Indian solid foods for 7 months baby

Indian Food Chart for Your 7-Months-Old Baby

As you already have started solid foods with your baby, now it’s the time to offer new foods to him. This 7-month baby food chart will give you an idea of all the foods and nutrients that should be given to your baby at this stage.

While the picture of this food chart already gives you an insight into the options you can give your child when it comes to his daily meals, read on to know in detail about your 7-months-old baby's meal plan.

You might have successfully started solid foods with your baby in his 6th month. As he is entering his 7th month, you might be looking for 7-months baby food options to introduce in his diet. Now is the time for him to explore and enjoy new foods. Your baby is now ready to learn about different textures and flavors of food. Introducing your baby to different foods as given in 7-months-old baby food chart will develop a healthy eating habit in him for a lifetime.

Check out: How to tackle some of the most common food allergies in babies

Importance of 7-month baby food chart

Your baby at 7-months has a very tiny stomach and can only take a small feed. Therefore, it is important to include all the nutrients required by your baby for better development in those small feeds too. As his physical activities like rolling, crawling will have increased, so will his nutritional requirement. 7-month baby food chart will give you an idea of nutrients required by your baby at this stage.

Important ingredients of the 7-months baby food chart

In the 7-month baby food chart, breastmilk or formula milk is the best and bulk of your baby’s intake. By the time your baby reaches 7th month, he is ready to eat few lumpy meals rather purees. The food chart of a 7-month- old baby is just a guideline to help you plan your baby’s meal. Take this 7-month baby food chart as a reference and supplement your baby’s diet with the required nutrition.

The food chart advises you to serve 2-3 meals a day which includes snack as well and 90-120 ml of breastmilk or formula milk at a time. The 7-month baby food chart is not quantified. For the quantity of food to be fed, best is to check your baby’s hunger cues as every baby has a different appetite. Feed one food at a time for 3 days and check for any allergic reaction to the particular food. Do not feed him forcefully. Choose the timings of meals as per your preference but never feed solids after 7.00 pm.

Start your little one’s day with breastmilk or formula milk followed by breakfast, lunch and a snack. Make sure you are not compromising breastmilk in order to feed solids.

Nutritional 7-month baby food options

Here is a list of nutritious yet delicious 7-month baby food items that you can include in your baby’s diet.

1. Cereals

You can make porridge with oats, semolina, ragi, rice or barley. These cereals are a good source of protein, iron, and calcium respectively. It is preferred to feed one cereal at a time before trying various combinations.Do not add sugar to it. To add sweetness to it, use jaggery. Make it more delicious with mashed banana or applesauce.

2. Cooked or mashed fruits

You can prepare applesauce for your baby just by cooking and pureeing apple. Give your baby fiber-rich cooked apple with pumpkin. Mash them properly to avoid any lumps. Banana can be served without cooking. Mash it properly and mix it with milk to enhance the taste. Pureed mangoes, plums, kiwi, orange pulp, papaya, etc. are the best food options for 7-months baby food to start with your child.

3. Rice Khichdi

Rice is the least allergenic cereal for babies. Make a rice khichdi with lentils, preferably moong. You can add potatoes, spinach, carrots, peas, beetroot, tomato and other easily cooked and digestible vegetables in rice khichdi for your baby. This nutritious food option can be served along with curd for best taste.

4. Cooked veggies

You can serve cooked carrots, pumpkin, sweet potato, peas, etc. to your baby. Mash them properly before serving. You can make kheer of these veggies by adding breastmilk or formula milk to it.

5. Lentils

Serve moong daal, arhar daal, masoor daal to your baby. These lentils are rich in protein and are good for your baby.

6. Liquids other than milk

Fruits juice, sago water, rice water, pulse soup, tomato soup, mix veggie soup, shakes, smoothies are other very nutritious food items to be given in 7-month baby food.

IMPORTANT: The do's and don'ts of starting your baby on solids

Tips that come in handy with a 7-months baby food chart

-Always serve sips of water before, after and in between feeding your child.

-Though it is already mentioned to give 3 meals in the 7-month baby food chart, you can skip one and feed milk accordingly.

-Though most of the food items to be given to a baby of this age is included in 7-month baby food options, but you can include more after consulting your doctor.

You can check out various nutritious food recipes, mentioned in 7-month baby food options and also across all age groups as your baby grows, on the Parentlane App.

Disclaimer : Content presented here is for information purposes only, please consult with your doctor for any health queries

Indian Baby Food Chart for 7 Months Baby

Indian 7 Month Baby Food Chart, Indian Baby Food recipes, By seven months, babies may learn to chew soft, lumpy food even if they have no teeth. So be sure to include well-mashed food gradually rather than a puree and make a thicker consistency. Don't force the baby, though, as each baby is unique and adopts eating habits at their own pace. Just keep trying your best to encourage his eating habits. Always consider preferring homemade foods for your baby which is safe.

Also, remember that solids food can't replace the nutrients breastmilk or formula provides during the first year. So consider including solids in your baby's diet as complementary feeding. Please read six month baby food chart (to cross-check the foods you have introduced at six months) before you plan a food chart for your seven months baby.

