Food menus for babies


Sample Menu for a Baby 8 to 12 Months Old

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Ages & Stages

Ages & Stages

Now that your baby is eating solid foods, planning meals can be more challenging. At this age, your baby needs between 750 and 900 calories each day, of which about 400 to 500 should come from breast milk or formula (if you are not breastfeeding)—roughly 24 ounces (720 mL) a day. Breast milk and formula contain vitamins, minerals, and other important components for brain growth.

At about eight months, you may want to introduce foods that are slightly coarser than strained pureed foods. They require more chewing than baby foods. You can expand your baby's diet to include soft foods such as yogurt, oatmeal, mashed banana, mashed potatoes, or even thicker or lumpy pureed vegetables. Eggs (including scrambled) are an excellent source of protein, as are cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, and avocado.

Sample menu ideas for an 8- to 12-month-old baby:


1 cup = 8 ounces = 240 ml
¾ cup = 6 ounces = 180 ml
½ cup = 4 ounces = 120 ml
¼ cup = 2 ounces = 60 ml

Breakfast


  • 2 to 4 ounces cereal, or 1 mashed or scrambled egg

  • 2 to 4 ounces mashed or diced fruit

  • Breastmilk or 4 to 6 ounces formula

Snack

Lunch

  • 2 to 4 ounces yogurt or cottage cheese, or pureed or diced beans or meat

  • 2 to 4 ounces cooked pureed or diced yellow or orange vegetables

  • Breastmilk or 4 to 6 ounces formula

Snack


Dinner

  • 2 to 4 ounces diced diced poultry, meat, or tofu

  • 2 to 4 ounces cooked green vegetables

  • 2 to 4 ounces cooked soft-whole grain pasta or potato

  • 2 to 4 ounces diced or mashed fruit

  • Breastmilk or 4 to 6 ounces formula

Before bedtime

Breastmilk or 6 to 8 ounces formula, or water. (If breastmilk or formula, follow with water or brush teeth afterward).

More information


  • Sample Menu for a One-Year-Old
  • Starting Solid Foods
  • Breastfeeding Mealtime Milestones
  • Ask the Pediatrician: Is it OK to make my own baby food?
Last Updated
8/12/2022
Source
Caring for Your Baby and Young Child: Birth to Age 5 7th Edition (Copyright © 2019 American Academy of Pediatrics)

The information contained on this Web site should not be used as a substitute for the medical care and advice of your pediatrician. There may be variations in treatment that your pediatrician may recommend based on individual facts and circumstances.

Breastfeeding Mealtime Milestones - HealthyChildren.org

Breastfeeding throughout the first year includes many important mealtime milestones. Here's what you can expect.

First Week

Catching On to Latching On

During the first week, focus on making sure your baby knows how to latch on correctly. This not only helps avoid sore, cracked, or blistered nipples, but ensures that your body will get the message to make more milk and cause your full milk supply to come in.

2 Weeks–2 Months

Keeping Up With Supply and Demand

A lot of changes take place over the first couple of months, not the least of which will include an impressive amount of growth and development, sleeping longer stretches during the night, and settling into more of a predictable breastfeeding routine. Along with these changes, be prepared for growth spurts that will inevitably result in your baby’s increased demand for more milk.

4–6 Months

Preparing for Firsts

Most notably first foods and first teeth, that is. Rest assured that babies don’t need teeth to start solid foods, and it’s entirely possible to continue breastfeeding babies comfortably even once teeth enter the picture! With the introduction of solid foods recommended at about 6 months*, now’s the time to add some baby cereal (which you’re welcome to mix with breast milk) along with pureed meats, fruits, and veggies to your baby’s mealtime menu. And while some babies hold off on first teeth until 9 to 12 months or even longer, this is also the time when you may start to see the first signs of front teeth popping through.

*Note: The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends breastfeeding as the sole source of nutrition for your baby for about 6 months. When you add solid foods to your baby’s diet, continue breastfeeding until at least 12 months. You can continue to breastfeed after 12 months if you and your baby desire. Check with your child’s doctor about vitamin D and iron supplements during the first year.

