Feeding a baby before 6 months
When, What, and How to Introduce Solid Foods | Nutrition
For more information about how to know if your baby is ready to starting eating foods, what first foods to offer, and what to expect, watch these videos from 1,000 Days.
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend children be introduced to foods other than breast milk or infant formula when they are about 6 months old. Introducing foods before 4 months old is not recommended. Every child is different. How do you know if your child is ready for foods other than breast milk or infant formula? You can look for these signs that your child is developmentally ready.
Your child:
- Sits up alone or with support.
- Is able to control head and neck.
- Opens the mouth when food is offered.
- Swallows food rather than pushes it back out onto the chin.
- Brings objects to the mouth.
- Tries to grasp small objects, such as toys or food.
- Transfers food from the front to the back of the tongue to swallow.
What Foods Should I Introduce to My Child First?
The American Academy of Pediatrics says that for most children, you do not need to give foods in a certain order. Your child can begin eating solid foods at about 6 months old. By the time he or she is 7 or 8 months old, your child can eat a variety of foods from different food groups. These foods include infant cereals, meat or other proteins, fruits, vegetables, grains, yogurts and cheeses, and more.
If your child is eating infant cereals, it is important to offer a variety of fortifiedalert icon infant cereals such as oat, barley, and multi-grain instead of only rice cereal. Only providing infant rice cereal is not recommended by the Food and Drug Administration because there is a risk for children to be exposed to arsenic. Visit the U.S. Food & Drug Administrationexternal icon to learn more.
How Should I Introduce My Child to Foods?
Your child needs certain vitamins and minerals to grow healthy and strong.
Now that your child is starting to eat food, be sure to choose foods that give your child all the vitamins and minerals they need.
Click here to learn more about some of these vitamins & minerals.
Let your child try one single-ingredient food at a time at first. This helps you see if your child has any problems with that food, such as food allergies. Wait 3 to 5 days between each new food. Before you know it, your child will be on his or her way to eating and enjoying lots of new foods.
Introduce potentially allergenic foods when other foods are introduced.
Potentially allergenic foods include cow’s milk products, eggs, fish, shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soy, and sesame. Drinking cow’s milk or fortified soy beverages is not recommended until your child is older than 12 months, but other cow’s milk products, such as yogurt, can be introduced before 12 months. If your child has severe eczema and/or egg allergy, talk with your child’s doctor or nurse about when and how to safely introduce foods with peanuts.
How Should I Prepare Food for My Child to Eat?
At first, it’s easier for your child to eat foods that are mashed, pureed, or strained and very smooth in texture. It can take time for your child to adjust to new food textures. Your child might cough, gag, or spit up. As your baby’s oral skills develop, thicker and lumpier foods can be introduced.
Some foods are potential choking hazards, so it is important to feed your child foods that are the right texture for his or her development. To help prevent choking, prepare foods that can be easily dissolved with saliva and do not require chewing. Feed small portions and encourage your baby to eat slowly. Always watch your child while he or she is eating.
Here are some tips for preparing foods:
- Mix cereals and mashed cooked grains with breast milk, formula, or water to make it smooth and easy for your baby to swallow.
- Mash or puree vegetables, fruits and other foods until they are smooth.
- Hard fruits and vegetables, like apples and carrots, usually need to be cooked so they can be easily mashed or pureed.
- Cook food until it is soft enough to easily mash with a fork.
- Remove all fat, skin, and bones from poultry, meat, and fish, before cooking.
- Remove seeds and hard pits from fruit, and then cut the fruit into small pieces.
- Cut soft food into small pieces or thin slices.
- Cut cylindrical foods like hot dogs, sausage and string cheese into short thin strips instead of round pieces that could get stuck in the airway.
- Cut small spherical foods like grapes, cherries, berries and tomatoes into small pieces.
- Cook and finely grind or mash whole-grain kernels of wheat, barley, rice, and other grains.
Learn more about potential choking hazards and how to prevent your child from choking.
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Feeding your baby: When to start with solid foods
Up to 6 months old
From the first hour of life, through to 6 months old, your baby can receive all of the nutrition she needs to grow and develop from your milk.
