Until recently, your baby only ate mother’s milk while lying under the breast, or drank formula from a bottle. And now, 8 months after birth, the grown-up baby sits at the table and takes part in a common meal.
Family meals play a big role in making the baby feel like a full-fledged member of the family.
It is important not only to feed him healthy and tasty food, but also to instill the right eating habits And good manners. At 8 months, a child’s diet includes enough food to prepare a variety of dishes.
Of course, provided that you started introducing complementary foods at 4 months - for bottle-fed children - or at 6 months - for children on breastfeeding. Start raising your little gourmet.
At this age, a child’s diet is almost the same as an adult’s. Three meals - breakfast, lunch, dinner - are supplemented by two breastfeedings - early in the morning and late in the evening. Breastfeeding during the day is possible, but still, to develop food interest, it is better to support three meals a day with “adult” food.
So, the baby’s menu at 8 months looks like this.
Early breakfast
Babies love to wake up with the sun and it is best to have their first breakfast in bed with their mother. Despite the introduced complementary feeding, mother’s milk or formula should, if possible, remain in the baby’s diet, providing him with additional nutrients and microelements.
Breakfast
Porridge is considered an ideal breakfast not only for children, but also for adults. It contains fiber, which is good for digestion, and complex carbohydrates, which provide energy throughout the day. Useful habits should be formed from early childhood. Therefore, teach your baby to eat properly, starting with breakfast.
Rice, buckwheat, corn, oatmeal, barley, wheat - if you started introducing complementary foods at 4-6 months, then most likely your baby has already become familiar with these types of grains. Now you can prepare him a tasty and healthy breakfast, alternating cereals and coming up with new recipes. There are many options - using baby milk or water, adding fruits or berries already included in complementary foods, adding butter or vegetable oil. Just don’t sweeten the porridge with sugar, it won’t do any good.
8 months is the right time for a child to get acquainted with boiled egg yolk. This is a tasty and healthy product: vitamins A, D, E, group B, iron, phosphorus, lecithin, selenium - far from full list all microelements included in the yolk. It is best to choose the yolk quail egg, as it contains more vitamins and minerals.
You should start introducing yolk into your diet like any other complementary food with a tiny portion, gradually increasing it to half the yolk chicken egg or a whole quail. At the same time, do not forget to carefully monitor the body’s reaction, so that if you suspect allergic reaction Suspend introduction to new products.
A hard-boiled yolk is mixed with breast milk, formula, or added to porridge a couple of times a week. When the baby gets used to the taste of the yolk, you can cook for him steam omelette. To do this, thoroughly mix the raw yolk, 50 ml of special baby milk (you can breast milk or mixture if the child is bottle-fed) and 1 tbsp. l. decoys . This omelette is convenient to prepare in small ramekins. steam, in a slow cooker or bake in the oven.
Dinner
For lunch, an 8-month-old toddler can be served puree soup in vegetable broth with the addition of meat, a piece white bread or crackers and compote for dessert.
Zucchini, cauliflower, and broccoli are among the first vegetables introduced into a child's complementary foods. If the baby eats them up with all his might, at 8 months you can carefully and gradually add carrots, pumpkin, beets and potatoes. Before eating, potatoes should be soaked in cold water a couple of hours to reduce the starch content. You can make delicious puree from boiled potatoes with spinach. Spinach is allowed for children from 4 months and includes an extensive list of vitamins and microelements that have a beneficial effect on the entire child’s body.
For some reason, this one is undeservedly forgotten healthy vegetable like an onion. But boiled onions contain vitamins A, B, C, phosphoric acid, fiber, and potassium. Therefore, it is worth adding a piece of onion to the saucepan when preparing lunch for your baby.
Meat is another one the most useful product, especially necessary during the period of intensive growth of the child for the proper formation of the musculoskeletal system. Beef, veal, rabbit, turkey or chicken - in the first stages of introducing meat dishes into the diet, it is better to choose less fatty varieties. However, remember that for beef, just like chicken meat, you need to be careful - they are allergenic varieties.
At the stage of introducing meat into a child’s food, it is best to use canned puree from well-known manufacturers. When in daily diet For a child, the amount of meat will be brought up to the age norm; you can prepare purees, meatballs, and pates yourself. The main thing is, after boiling a piece of meat, grind it thoroughly, passing it through a meat grinder a couple of times or using a blender.