9 Months

Distracted Dining

Nine-month-olds are notoriously inquisitive. With a newly developing interest in the world around them, you may find that your child is more easily distracted and seems more frequently disinterested in breastfeeding. Don’t let this discourage you, but rather treat it as a temporary developmental bump in the road that may simply require you to breastfeed in a dedicated, quieter place with fewer distractions.

Last Updated
4/2/2012
Source
Adapted from Food Fights, 2nd Edition (Copyright © 2012 American Academy of Pediatrics)

The information contained on this Web site should not be used as a substitute for the medical care and advice of your pediatrician. There may be variations in treatment that your pediatrician may recommend based on individual facts and circumstances.

diet for a 6-month-old baby with breast and artificial feeding, an approximate menu for a week in the table, a diet for a day

Published: 02/10/2021

Reading time: 4 min.

Number of reads: 222047

Author of the article: Ponomareva Yuliya Vladimirovna

Pediatrician, Candidate of Medical Sciences, Allergist-Immunologist

Changes in a child in the first year of life are very rapid, and each month is not like another. The 6-month milestone is very important, it is largely evaluative and transitional. By this age, most babies have doubled their birth weight, are about 15 cm tall, and some babies have already erupted their teeth. The age of 6 months is also transitional in terms of nutrition. Breast milk or an adapted formula is still the basis of the diet, but with the beginning of the second half of life, all children, without exception, should begin to receive complementary foods. Despite the general graph of growth and weight gain and indicators of psychomotor development, the status and diet of children at 6 months can be very different.

Content: Hide

  1. The first feeding of 6 months
  2. The start of complementary foods in 4-5 months
  3. The second half of life
  4. for a week for a child at 6 months

The first lure of 6 months

If the baby is healthy and breastfed, and his mother eats a full and varied diet, exclusive breastfeeding is possible until this age. Cereal complementary foods in this case are preferable to start. This is due to the high energy and nutritional value of cereals, the ability to significantly enrich the baby's diet with a delayed start of the introduction of complementary foods.


However, the rate of expansion of the child's diet in this situation will be accelerated. Before the 8th month of life, it is necessary to introduce all basic food groups into the baby’s menu, since in the second half of the year the need for additional intake of nutrients and micronutrients is very high. Another reason explaining the importance of the rapid introduction of complementary foods is the formation of immunity of the immune cells of the intestine to ordinary food. If a child is introduced to these foods at the age of 4-8 months, the risk of developing food allergies has been proven to be reduced.

Complementary feeding starts at 4-5 months

In today's life, the nutrition of a nursing mother, unfortunately, is not always complete. Therefore, for most breastfed babies, complementary foods already need to be introduced from 5 months in order to prevent deficient conditions.

If a child is bottle-fed, then by the 4th month of life, the baby will not have enough adapted formula alone, and in this group of children, the timing of the introduction of complementary foods usually shifts a month earlier than in breast-fed babies. Accordingly, by 6 months, children will have vegetable puree and gluten-free porridge (buckwheat, corn and rice) in their diet. In the first half of life, monocomponent meals are used (that is, from one type of grain and vegetables), prepared on the basis of water, breast milk or an adapted mixture.

Fruit puree and juice can be another possible complementary food for children under 6 months of age without allergy symptoms. In a child with a risk of developing or manifesting allergies, the timing of the introduction of fruit complementary foods is shifted to the 8th month.


Second six months of life

Children over 6 months of age can supplement their diet with cereals containing gluten. First of all, these are oatmeal and wheat porridge, and then multi-cereal dishes with the addition of other cereals (millet, barley, rye). If the child does not have any manifestations of allergies, milk porridge can be included in the menu at this age. Bebi Premium industrial baby food products include specially prepared milk that is safe to use in healthy babies in the first year of life.

From the age of 6 months, the baby's diet is expanded with such important products as meat and cottage cheese. These products are a source of high-quality protein, fats, and are also rich in minerals such as iron, calcium, and phosphorus. Pediatricians and nutritionists recommend introducing meat and cottage cheese as part of combined dishes based on a fruit and vegetable and / or grain component in a ratio of 1 (cottage cheese / meat): 4–5 (fruits / vegetables / cereals).