She doesn’t need anything else – no water, tea, juice, porridge or any other foods or fluids during this period.
Myth: Babies need solid food sooner than 6 months old
When you breastfeed your baby frequently, starting foods earlier than 6 months is not necessary and can even be harmful.
Introducing foods or fluids other than breastmilk to your baby before she is 6 months old can increase her risk of illnesses, such as diarrhoea, which can make her thin and weak, and even be life-threatening. Your baby may also breastfeed less often, so your supply of milk, her most vital food, may decrease.
A mother’s milk is the safest and healthiest food for the first 6 months of life for all children everywhere. It is a constant, safe source of essential nutrition, wherever you and your baby live in the world.
Feeding signs
If you see your baby with her hands near her mouth when she’s still younger than 6 months, you may think she’s not getting enough to eat from your milk alone.
Actually your baby is showing normal feeding signs, they are just more developed now that she’s older. It doesn’t mean your baby needs solid food early. Your baby is ready when she is 6 months old.
Myth: Boys need more than breastmilk
Both baby girls and boys need the same amount of food to be healthy and grow strong and smart. Your milk alone will meet the nutrition needs of both a son or a daughter in these first months of life.
6 months and older
When your baby reaches 6 months, his rapid growth and development require more energy and nutrients than your milk alone can provide. He needs to start eating solid foods in addition to breastmilk to keep up with his growing needs.
When to feed your baby solid foods
Feed your baby whenever you see him give feeding signs. After washing hands with soap, start by giving your baby just two to three spoonfuls of soft food, such as porridge, mashed fruits or vegetables, twice a day.
Continue to breastfeed as often as before.
Non-breastfed babies
If you do not breastfeed your baby, the best time to introduce her to solid foods is also at 6 months of age. This is the age when all babies, breastfed or not, need to start getting solid foods to ensure they are getting all the nutrition their growing bodies need.
Living with HIV
If you are living with HIV, introduce your baby to his first solid foods at 6 months and continue to breastfeed him while taking your ARV medicines and following your treatment plan.
Don't wait too long to start solid food
Your baby’s body needs the extra energy and nutrients to help him to keep growing. Waiting too long may cause your baby to stop gaining weight at a healthy rate, and put him at risk of becoming thin and weak.
diet, daily routine, how to introduce complementary foods
We publish the menu of a child at 6 months, recommended by the Institute of Nutrition of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences.
Please note that these are only examples of how children at this age can eat. The volume and timing of the introduction of complementary foods for a particular child are determined individually by a pediatrician.
When to introduce complementary foods for a breastfed baby
WHO recommends exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months. If:
The baby was born full term and healthy with normal body weight.
The child has no delay in physical development and malnutrition.
The mother eats fully, her daily menu contains specialized enriched foods or vitamin-mineral complexes.
At 6 months, the first complementary foods are introduced.
According to the doctor's decision, made on the basis of the individual characteristics of the child's development, complementary foods can be prescribed earlier, but not earlier than 4 months.
The age of introduction of complementary foods is associated with indicators of the functional and physical development of the child:
The initially high permeability of the mucous membrane of the small intestine decreases.
The production of digestive enzymes is stabilized.
Sufficient local immunity is formed in the digestive tract.
The child learns to swallow semi-liquid and thicker foods.
According to local pediatricians, it is also not worth delaying the introduction of complementary foods after 6 months. If you do not add new foods to the diet, you may develop a deficiency of important nutrients - including iron, zinc, and others.
Important!
The timing of the introduction of complementary foods is determined by the pediatrician individually for each, taking into account age, characteristics of the prenatal period and childbirth, weight and pace of physical development, the presence of diseases and other factors.
General rules for introducing complementary foods while breastfeeding
It is best to discuss the introduction of complementary foods with your pediatrician. The doctor will tell you when you can introduce complementary foods, what foods to start with and what aspects you should pay attention to.