To make puree soup, boil vegetables in water, add separately cooked meat, chop everything thoroughly and add a teaspoon of vegetable oil.
After 8 months, the child can be fed fish dishes instead of meat a couple of times a week.
Children, as a rule, like fish because of its delicate texture and sweetish aftertaste, and mothers love fish for its obvious benefits for the baby’s health. It is important to remove all bones very carefully and, of course, monitor the absence of an allergic reaction. Fish puree goes well with vegetables to taste and is also easy to digest.
Choosing a variety, it is better to focus on white sea or ocean fish - cod, hake, pollock - it is less fatty and contains, among others useful substances, iodine and fluorine.
Many mothers believe that juice is as beneficial for the body as fruit. However, this is a misconception. Fruit juices do not contain fiber, but they do contain excessive amounts of sugar, which is not beneficial for children. Therefore, it is still better to replace the juice with an unsaturated compote, which the baby will definitely appreciate as a dessert. Compote can be made from any seasonal fruits and berries to which the child is not allergic; in winter, a delicious drink can be made from dried fruits.
Dinner
Dinner is considered very important technique food that promotes emotional closeness for the whole family. At 8 months, the baby can already be placed in a high chair and given special dishes for children. Shared meals are needed not only for so that the child feels like part of the family, but also learns how to behave at the table. This will make him more likely to want to take a spoon and start eating on his own.
A child's diet at 8 months should include dairy products- cottage cheese, kefir, yogurt. Whether to buy ready-made baby food in a store, take it from a dairy kitchen, or cook it yourself - the choice is yours. The main thing is to carefully monitor their freshness, check the date of manufacture and follow storage conditions.
You can give fruit puree to your baby as a dessert or sweeten cottage cheese with it, for example, add a baked apple or banana.
After eating, treat your baby to baby food cookies or scratch your gums with a cracker.
Late dinner
At the end of an interesting and eventful day, full of new discoveries, it would be nice to refresh yourself with mother’s nutritious milk or delicious formula, and then sleep soundly and sweetly all night.
This is an approximate menu and feeding regimen; it can be varied within the limits of the foods allowed at 8 months. For example, add yolk to vegetables, and meat to cereals. You can give porridge for dinner so that a well-fed baby sleeps more soundly, and offer soup for breakfast. Try, experiment, because a little person from birth has a unique character and, it is quite possible that by the age of 8 months he has formed his individual preferences and tastes.
When introducing a new product, give your baby the opportunity to evaluate its taste; do not immediately add it to a complex dish. And remember that the main ingredient of any dish is mother’s love.
Diet of a child at 8 months: food volume norms
Early breakfast:
- Mother's milk or formula in an amount of 200 ml.
Breakfast:
- Milk or dairy-free porridge 180 g.
- Butter ½ tsp.
- Chicken egg yolk ½ pcs.
- Fruit puree 30 ml.
Dinner:
- Vegetable puree 170 g.
- Meat puree (or fish) 50 g.
- Vegetable oil½ tsp.
- Fruit juice or compote 50 ml.
Dinner:
- Cottage cheese 40 g.
- Fruit puree 40 g.
- Children's kefir or yogurt 100 ml.
- Children's cookies 1-2 pcs.
Late dinner:
- Breast milk or infant formula 200 ml.
The menu of an 8-month-old baby on artificial feeding differs from the diet of a baby on natural feeding at 8 months, only in that he was introduced to some dishes a little earlier. List of recommended food products for all children 8 months is the same.
At the age of 8 months, the child is actively developing, knows a lot and learns with interest. the world. His physiological needs are also growing and to meet them, it is necessary to provide the baby with a healthy, varied diet. It’s not difficult to create a menu for an 8-month-old baby; you just need to take into account the characteristics of his body and general rules complementary foods
Most often, complementary foods are introduced into a baby’s diet at six months of age, so by the age of 8 months he is already familiar with some “adult” foods and his body is to some extent adapted to unfamiliar food. It is necessary to offer the baby new food in small doses so as not to cause an allergic reaction or disturbances in the functioning of the digestive system.
The menu of a bottle-fed child may differ significantly from that of an infant. Complementary foods are introduced into the diet of “artificial” babies about a month earlier, so by 8 months such a child is familiar with a variety of foods.