What foods can be included in 7 months baby's diet?

What's new in 7 months baby food list :

At seven months, you can introduce the below foods in addition to the 6-month food chart.

Fruits: Chikku, papaya

Vegetables: Beetroot, bottle gourd, tomato, ash gourd, green beans, peas, butternut squash

Cereals: Poha/Beaten Rice, Puffed Rice

Pulses: masoor dal

Dairy: cheese

Non-Vegetarian: Egg yolk

The complete list of options you can include in 7 month old baby's diet:

Fruits: Apple, Avocado, Banana, Pears, muskmelon, Peaches, Plums, Prune, Chikku, papaya

Vegetables: Carrot, Pumpkin, Sweet Potato, beetroot, bottle gourd, tomato, ash gourd, green beans, peas, butternut squash

Cereals & Grains: Rice, Ragi, Barley, Semolina/Suji/Rava, sabudhana/Sago/Tapioca, Ragira/Amaranth, Phool Makhana, Quinoa, Poha/Beaten Rice, Puffed Rice

Pulses: Yellow Moong Dal, masoor dal

Dairy: Ghee, Butter, cheese

Non-Vegetarian: Egg yolk

Sample Indian Food chart or Diet plan for seven-month-old baby (high-level food chart):

For seven months, baby, you can offer one meal and a snack for a day. Rest should be breastfeeding or formula feeding. Choose the timings for meals and snacks according to your baby's preference, but avoid giving any solids after 7 PM.

How much quantity per day?

For the quantity of food, always be guided with your baby's hunger as appetite varies from baby to baby, and most babies change daily. Here is an approximate amount:

¼ cup of fruit or vegetables
¼ cup of cereal. Gradually increased to ½ cup

Introduce one food at a time and follow three days rule, which will help determine allergic reactions to a particular food.

7 Months Indian Baby Food Recipes

Here is the collection of 7 Months Baby Food Recipes. Please customize the below sample charts with the mentioned recipes that can be included in 7 months baby’s diet based on availability, convenience, and your baby’s preference.

Here is the sample high-level food chart with recipes ( please click on the hyperlink to get the recipes) for seven-month-old baby. Please customize this chart with the options that can be included in 7 months baby's diet based on availability, convenience, and your baby's preference.

Along with the above high-level food chart, here I have provided a weekly chart for seven months of baby food to give an idea of how to introduce foods following three days rule and one new food for a day. Hope it helps new parents to plan a complete chart for a whole month.

Interesting to know: first complementary foods in different countries

Child nutrition and complementary foods in particular are dealt with by WHO. Its recommendations apply to all countries, but each of them has many of its own characteristics. In Soviet times, doctors, wanting to save babies from beriberi, recommended that babies be given juice from three months. Then representatives of the world pediatrics realized that such complementary foods are too aggressive for the children's digestive system, and revised their views. Now mothers are taught to breastfeed for up to two years, and at six months to offer either monokasha or vegetable puree from one product. So it is easier to calculate the culprit of the allergy, if any.

You need to start complementary foods with a teaspoon of a new dish for the crumbs. Gradually increase the amount eaten and eventually replace them with one daily feeding. Be sure to drink your milk with food. So it is faster and easier to digest. The recommendations of pediatricians are similar in many countries. But national features and centuries-old traditions make their own adjustments.

Japan

In the Land of the Rising Sun, it is believed that until a year old, the baby does not need other food, except for mother's milk or a special adapted mixture. And it is not recommended to replace the usual milk feeding with other food. Complementary foods have other tasks: to teach the child to eat something else, to chew, bite, swallow ...

At 5-6 months, the goal is to instill the ability to eat from a spoon (vegetable puree or porridge).
At 7-8 months, the task is to teach the baby to chew relatively soft food.
9-12 months - learn to chew and swallow solid foods (apple, carrot, cracker).

For the Japanese, it is not so important how much the baby eats, it is important that he learns to do it. And so that he does not remain hungry, they always breastfeed or formula.

France

World-famous gourmets begin their acquaintance with adult dishes, like most children on the planet, from 6 months. First, they are replaced with lunch feeding, then they are given something for an afternoon snack, and then something is already found for dinner.

First comes boiled vegetables (the choice is huge, including beans, spinach and leeks), steamed and grated fruits. Already at the very beginning, a little vegetable and a little butter is allowed. The French practically do not know porridge, so they don’t give it to kids either.

Meat is introduced from eight months. It's turkey, chicken, beef, or lean white fish. Spicy herbs are added to them. At eight months, according to French parents and pediatricians, it is permissible to give even boiled mushrooms.

At 10 months, the baby tries cheeses on pasteurized milk, cocoa, egg yolk and raw fruit, spaghetti and semolina pudding. In a year, the baby first gets acquainted with a raw vegetable and this is a tomato, and all the rest are gradually introduced by a year and a half. And then he is already on the table.