When drawing up a sample menu for a child's nutrition together with a doctor, the following important points should be taken into account:
Children with insufficient weight and frequent stools are recommended to give cereals enriched with iron, zinc, calcium and iodine as the first complementary food.
Children with overweight and constipation - vegetable puree.
Proven!
In order for the baby to accept a new dish, he must try it repeatedly - up to 12-15 times. Do not be afraid of refusal, offer the product again, try complementary foods in his presence - and the baby will definitely become interested in new food.
Sample menu for a 6-month-old baby per day
Select complementary foods
At 6 months, the baby should eat 5 times a day. Complementary foods are introduced only for daytime feedings - for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Mother's milk remains for the first and last feeding.
Asking what to feed a child, parents ask: is it necessary to breastfeed along with complementary foods? Pediatricians believe: in the daily menu for an aged baby, mother's milk should be mandatory at every feeding.
The volume will depend on how much complementary foods have already been introduced.
Let's see how to calculate this using an example.
Baby at 6 months should receive 200 g of food per feeding. If he ate 60 g of vegetable puree, he should receive another 140 ml of mother's milk or baby milk.
Important!
Breast milk offered after complementary foods!
Sample menu for a 6 month old baby for a week
The menu should include a variety of products. They should be introduced gradually. The kid begins to get acquainted with new dishes with a minimum portion. For example, it can be a teaspoon (5 g) of vegetable or meat puree or 2 teaspoons (10 g) of porridge.
The approximate amount of food for a baby at 6 months is indicated in the table (according to the recommendations of the Union of Pediatricians of Russia).
Name of products and dishes (g, ml)
Age (month)
7
8
9-12
Vegetable puree
170
180 9000 9000 180
200
Fruit puree
70
80
90-100
Fruit juice
70
80
90-100
Curd*
40
40
50
0.
25
0.5
0.5
Puree
30
50
60-70
Puree
-
5-30
30-60
kefir and other non-adapted fermented milk drinks
-
200
200
Rusks, biscuits
3-5
5
10-15
Wheat bread
Vegetable oil
Butter
* - not earlier than 6 months.
An approximate menu for a child for a week at 6 months is presented in the table. Please note: this is only a guide for parents - to know how a child can eat at this age. More detailed and accurate recommendations will be given by the pediatrician observing your baby.
Monday
06:00
breast milk
200 ml
10:00
Nestlé® porridge “Silent rice hypoallergenic”
100-150 g
Breast milk (donkey)
9000 14:00
Meat pure ® Indiana
20 g
Gerber® vegetable “only color cabbage”
100-150 g
Breast milk (donkey)
18:00
Fruous puree Gerber® “ Only an apple"
60 g
Breast milk (donkey)
22:00
Breast milk
200 ml
Tuesday
06:00 9000
Nestlé® Milk buckwheat
100-150 g
Fruit juice GERBER® “Apple Prossidized”
60 ml
breast milk (donkey)
14:00 9Ol000 Gerber® Persik Pue
60 g
breast milk (top feed)
22:00
Breast milk
200 ml
Wednesday
06:00
Breast milk
200 ml
10:00
Gerber® Kultislakaya with Apple and Bunny "
100-150 g
Fruit juice Gerber®" Apple-breast-breast "
60 ml
Breast milk.
(donkey)
14:00 9000
18:00 9000 06:00
Breast milk
200 ml
10:00
Nestlé® Silent corn
100-150 g
Fruit juice Gerber® “Grozhevy”
9000 ml
Breast milk (complementary feeding)
14:00
Maucure Gerber® "Indeka"
20 g
Gerber® vegetable puree for the first feeding 9000,100-150 g 9000 g
9000
Breast milk (complementary feed)
18:00
002 breast milk
200 ml
Friday
06:00
Breast milk
200 ml
10:00
Nestlé® Milk oatmeal
9000 g9000
fruit juice gerber gerber gerber gerber ® “Apple Courage”
60 ml
Breast milk (donkey)
14:00
Gerber® Made Puree
9000 20 g
Gerber® vegetable only carrots only
100-150 g
Breast milk (donkey)
18:00
Gerber® fruit puree
60 g
Breast milk (suicide)
22 22 22 22 22 22 22 22 22 22 22 : 00
Breast milk
200 ml
Saturday
06:00
Breast milk
200 ml
10:00
002
Breast milk (complementary feed)
14:00
Maucure Gerber® “Indika”
20 g
Gerber® Pureta “only Color cabbage”
9000 100-150 g
9000
Breast milk (donkey)
18:00
003
200 ml
Sunday
06:00
Breast milk
200 ml
10:00
Breast milk (leopard)
14:00
Puree Gerber® Puree
20 g
Gerber® vegetable Broccoli only
100-150 g
Breast milk (completeness)
18:00
Gerber® Fruit Persik
60 g
Breast milk (supplementary)
22:00
Breast milk
200 ml
Here is the menu for a breastfed baby.
