Baby food: what your child needs

and Martina Feichter, medical editor and biologist and Dr. med. Vibeke Manniche Updated on

Martina Feichter studied biology with an elective subject pharmacy in Innsbruck and also immersed herself in the world of medicinal plants. From there it was not far to other medical topics that still captivate her to this day. She trained as a journalist at the Axel Springer Academy in Hamburg and has been working for since 2007 - first as an editor and since 2012 as a freelance writer.

More about the experts All content is checked by medical journalists.

Breast milk is the best choice for your child. You can gradually add fruit and cereal porridge and meat to your baby's diet. Read here what your baby needs at what age and how you can eat it in a balanced and varied way.

Newborn

Breast milk is the best food for your newborn baby. It is precisely tailored to the special needs of babies with their immature digestive organs.Breast milk is composed in such a way that breastfeeding is completely sufficient for the healthy nutrition of your child in the first six months.

If the mother cannot or does not want to breastfeed, babies are given a special infant formula. Hypoallergenic baby food (HA food) is available for infants with an increased risk of allergies. In this case, the large proteins were broken down into small ones, as the latter are less likely to cause allergies.

If while breastfeeding you feel that your baby is not getting enough milk, breastfeed more often. This stimulates your milk production. If the amount is still not enough, you should consult your doctor.

Fifth to seventh month

Because the coordination between lips and tongue is not yet working, babies can only suckle for the first five months. Therefore, feeding with a spoon only makes sense after the fifth month. In principle, however, breast milk is composed in such a way that breastfeeding alone is sufficient for the healthy nutrition of your child in the first six months. Additional feeding is therefore not necessary during this time. Generally one starts with the introduction of complementary foods between the 5th and 7th month of life. Here are a few recommendations:

• Only gradually switch to complementary foods: First give your baby a few teaspoons of finely pureed vegetables (e.g. carrot porridge) as a lunch meal. Then breastfeed it as usual until it is full.
• Slowly get your baby used to the change in diet. Be careful in the beginning. One to two teaspoons of porridge is enough. Try again the next day.
• Always allow a few days, preferably a week, to pass before you try a new porridge. This is how you can see if your baby is allergic to certain foods. If the child cannot tolerate carrot, you can try another vegetable (such as pumpkin, zucchini, fennel, broccoli or cauliflower).
• It also makes sense to alternately feed the baby different types of vegetables (as soon as it is clear that he can tolerate the types in question).
• The amount of vegetables administered can be slowly increased to 100 grams. You can then add other ingredients step by step: First give your child a vegetable mashed potato (refined with a little rapeseed oil). After a while you can also add meat (lean meat with a little fruit juice).
• For more variety, you can replace the potato portion with pasta, rice or cereals. Once or twice a week you should give your child fish, for example salmon, instead of meat.
• While feeding, don't be put off if your baby grimaces and spits out the food. So it simply expresses the inclusion of a new taste. These reactions are normal and do not necessarily indicate discomfort.
• Around the end of the first month after starting additional feeding, the entire lunch meal should be switched to complementary foods.

Sixth to eighth month

After about six months, the baby learns to chew. From around eight months of age, it can move the tongue sideways in the mouth, thereby mixing the food with the saliva. From this point on, you no longer puree the food quite as thoroughly.

About a month after the introduction of the first porridge, you can begin to gradually replace the breastfeeding meal in the afternoon or evening with a whole milk and cereal porridge (refined with fruit juice or pureed fruit). If you prepare the porridge yourself, you should use pasteurized milk, ultra-high temperature milk, longer fresh (ESL) milk or long-life milk with a fat content of 3.5 percent or special baby milk.

You can also buy ready-made milk porridge, but please do so with as few ingredients as possible and no unnecessary additives (cocoa, flavors, minerals, vitamins, etc.). It is mixed with water (not with milk!).

For the cereal portion you should use whole grain cereal flakes (e.g. semolina or fine oat flakes). The semolina is stirred into boiling milk. The cereal flakes are stirred into cold milk and boiled. The whole thing is then refined with fruit puree or fruit juice (made from apple, pear, banana, peach, nectarine, etc.).

Gradually get your baby used to new foods.

Seventh to ninth months

About a month after the introduction of the second porridge, you can introduce your baby to a non-dairy cereal and fruit porridge. It is often introduced as an afternoon meal.

Fine grain flakes or semolina are used as grain. Both are boiled in water for a few minutes (with cereal flakes being stirred into cold water and then boiled while semolina is stirred directly into boiling water).

This cereal porridge is mixed with fresh fruit (e.g. apple, pear or banana) that has previously been crushed, finely cut or pureed. Alternatively, you can also use frozen fruit or fruit glasses (without added sugar). Finally, mix in a little rapeseed oil.

Eighth to twelfth month

Your child's digestive function is now fully developed. Your baby can now sit in the high chair at the table and occasionally eat with the adults. However, heavily salted and spicy dishes are taboo. Depending on the number of teeth present, you may only have to roughly mash your child's food with a fork or cut it into small pieces.

• Practice chewing and swallowing larger pieces with your child. This is important for the development of the motor skills of the mouth and thus also the language. From a motor point of view, a child of this age can handle both a cup and a spoon.
• Avoid ready meals that are not specifically intended for small children. They contain too much salt, sugar and additives.
• Avoid low-calorie foods. Skimmed milk or skimmed milk products do not contain the fats your child needs for healthy development.
• Sweets and sweetened foods are bad for your baby's teeth. Instead, you can sweeten porridge or grits with applesauce, for example.
• From now on, try to use as much food as possible. In this way, your child has a balanced and varied diet.
• Whole nuts and other foods that can be easily swallowed should be avoided until your child is 4 years old.

Why vitamins are important

Doctors recommend adding vitamin D to children from the end of the first week of life until the end of the first year of life. In this age group, the little ones need an increased amount of vitamin D for healthy bone growth. It is possible that children in their second year of life can still be given vitamin D daily during the winter months (in winter the solar radiation is too weak for the body to be able to produce enough vitamin D itself with its help).

An iron intake is usually not necessary for children with a balanced diet. Iron is mainly found in meat and egg yolks.

To prevent tooth decay, paediatricians recommend giving children a fluoride tablet every day in the first few years of life - until the little ones get enough fluoride through fluoride-enriched table salt and the use of fluoride-containing toothpaste.

Do not use honey in baby food for the first year. It sometimes contains botulinum bacteria that the child's immune system cannot deal with - the baby can develop botulism (infant botulism). This leads to paralysis. If the respiratory muscles are affected, the infection is usually fatal.

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