Products necessary in the diet of an 8 month old baby
The basis of nutrition for children at this age is porridge: oatmeal, rice, buckwheat, corn. They are boiled using goat's or cow's milk, which is diluted with water.
However, the child’s nutrition should not be limited to this; he can be offered:
- vegetables: cabbage, zucchini, potatoes, pumpkin, onions, carrots;
- fruits: apples, bananas, pears, apricots;
- berries: currants, raspberries, blueberries, cherries;
- meat: it should be given to the baby every day, because... it contains a lot of substances useful to the growing body. Among the varieties it is better to choose veal, rabbit, turkey, chicken;
- eggs: you shouldn’t get carried away with them, it’s better to give one egg no more than twice a week;
- fermented milk products: curds, kefir, yoghurts;
- parsley, green onions, dill;
- legumes: beans, peas;
- lean fish (preferably sea fish) is a new food for the child, so it should be given with caution. It is necessary for work of cardio-vascular system, strengthening and growth of bones. It is advisable to use cod, pollock or hake.
Important: some products can cause an allergic reaction. Particular attention should be paid to chicken meat, fish, cow's milk, some fruits, berries and vegetables. There are even cases of allergies to carrots.
It should be understood that the body’s reactions are different for all children, and accordingly, their diet may be different. You need to watch your child to understand what food is suitable for him.
Foods that should not be given to your baby
There are a number of foods that are not suitable for an eight-month-old baby. It includes:
- melon;
- watermelon;
- kiwi;
- flour products;
- fatty and spicy foods;
- sweets;
- sausages;
- citrus.
You should also add to this list all the foods to which the child has allergies or digestive problems.
Sample menu for an 8 month old baby
Children need to be fed every 4 hours, with the main meals clearly identified: breakfast, lunch and dinner. A proper diet will relieve him of digestive problems.
The daily menu for a baby aged eight months may look like this:
- 06.00 - light breakfast consisting of formula or mother's milk. There is no need to give up breast milk when introducing complementary foods; it supports the child’s immunity and helps him adapt to new foods.
- 10.00 - a heartier second breakfast consists of porridge. You can add a small piece of butter or half a chicken yolk to it.
- 14.00 - lunch, which may include vegetable broth, vegetable puree or soup, you can also prepare meat puree.
- 18.00 - dinner, which should consist of light dishes such as cottage cheese, kefir or fruit puree.
- 22.00 - the last feeding not long before bedtime may include formula or breast milk.
It is necessary that the child receives a sufficient amount of fluid. He should drink 30 ml of water for every kilogram of his weight. For example, if the baby weighs 7 kg, the norm of fluid intake per day is 210 ml.
For a drink, you can offer your baby non-carbonated mineral water for children, raisin decoction, compote or juice for the little ones. Tap water should not be given as it may contain pathogenic bacteria.
If you have no idea what to feed your baby at 8 months, it is better to consult a pediatrician.
Recipes
Sometimes it happens that a child is capricious and does not want to eat new foods or refuses food altogether. To diversify your baby’s menu and awaken interest in food, you can use new recipes.
Mixed vegetable puree
Components:
- vegetables (cauliflower, carrots, pumpkin) - 20 g;
- potatoes – 20 g;
- milk – 100 ml;
- butter one third teaspoon.
Wash the vegetables well, peel and cut. Place in a frying pan, add a little water, and simmer the vegetables, covering with a lid. When the vegetables are half cooked, add the peeled and chopped potatoes. Simmer all ingredients until they are completely cooked. Then rub the stewed vegetables using a sieve, add warmed milk, a pinch of salt, mix everything well. Put the puree on the fire again and wait until it boils. Add butter to the dish.
Fish pudding
Components:
fish fillet – 100 g;
bun - 50 g;
milk – 100 ml;
egg – 1 pc.;
butter – 1 tsp.
Soak the bun in milk, and grind it together with the fish twice through a meat grinder. Grind with a sieve, add a little salt and add raw yolk, mix everything. Separately, beat the egg white until foam forms and gently fold it into the resulting minced meat. Grease the mold with oil, sprinkle with breadcrumbs and lay out the mixture. Cook in a water bath for at least 40 minutes.