Important!
To maintain lactation, during the introduction of complementary foods, you need to put the baby to the breast after each feeding! According to WHO recommendations, it is worth continuing to feed the baby with breast milk even after the appearance of new products in his diet.
- 1. National program for optimizing the feeding of children in the first year of life in the Russian Federation. Union of Pediatricians of Russia. Moscow 2019.
- 2. Feeding and nutrition of infants and young children. Guidelines for the WHO European Region with a special focus on the republics of the former Soviet Union.
- 3. www.who.int/features/factfiles/breastfeeding/en
- 4. Safina, A.I. Modern approaches to the nutrition of children from one to three years old / A.I. Safina // Bulletin of modern clinical medicine. - 2016. - Vol. 9, no. 2. - P. 77-85.
- Obstetrician-gynecologist (Southern State Medical University, Faculty of Pediatrics, specialization at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology)
Others articles by the author
Breastfeeding on demand
You can often hear from a nursing mother: "I feed on demand, my baby requires a breast every 3.
5 hours." Or: “I have always fed on demand. In a year, we already had 1 feeding in the evening, and my child calmly refused to breastfeed. Before talking about the demand of the child, it is necessary to find out what modern women mean when they say - "I breastfeed."
Modern mothers consider breastfeeding essential for feeding their baby. Just for feeding. Breast milk is food, the mother supplies the baby with the nutrients necessary for growth and development. When a baby suckles at the breast, he eats. Breastfeeding makes sense only as a process of supplying proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins and microelements.
During suckling, the baby receives the nutrients it needs with mother's milk. This is the absolute truth. There is another unconditional truth, which is not given any importance in modern society, it is not taken into account and is not considered. Breastfeeding for a child is communication with the mother. We need to figure out how the child understands feeding on demand? Can he understand anything at all? Is there any difference for him how he is fed, for 15-20 minutes after 3.
5 hours or in some other way?
What is on-demand feeding
On-demand feeding of a newborn baby means putting it on the breast for every squeak or search. Squeak and search movements in newborns, even as early as the second or third day of life, begin to appear much more often than after 3.5 or 2.5 hours. The need for attachments increases rapidly, and by the 10-12th day of life, the need to attach to a child may occur 15-16 or more times a day. Applications vary in duration. The baby can fall asleep and sleep while sucking for, for example, 1.5-2 hours. Can release the breast after 1-2 minutes. And then ask her again. Why does a child need such frequent contact with his mother's breast?
That's why. Being in the mother's belly, in a calm, familiar environment, listening to the noises of the mother's body, being in a warm, cramped, confined space, the baby sucked his fist, fingers, loops of the umbilical cord, swallowed amniotic fluid. Learned to suck and swallow.
After birth, experiencing discomfort for any, the most insignificant reason, the baby tries to get rid of it. You can get rid of discomfort by getting into the usual conditions of a comfortable stay. The only place where the baby after birth can feel the sensations familiar to him is in the arms of the mother. The only familiar action is sucking. The only familiar taste and smell is the taste and smell of milk and lube in the areola. Milk and lubricant have an odor and taste similar to the taste and smell of amniotic fluid. Therefore, experiencing discomfort, the baby squeaks, or begins to look for an object to suck with his mouth. Ideally, it is immediately applied to the chest. The baby becomes warm, cramped, he hears the beating of his mother's heart, breathing, grumbling in the intestines, he sucks and feels the familiar taste and smell. If such an action happens constantly, the baby gains confidence, no matter what happens, he will solve all his problems with his mother. The place of comfort is now under the breast, and you can suck on the breast.
