don’t produce enough to fill the baby adequately
– When you have a full-time job and keep busy handling many things during the day.
You might, in such cases, consider breastfeeding during the night and formula feeding during the day when you go to work or keep busy.
– When you have a sore nipple.
– The baby cannot latch correctly, and you are not sure if she is having enough.
– When baby demands feed too frequently. This is also a sign that she is not complete with breastfeeding only.
This may happen with the baby’s growth spur sometimes though generally, the milk quality also changes over time, making the baby complete; not everyone’s situation is the same.
Happy mothering!