To enrich the diet with polyunsaturated fatty acids in the second half of the year, the menu includes vegetable oil in the amount of 3–5 grams per day, which can be added to the complementary food dish. The volume of each feeding is approximately 150-170 ml, and the child can already stand up to 3.5 hours between meals.

In the table below, we offer a menu of 6 months for a week for a child who started receiving complementary foods at the age of 4-5 months, and by the time the second half of life begins, dairy-free gluten-free cereals, vegetable and fruit purees have already been introduced into his diet.

1st day

early morning 9

9006 900 66 9 9007 1 0062

9006 30
Meeting menu ml/g
Breast milk/mixture 150
50
Lunch (12.30) Vegetable soup with beef, olive oil 100/30/3
Afternoon snack (16.00) Plum puree with cottage cheese 60/40
Breast milk/formula 60 066
Lunch (12. 30) soup puree made of cauliflower and broccoli, olive oil 80/3
souffle from meat of rabbits
Afternoon snack (16.00) Milk porridge “Delicious afternoon snack with Bebi Premium biscuits and pears” 100
food intake menu ml/g
Early morning breast milk/mixture 150
COMLACE (09) cherry Bebi Premium» 100
0065 Breast milk/mixture 150
children's soluble cookies "BEBIKI" Classic
Bebi Premium Kids Instant Herbal Tea 50
Bedtime 065 Breast milk/formula 150

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Union of Pediatricians of Russia

Feeding children aged 1 to 3 years

The period from 1 to 3 years of life is a crucial stage in the transition to an adult type of nutrition, which has certain features. In order to ensure that all the necessary nutrients enter the child's body and at the same time prevent an excess of individual nutrients, nutrition should be balanced and varied.

The daily amount of food for children aged 1 to 1.5 years should be 1000-1200 g, from 1.5 to 3 years - 1200-1500 g, the amount of food in one feeding should not exceed 300-350 ml. The diet consists of three main meals per day and two snacks. It is considered optimal when breakfast is 25% of the total energy density of the diet, lunch is 30–35%, dinner is 20%, and additional meals are about 10%. In general, the child can eat the same food as the rest of the family.

In the diet of a child of 1-3 years of age must be present daily : animal or poultry meat, dairy and sour-milk products, vegetables, fruits, bread, cereals, vegetable and butter; fish and eggs are included in the diet 2-3 times a week.

Cereal products: bread - 2-3 servings per day, cereals and side dishes - 1 time per day
Fruit and/or vegetables: at least 5 times a day
Dairy products: at least 3 servings per day (including those used to make cereals, yoghurts, fermented milk drinks, cottage cheese, infant formula or breast milk).

Domestic pediatricians recommend, when compiling a diet for children aged 1–3 years, preference should be given to specialized children's dairy products of industrial production that meet high quality requirements and safety indicators for this age. Most children's dairy products are additionally enriched with vitamins and/or minerals and other biologically active components, taking into account the physiological needs of children of this age. At the same time, in foreign recommendations, children over 1 year old are offered the gradual introduction of whole cow's milk, which is rich in fats necessary for proper growth and development, the absorption of vitamins A and D, the development of the brain and nervous system of the child.

Meat dishes: 2-3 meals per day
Fish dishes: 2-3 servings per week
Eggs: 2-3 per week
Dietary fats: 3-4 teaspoons of butter and/or vegetable oils per day

When cooking, use the minimum amount of salt and sugar, and do not add them to industrial products.

Offer your child a variety of foods and let them choose their own. Children love to eat on their own, so if possible, offer food that the child can eat with their hands.

It is important to remember that a baby can choke on pieces of food, so whatever you give your baby should be crushed or cut into small pieces that can be easily chewed.

Do not give to a small child: nuts, whole grapes, cherry tomatoes (unless quartered), whole carrots, seeds (such as pumpkin or sunflower seeds), round candies, legumes, raisins, because a child can eat them choke.


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