This whole process is justified from a biological point of view. A newborn child does not feel the feeling of hunger, this feeling is not formed in him. It will begin to form at about two months of age. How to feed a creature that does not experience hunger ?! How to encourage him to take some action to get food? This can be done only at the expense of some other incentives. This stimulus for the newborn is constant bodily discomfort, thanks to which he wants to suckle all the time! The most intense, frequent and prolonged sucking in infants is observed in the first two or three months of life. It is in these first months that the main weight gain of the baby occurs.
Feeding in the first month
Baby falls asleep with the breast in his mouth, sleeps sucking for a while. Falling asleep deeply, lets go of the chest. After sleeping for a while, he wakes up, and is applied on waking. After sleep, he can stay awake for some time, for example, an hour and a half. During wakefulness, he may feel discomfort 2-3 times, for example, from a completely natural desire to pee, and having called his mother for help, having kissed for a couple of minutes, he will do his deeds.
Then he will want to sleep, feel discomfort and, kissing his chest, will again fall asleep sucking. After some time, he will wake up and attach again. Then again a little "walk". And after some time, he will fall asleep at the chest again.
The daytime naps of a one-month-old baby feeding on demand vary in duration and number. There can be 4-6 dreams during the day, and they can last from 5-15 minutes to 2-2.5 sometimes 3 hours. "Around" each dream, the baby is applied to the chest, and applied between dreams several times. At night, the child falls asleep at the breast. Usually in the early morning hours, he begins to fuss and apply. In the morning, he almost never fully wakes up. The baby sleeps, from time to time, sucking on his mother's breast. Waking up in the morning, the baby is again applied to the chest. If you count all the attachments that have happened in a baby of one month of age, then approximately 16-20 attachments are obtained. This is how a newborn human cub behaves if it is given the opportunity to behave in accordance with physiological and psychological needs, which, by the way, are genetically determined.
The child of the first months of life does not separate his personality from the personality of the mother and from her breast. Mom and her breasts, and everything connected with them, are the universe of the baby and himself.
In most cases, a modern woman, being afraid to “accustom a child to hands”, strives to limit his requests for suckling. A pacifier and a bottle of tea or water come to her aid in this matter. They, too, can be sucked ... The need for sucking seems to be satisfied. But only the need for communication with the mother during suckling is not satisfied, the peculiar chain of mutual assistance and cooperation between mother and baby is destroyed, the formation of maternal affection and concentration is disrupted. Is the difference in the two actions noticeable to the reader: the baby cried, the mother took him, put him to her chest and started rocking him, or gave him a pacifier and started rocking the stroller, even with the words “Why are you crying, my sun?”
The modern woman who gives a pacifier and pumps a stroller is not a bad person who deliberately harms an infant.
She is simply in captivity of prejudices regarding the relationship between mother and baby. She does not know how to behave correctly, does not know what to do in accordance with the natural needs of the child. If you tell her what the child really needs, she will exclaim in horror: “What is it, don’t let him get away with?!” Indeed, the child of the first months of life must not be let off the hook. For a woman who does not know how to comfortably carry a baby, and who does not know how to feed him in various positions (sitting, lying, standing and even moving), this can be very difficult. Especially if she is not sure of the correctness of her actions.
An action that should become automatic for the mother of a newborn: when the baby cries or shows other signs of anxiety, put the baby to the breast.
What's next?
The baby is growing. A fairly stable rhythm of daytime sleep begins to form in him, and a 3-4-month-old baby behaves quite differently from a newborn.
Feeding on demand at this age looks something like this...
- At three months, the baby has 10-12 feeds during the day and 2-4 at night. There are frequent applications for a short time, but their number is reduced. There may be a long night break in feedings, about 5 hours, but this is very rare. Much more often the night break is 2.5-3.5 hours. By this age, the baby's body is noticeably rounded.
