By Nurfarah Hanani Amir Hamzah.
New mothers are surely excited to see their babies had the first spoon fed into the mouth. When you had noticed your baby is ready to be introduced with the complementary food, it will be a wonderful experience for both mother and baby.
Sometimes we might feel some pressure, whether we are doing things right and not causing harm to the baby. But don’t worry, here’s some quick tips for you mothers who wanted to prepare home cooked baby’s first food.
1. Do a meal planning on weekly basis. This will save you a lot of time for purchasing and preparation.
2. Be sure that all utensils, including cutting boards, grinder, knives, and other items, are thoroughly cleaned. Best is to separate the utensils and use it solely for your baby’s food.
3. Practice hand hygiene by washing your hands before preparing the food and feeding your baby. This is to reduce the risk of infections.
4. Do not add salt, sugar or any preservatives. Do not add honey to food intended for infants younger than 1 year of age.
5. Pick one new food at a time to be introduced and combine the food when your baby knowingly didn’t have any allergies to both.
6. If any allergies symptoms emerged, stop feeding the food. Try challenge the food again, after 1 month.
7. The steps of the food texture: puree -> semi solid -> solid
8. You may start with starch and/or vegetables and when your child reach 8 months, you may start preparing some porridge with introduction of protein. However, white egg should only be introduced after 12 months.
9. Use plastic spoon to avoid injuries. The BPA-free plastic spoons are abundantly available at the retail stores.
10. Make it a fun and relaxed environment for your baby. Never put the pressure for the baby to finish the food. For working mothers, best is to do it on Saturdays as you will have 24 hours to monitor your baby’s acceptance to the introduced food till Sunday evening.
11. Never stops breastfeeding the babies even after your baby starts eating. For formula fed babies, you might need to reduce the number of feeding.
Hopefully these tips will ease your mind in starting this new adventure in your life! Remember to always have fun with food and practice balance, moderate and variety.
ABOUT AUTHOR
Farahanani is a speaker and writer while working full time as a Dietitian & Clinical Instructor.
Her day job which she has the most passion in teaching aspiring students to be a Dietitian, doesn’t hinder her from other passion in sharing dietary advices to her readers on her personal blog at farahanani.blogspot.com and guest writer at parenting magazine.
Her mission is to spread more nutrition information to Malaysian particularly Malay Speaking community since she realised the limited Malay Language articles in such topics.