China

In this country there is a struggle for longer breastfeeding, as the situation with it has developed catastrophically. The fact is that since the 70s of the last century, mothers willingly transferred children to mixtures and introduced early complementary foods. True, it used to be a common thing before.

The introduction of adult foods from a very young age was recommended as early as the Chinese Sui Dynasty (581-618). For example, already 30 days after the birth of the crumbs, he was given “different food”, in the amount of two dates ...

A couple of hundred years later, it was considered normal and right to give the baby rice water to drink already 7 days after birth, and on the thirtieth day of life, they thought that the baby was ready for food from an adult table.

Of course, modern doctors are against such a rush, but Chinese mothers are still not so reverent about complementary foods. In addition, there is still an opinion among Chinese women that after four months, mother's milk is "empty", useless, so it is better to feed it with "good" adult food. Today, the situation has changed markedly and continues to change, although in the provinces it remains far from ideal.

India

Motley and multinational India also honors traditions. There are many restrictions, rules and guidelines that govern the lives of women. This also applies to the birth and upbringing of children. Much depends on the social affiliation and caste to which the woman belongs. Most young mothers breastfeed their babies up to 3-5 years, but at the same time they introduce complementary foods almost from the first days. Colostrum is considered very harmful, so babies are breastfed for 2-3 days. All this time they give water, mixtures, animal milk.

In the first months they often drink fruit juices as well. Girls at six and boys at nine months are offered food from an adult table. As a rule, this is a portion of rice, fish, sweets. In some villages there is a traditional transfer of food from a father or uncle to a baby. By the way, boys are considered weaker, so adult food gets to them later. Unfortunately, these attitudes and customs, which are so valued by Hindus, have led to the fact that a quarter of all neonatal deaths in the world occur in India (that's two million children).

Austria

This country takes complementary foods very seriously. It is believed that it should not be administered earlier than the 5th and later than the 7th month. As a rule, three days are allotted for a new product. The baby gets something quite a bit, and the mother observes how acceptable the product is for her crumbs. If all is well, the portion is gradually increased and replaced with one feeding (usually lunchtime). The next meal starts in a month.

Start with vegetables with rapeseed oil. Then healthy children are given gluten-containing foods (wheat, rye, oats). In the seventh month comes the time for fruit purees. Eighth - it's time for grated meat and fish, nuts.

Step by step, the baby moves on to adult food prepared in a childish way. By the year, the baby already eats a lot from the parent's table. But products based on cow's milk (yogurt, cheese and milk itself), according to Austrian doctors, can be given only after a year...

the benefit of the children.

Source

Which dairy products should not be given to children?

/ All materials

Whole milk

“In the first months of life, a child’s reaction to whole milk may be an allergic reaction to protein cow's milk, which manifests itself in the form of profuse skin rashes, accompanied by skin inflammation and itching. Also, the reaction to cow's milk protein can also be from the digestive tract: a violation of the intestinal mucosa, up to the appearance of blood streaks in the stool with the formation of colitis and a violation of the microbiocenosis of the gastrointestinal tract. Therefore, it is better to postpone the introduction of cow's milk as long as possible: after a year, and preferably after a year and a half. By this age, all enzymes mature and this protein no longer has such a pronounced pathological effect.

The same recommendations apply to goat's milk, which, in addition to all of the above, contains little vitamin A compared to cow's. But we are talking about whole milk. Adapted milk formulas based on cow's or goat's milk, if a woman refuses to breastfeed or is unable to do so, are close in nutritional value to the composition of breast milk, and they are given to children in accordance with the age indicated on the label.

Porridge with milk

Fermented milk products

In the nutrition of children under three years old, pediatricians advise using products intended exclusively for baby food: special fermented milk products for children, children's kefir, children's yoghurts and children's curds. During the production process, they are adapted according to the protein, carbohydrate, fatty acid composition - the level of protein and minerals decreases. This can significantly reduce the burden on the child's kidneys.

Cottage cheese

Elena Solomonovna Keshishyan, Director of the Center for the Correction of Early Childhood Development of the Federal State Institution of the Moscow Research Institute of Pediatrics and Pediatric Surgery, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor:
“This complementary food must be introduced. It is from 6 - 7 months that active growth of teeth begins, and cottage cheese contains a lot of calcium, which is necessary for the qualitative growth of bones and teeth. In addition, calcium serves as a preventive measure for rickets. At the same time, cow's milk protein present in cottage cheese in most cases does not have a pathological effect on the body, because is denatured by cooking."

"Fortress", "Biolact"

Baby kefir

Yoghurt

Cheese

This dairy product, although not associated with baby food, will help diversify the taste sensations of a child who begins to show interest in "adult" food. Up to a year, you can give it just to suck, evaluate the taste. At the age of 1-1.5 years, starting from 5 grams, cheese can be added to mashed potatoes, after rubbing it on a fine grater. It is important that the cheese is semi-hard and not spicy, not too salty, and the fat content does not exceed 55% (in dry matter). It is better to choose special children's cheeses that are starting to appear on the shelves.