- At four months, the baby begins to breastfeed noticeably less frequently. The main feedings are associated with sleep: the baby suckles before bedtime, during awakening and during sleep, both daytime and nighttime. In this regard, he has a fairly accurate feeding regimen. And many babies stop breastfeeding when they wake up after daytime sleep, sometimes as early as 2.5-3 months.
- At five months, the baby has 8-10 daytime feedings and 2-3 nighttime feedings, as well as in the fourth month of life, they are organized around dreams - the baby eats when going to bed and some babies suckle when they wake up.
- Feeding regimen changes at six months. The most active sucking shifts to the last 2-3 hours before waking up from a night's sleep. The period of daytime wakefulness can be divided into two periods: in the morning, when the baby sucked during the night is rarely applied to the breast, and in the evening, when attachments become very frequent. In total, there can be 7-10 day applications and 3-4 night applications. At this age, the baby begins a period of acquaintance with new food - pedagogical complementary foods. Sometimes there are attachments associated with the introduction of complementary foods, the baby “washes down” samples of new food with mother's milk. But many children do not want to drink complementary foods. When complementary foods are introduced to an on-demand baby, it is never meant to replace feedings with complementary foods. This is practically impossible, because the main feedings of the baby are associated with sleep, and mother's breakfasts, lunches and dinners, during which the baby gets acquainted with new food, are located between the baby's dreams, during his wakefulness.
- At seven months, the application frequency is about the same.
- At eight months, the feeding regimen changes. Since the baby shows high motor activity and is very busy exploring the surrounding space, in the daytime he forgets to breastfeed. In this regard, the number of daily feedings can be reduced to 6-8 times. The baby compensates for the reduction in daytime feedings by increasing the frequency and duration of nighttime feedings up to 6 times.
- In the second half of the year, babies who stopped breastfeeding on waking from daytime naps recall this habit again. The baby’s daytime sleep in the second half of life, as well as in the region of a year and older, looks something like this: the baby falls asleep sucking, sleeps quietly for a while, for example 1-1.5 hours, then starts tossing and turning, fiddling, worrying, at this moment the mother lies down next to , gives him a breast and the baby can fill up 10-15-30 minutes sucking. Mom may well use this time for her own rest - lie down, read, while the baby sleeps while sucking.
I know my mother, a lover of embroidery, who used this time specifically for embroidery ... - Breastfeeding becomes more frequent at nine to ten months. In the daytime, this is 4-6 full feedings and about the same number of attachments for various reasons. The baby has new reasons for attachment. If, during active actions to master the world, the baby fills a bump or gets scared, he calms down with his mother's breast. There may be situations when you can comfort the baby by sitting next to him and hugging him. At night, 4-6 feedings remain, the baby begins to suckle more actively in the morning between 3 and 8 hours.
- At eleven months, a baby can already have 2-3 complete complementary foods. Initiation to adult food in the mind of a child is not associated with breastfeeding: attachment to the mother's breast is something other than the desire to get enough of the product they like. As a rule, after the baby has eaten, he feels the need to attach himself to the breast.
The number of daily feedings remains the same in the child, but the number of short-term attachments increases. There are active mid-morning feedings between 4 and 8 o'clock in the morning. - At ten or twelve months, the baby, if he is already walking, can sometimes breastfeed every time he comes to his mother, i.e. about every 15-30 minutes. Attachments around dreams and night sucking persist. Therefore, if a mother says that a child suckles once or twice a day, this means that there is no feeding at the request of the child. There are restrictions imposed by the mother, with which the baby has come to terms. He treats breast sucking like food, sucks on a pacifier or a finger to fall asleep or soothe, or falls asleep just like that, without calming down.
- At twelve months, the baby is applied in about the same way.
- At the age of one and a half years, there may already be one daytime nap, so there are fewer attachments associated with sleep. Preserved for morning sucking.
