Feeding schedule. What to do.

your baby is in a wonderful phase of increased activity and rapid growth in the body organs. The increase in activity is manifest in increased alertness, hand and leg movements and rolling over and lifting greater parts of his trunk . it is too ealy for sitting up and crawling- which are still a few months away. His brain is growing most rapidly of all organs and shall grow only for another 17 months only. The brain is also undergoing extensive Myelination for acquiring new capabilities and specialized movements. in another month for instance you shall see him use a two finger tip grip for picking up small raisins! All this demands ENERGY and lots of it. Body flesh growth needs approx 3grams protien per ker kg of present weight for proper growth. His extensive brain myelin laying needs high quality fats and DHA, and ARA, along with other essentail fatty acids. His haemoglobin is at his lowest aroung 7 gram per dL. Dentition and bone growth needs needs 100mg/kg of calcium daily. As you can see, there is a quantum jump in his demands of energy protien,fats and minerals . All this means a rapid attempt to hike his intake, for he wont feed as per your wishes. WitH a low haemoglobin as his, he has little appetite. You know you must give less watery,semi solids to give more value in small amount that he will swallow. But the baby is still learning to swallow, and here again is a limitation. Its a real catch 22 situation.  There is a need for sustained practice for the baby with increasing thickness of food. Parents on the other hand must realize the total amount of each ingredient going in, HAS to go up daily. In best case scenarios too there is a net decline in growth for the transition from 6-9 months. The biggest mistake you can make is give what he takes easily- milk, and animal milk at that, or continue 8-10 breast feeds as earlier. The sequence is Increased feeding and a logically reducing milk intake. wasteful foods like those high in volume and low content like juices, drinks, milk are as much as 98% water, fill the tummy and offer ALMOST negligible value. The least you can do is save his appetite that is already at a premium. The parent simply asks WHAT to give, but the doctor wants HOW MUCH as the key. Parents fuss over kiwi fruit juice and pomegranate juice, and faddist items- fruits etc.  These are steps in the exact wrong direction. One has to take any community accepted food like rice for instance, bring it to progressively liquid form from slurry to rice water for example, add some seasoning to make it paltable, have a defined timeline to reach the food as it is taken by the adult. The emphasis is on each component- for example baby roughly needs 30% fats which roughly comes to weight no of spoons of ghee! you are giving none now. So you start with few drops within a few days of starting feeding, and have a 30 day target of reaching 7 sppons. If that looks alarming, think of any baby food, taste it, and you know its half fat! A bengali baby will not like marathi dishes and a kannadiga wont aporeciate ladakhi food. Your doctor comes in here. He plans and customizes the exact meals , and the sequence of progress based on local cuisine, baby's present and target weight, and give him his Iron and calcium supplements. Dietary counselling at six months is offered by all doctors but is time consuming so you must take a weekday and a busy office hour working day when your colleagues are mostly at work and doctor is relatively free.

You are late by a month. Start with rice kanjhi, progressively increase  no of feeds to let him sip some upto 5 times in as many days. Thicken as per acceptance. progress with dals and veggies added one at a Time to a khichri  in 10 days. Add sweet sour and salt together as seasoning.  Dont ask WHAT ..give what you eat - just make it semisolid ..and yes use oodle of ghee butter and cheese. NO IT WONT MAKE HIM FAT YET! And yes offer water every water, that wont reduce his appetite!

NO ANIMAL MILK for drinking, use milk products like paneer and ghee ...I call it the milk trap of malnutrition!