Nutrition During Infancy

Providing proper nutrition during infancy can have life-long effects on your baby, as well as yourself. The very first step towards proper nutrition for your infant is to decide between breastfeed or bottle feed. It’s important to consider that a mother’s milk is the best milk for your baby.

There are some points to remember when considering to breast feed. First of all, always remember that nature conceived breast milk especially for human babies; therefore, it naturally contains just the right amount of nutrients. These nutrients are contained in a particular form which is gentle on your baby’s systems.

Nevertheless, if you decide to bottle feed, there are many iron-fortified formulas available that can provide an adequate nutrition. Infant formulas tend to contain protein, calories, fat, vitamins, and minerals for optimal growth and nutrition. If your infant gets enough of the iron-fortified formula, they might not require vitamin supplements.

When your infant reaches six months old, solid foods can be introduced. Be careful not to go onto solid foods unless your infant has shown signs of readiness. Signs of readiness include demonstrating good head control and loss of their natural tongue reflex. You may begin with rice cereal and mix in some formula or breast milk.

Once they get used to this mixture once or twice a day for some period of time, then oatmeal can be tried, followed in the end by fruits and vegetables to add optimal infant nutrition.

After your infant has started on solids, your may also add water or juice to your infant’s diet. Water is preferred by doctors, as juice contains sugar and calories that infants don’t need. The water will assist in digestion of the solids.

By creating good breastfeeding habits, bottle feeding, and eventually solids, your infant will receive proper nutrition during their formative first year. These habits of proper infant nutrition can create lifelong nutritional habits.

About the Author:
John Rifkind is a contributing weight loss editor at http://www.fitnesshealtharticles.com. This article may be reproduced provided that its complete content, links and author byline are kept intact and unchanged. No additional links permitted. Hyperlinks and/or URLs must remain both human clickable and search engine spiderable.