The baby is very free with his mother's breasts. Sometimes it happens that he comes up to suck just for pleasure. For example, like this: he comes up, climbs on his knees, looks into his mother’s face, smiles, starts to swarm in his shirt, gets breasts, smiles at his breasts, sucks for 30 seconds and leaves.
As for the number of feedings per day when feeding a child on demand, their number is almost never less than 12. A newborn has 12 or more attachments, basically they are all associated with dreams. And a child, say 1.5-2 years old, can also have about 12 attachments, only 3-4 are associated with sleep, and the rest are short-term attachments for various reasons. I suggest to all mothers reading this text - do not count the application, do not notice their duration. Breastfeed your baby as often as he asks, when you feel the need to.
Mothers who do not think about breastfeeding without looking at the clock may get the impression that when feeding on demand, the mother can do nothing but feed the baby.
This is wrong. After the birth of a baby, a mother begins another life, she is called life with a baby. That's all. The child is with the mother, not the mother with the child! Feel the difference! You need to be able to organize your life in a different way, in the first months, of course, the help of loved ones is very necessary. In the tradition of many peoples, it was customary for the first 40 days after childbirth to remove a woman from any housework and household chores, she was engaged only in a child. In some nations, objects that the mother of a newborn touched were considered “unclean”, therefore, they preferred to protect the mother from the rest of the household, allocating her a separate “corner” of the house, where no one bothered her and she did not interfere with anyone. Among the Slavs, such a restrictive custom was called a six-week. By 1.5-2 months, the rhythm of daytime dreams begins to form, and the baby has a kind of “regime”, the mother becomes more free.
For a mother who can't imagine breastfeeding without looking at the clock, and who is sure that the “right” baby is the baby lying quietly in her crib all the time, feeding on demand will be a complete hassle.
It will be much easier for such a mother if she stops looking at the clock and ties the baby to herself with a large scarf or uses a patchwork holder (sling). It will become easier for her if she stops running between the nursery and the kitchen, but takes the baby with her to the kitchen and carries him around the house with her, doing housework, in a box, a cradle, a special chair, if she tries not to put him off often, and pick up as soon as possible, postponing the baby only in case of emergency and not for long.
Breastfeeding is not the same as house arrest. In the conditions of modern society, it is possible to organize the exit of a nursing mother to work from about 6 months of age of the baby. If necessary, you can start working from the age of 4 months, but, of course, it is better not every day of the week and not full time. It is the responsibility of a breastfeeding consultant to help a mother organize her return to work.
Sometimes, when counseling mothers on breastfeeding, I suggest that they forget for a second that they are already living in the 21st century.
I propose to return, for example, to the cave and ask what they will do if the child woke up at night, how to calm him down? If you are walking through the forest and trying not to attract the attention of predators, how to make the baby silent? If the child is thirsty, what will you give him? What is the baby used to, for thousands of years of its existence? To the fact that he sleeps on his mother while she wanders through the forest with a digging stick in search of roots, and wakes up when mother stops. Since mom stopped, then there is time to wake up and suck. Therefore, even now the child sleeps well, tied to the mother with a patchwork holder, wakes up when the mother, having done a few household chores, sits in a chair to take care of the baby.
Some mother, reading about the cave, will be offended, saying that she is a civilized creature. But please think. Man, mother's breast and mother's milk have been created by evolution over millions of years. They are made for each other.
Baby food has created progress and more recently. The skills of motherhood and breastfeeding have also been lost by our society quite recently. A person is not physiologically adapted to artificial feeding and a pacifier. The mother's breast will not produce enough milk at 6-7 feedings per day. Nature did not know, when creating man as a mammal, that the time would come when the need for breastfeeding would be satisfied by some kind of pacifiers and nipples.
Changes that occur during the formation of the personality of a child who did not have full contact with the mother during prolonged breastfeeding are noted by modern research by psychologists and sociologists. These are changes with a minus sign. It would be better if they were not, these changes.
Breastfeeding is not only important for the baby, it is also important for the mother. During on-demand feeding, the woman's feelings change, a stronger attachment to the baby is formed, the woman becomes more sensitive to the needs of the baby.
