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Infant Nutrition
Both breast- and bottle-fed babies need more than mother's milk or formula. Breast milk is easily digested by your baby, for whom nature especially made it. It contains practically everything he needs during the first months of life. Babies who are breast fed seem to have a partial or temporary immunity to certain diseases.Don't give babies any medicine unless the doctor tells you to.
They may need water, depending, for example, on the amount of moisture that evaporates from their bodies. Be sure to offer your baby some boiled water in a sterilized bottle, but don't worry if be refuses it. This is one of the many things be knows best about. Offer it fairly frequently at first, and less often if he keeps refusing it. Don't give it before a feeding, as it may reduce his appetite.
Other items of food are soon added to the baby's diet, e.g.:
At two to four months - cereal (rice, barley, etc.), strained fruits and vegetables
At four to six months - soups
At six to seven months - egg yolk (starting with very little because some babies are allergic to it)
After that, depending on whether or not the baby has any teeth, toast and other things to chew on are added. By the end of his first year, the baby is probably eating cereal, egg, toast, vegetable, potato, macaroni, meat, fruit and junket or other desserts-in the form of three meals a day, with additional fruit juices, crackers, and milk between meals.
Your doctor will give you a schedule of items to add to your baby's diet. It won't matter if your baby refuses to eat them at first. In fact, the chances are that he will refuse, or throw around or spit out at least some new items. Don't get distressed. Regard these first feedings as "practice" for your baby and yourself. It is wise to introduce new foods one at a time, so that if allergic reactions develop or if the new food disagrees with
your baby, you can pinpoint the cause.
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