✓ Weaning the baby

In recent years, theories have changed a lot with respect to weaning and currently the pediatric community has dusted off beliefs that now seemed to belong only to before the XNUMXs, when the idea was established that it was better to start weaning from fruit - first the apple, then the pear, then the banana - and then pass the baby food according to the criterion of graduality, preparing it first with only vegetable broth and then gradually adding the other ingredients. Today, however, we know that you can easily start with complete baby food, that there are no particular benefits to introducing fruit first and that the most important food for harmonious growth is meat, because it contains iron, a substance of which breast milk is deficient in relation to the needs of the baby from six months of age onwards. Here is the information that can be most useful when it comes time for the first meals.

Weaning can be started at any time of the year, even if it's hot. The idea that it is better not to start in the summer is a legacy of the time when refrigerators did not exist yet and therefore there was the risk of offering the child spoiled food, as it was badly preserved. The first baby food is prepared with vegetable broth; cooked and blended vegetables (you can also add legumes); pasta or multigrain cream; meat or parmesan or cooked ham or fresh cheese; extra virgin olive oil (for the doses see the second point). Fruit can be introduced at the same time as the first baby food. Bread and crackers can be offered as an alternative to noodles. As for the egg, we start with the yolk, then add the egg white. Some pediatricians believe that it is better for the egg to wait at least eight months, while others consider it appropriate to offer it immediately, in any case once a week.

Quantities per meal:

a 5-8 months:

pureed meat: 30-40 grams

homogenized meat: half a jar

cooked ham: 20-30 grams

cheese (ricotta or crescenza): 30-40 grams

pureed vegetables: 2 tablespoons 20-30 grams

pasta: 2 tablespoons: 20 grams

cream of corn and rice or semolina tapioca (as an alternative to pasta): 3 tbsp

parmesan: a teaspoon as an alternative to meat, not together

olive oil - one tsp

fruit: half / one jar

a 8-12 mesi

pureed meat: 30-40 grams

homogenized meat: a jar

ham: 30 grams

sweet cheese: 30-40 grams or 20 grams of Parmesan

pureed vegetables: 20-30 grams

pasta: 30-40

corn and tapioca cream or rice or semolina (as an alternative to pasta): 3-4 tablespoons

a teaspoon of olive oil

Fruit should be given every day, for example mid-morning and mid-afternoon. You can use either baby food or pureed fresh fruit. Yogurt, plain or fruit, up to a jar can be an alternative at snack time and / or snack time.

The foods that it is better not to feed until at least three years old

These are raw seafood, meat and fish. Tea, coffee and alcoholic beverages should never be offered, not even for very small tastings. Then there are other foods that are quite forbidden, that is, they do not have any use for the health of the child and therefore it would be better not to give if not occasionally and in very small quantities. These are butter (which in any case should only be given raw), fatty and aged cheeses, spicy spices, salami, mortadella, bacon, lard, coppa, sweets and sugary drinks, canned foods.

(consultancy by Leo Venturelli, family pediatrician, author of numerous publications on outpatient pediatrics and co-author of popular books for parents including A child is born, The great encyclopedia of the child, From 0 to 6 years, a guide for the family )