A baby`s health is one major concern for the parents. No child is born with the knowledge of how and when to eat or sleep. Because they are completely dependent upon the parents, it is their responsibility to provide their little one with the best care. Most parents often come up with the question of what, when and how to feed a baby. Here, you’ll learn about baby foods and additional supplements that you should give your baby based on their growth.
Food Chart for a Month-Old (New-Born) Baby
Breast milk is the best you can offer to your newborn baby for it is sufficient enough to meet the infant`s nutritional needs. In fact, it is highly recommended to breast-feed the baby until six months. In absence of mother`s milk, you can even start giving formula as a substitute. Keep in mind that a baby`s digestive system is very small: it is of the size of the baby`s fist, so is extremely important to feed your baby from time-to-time. Feeding a newborn is a round-to-clock commitment; a baby should be fed in every 2 hour interval. Details for feeding a newborn are given below –
Age in months Time interval Feeding
1 month Every 2 hours 60 to 120ml
3 Months Baby Food Chart
Most parents are often stuck with the confusion of when to start providing solid food to the baby. Stay calm; here is the answer for you. The immune system of a 3-month infant is not as strong as that of a year old baby, so starting solid food this early can prove to be risky since food allergies are a common problem. Even The Ministry of Health recommends that solid food should be given to your baby after he/she steps into six months. Till then breast-milk is the best nutritional food. Infant formula milk can also be given to your baby if you are concerned with your low milk supply. A chart below shows the detailed information of feeding your baby with formula milk.
Age in months Time interval Feeding Portion
1 month Every
2 hours 60 to 120ml
1 to 3 months Every
2 to 3 hours 120 to 150ml
6 To 9 Months Baby Food Chart
Your baby has now turned 6 months of age. At this stage of your baby`s growth, breast milk or formula milk alone cannot provide the baby with essential nutrients and for this reason, additional food supplements or solid food can be started from now onwards. But there is one point to add the light upon – i.e.; how can you know that your baby is ready for solid food?
The answer is quite simple; by observing the baby`s growth habits such as:
- See that your baby`s neck is stable.
- He/she can sit on a chair with back support.
- Seems to stare at the food.
- Thumb-sucking which reflects that he is still hungry even after sufficient breast-feed.
- S/he wants to chew and keeps putting objects in her mouth.
- S/he is doing more physical activities.
Now, that you are sure of introducing new food to your baby, be careful to provide only certain food particular in iron and so on. Below is a list of few food items you can add in your 6 to 9-month baby food chart.
- Breast milk or formula milk
- Millets such as rajgira, jau, ragi along with rice and oats
- Mashed apples, bananas, plums, pears and litchi
- Well-steamed, pureed and strained vegetables like carrot, beans, sweet potato
- Pulse soup.
- Mashed khichdi
- Tofu, cottage cheese, and egg yolk
As you start giving additional food supplements to your baby, make sure that you maintain a gap of at least three days between two new foods. This is to ensure that the food isn`t allergic to the baby. And by the time your baby has started to become more active, do more physical activities, sit and crawl without support, the parents need to be equally careful about their activities in order to avoid accidents and so on.
Food Chart for 9 To 12 Months Baby
By this time, your baby`s taste buds have started developing and she wants to try more new foods. It is now easy to prepare food according to her likes and dislikes. No more mashing or pureeing of vegetables is required. You can feed the child with dairy products, fruits, vegetables, non-vegetarian items like fish and meat etc.
Child specialists and pediatricians can also be a major source to help you deal with child health matters, and so on.