Oatmeal with apples in a slow cooker
Components
apple – 1 pc.;
1 measuring cup oatmeal;
2 measuring cups boiling water;
a piece of butter;
1 tbsp. spoon of sugar;
a pinch of salt.
Grease the bottom of the bowl with butter. Wash the apple, peel it, chop it finely and place it on the bottom of the bowl. Put cereals, sugar and salt. Pour boiling water over it. Cook in stew mode for half an hour.
Between meals, you can treat your child to dry food or crackers. When choosing a menu for your baby, focus on his preferences, the reactions of his body and your maternal intuition. Also try to decorate the dishes, this will arouse your baby's interest in food. Nutrition should be balanced and varied.
Important foods in the diet of an eight-month-old baby
At this age, the baby's main food is still breast milk or formula. Their volume will reach 700-900 milliliters per day. But adult food is still in second place, although the composition of complementary foods is already expanding. The child becomes more and more familiar with new tastes and develops a food interest.
Let's see what you can add to your diet:
Cereals:
In addition to buckwheat, rice and corn cereals, oatmeal is added. Also, a child can already try pasta and vermicelli for soups. But it is better to introduce bread no earlier than a year.
Vegetables:
Additionally, broccoli and cauliflower, spinach, and green beans are introduced.
Fruits
The child can already try bananas, prunes, plums, peaches, nectarines and apricots.
Meat
Add turkey, rabbit, chicken and veal to your menu. But you should refrain from soups with meat broth for now.
Eggs
Since eggs can cause allergies, try a hard-boiled yolk first. A whole egg can be given after a year.
Fish
This is a new food product. To introduce fish to an eight-month old Suitable for child cod.
Oil
Give preference to butter, olive and sunflower oils.
Dairy products
Many mothers introduce them as early as possible to provide the baby with calcium. You can give pureed cottage cheese and yogurt.
Cookie
Children's cookies should be added in small portions and if the child already chews well.
Beverages
In addition to breast milk or formula, offer your baby other liquids: water, juice or compote.
How to cook and serve food
The child can be given thermally processed vegetables and fruits. We cook food mostly in soft and puree form. It is better to make porridge boiled for feeding the baby.
At this age, the child begins to grab food himself and is already better able to chew. To practice these skills, offer food in bite-sized pieces so that he can pick it up with his hand. For example, bananas, pasta, meat and vegetables. Never leave your baby unattended while feeding. Do not give grapes, raw carrots, or raisins, as they are easy to choke on.
Offer a new food in the morning. And in the evening you can eat your child’s usual dishes.
A table with an example of what the daily menu of an 8-month-old baby might look like (suitable for both breastfeeding and IV):
We remember that this is just one example of nutrition at this age.
Nutrition in the eighth - ninth month of a child’s life
At the age of 8 months, the baby is still fed 5 times a day (and, of course, without night feedings), but now another feeding with breast milk is replaced by complementary foods (you introduce the so-called third complementary food into the daily diet). The child has acquired a taste for new dishes, and he likes his menu. He is well-fed and cheerful, and is gaining weight well. What dishes are best used as a third complementary food?.. Nutritionists recommend fermented milk products; These products are good because they greatly facilitate the digestion process - they are easily digested and easily absorbed. At this age, your breastfed baby's menu should look something like this:
6.00 - breastfeeding;
10.00 - milk porridge (cereals should be alternated) - 170 g, chicken egg yolk (1/2), one of the fruit juices - 50 ml;
14.00 - meat broth - 20 ml, white bread crackers, vegetable puree - 170 g, meat puree - 50 g, one of the fruit juices - 20 ml.
18.00 - kefir - 100 ml, cottage cheese - 50 g, one of the fruit purees - 70 g;
22.00 - breastfeeding. The same menu can be designed for a baby who is bottle-fed, but instead of breast milk at 6.00 and at 22.00 he receives formula or another adapted formula.
Continue breastfeeding.
It is clear that as complementary foods were added, the baby began to eat less breast milk. And you may have noticed that your lactation has decreased. Try, however, to maintain morning and evening breastfeeding. This is important because, along with mother’s milk, the child receives the required amount of antibodies, which make the baby’s body less susceptible to diseases. Not a single, even the best adapted formula can replace a child’s mother’s milk in this sense. Save 2 breastfeedings until the baby is ten months old.
How to teach a child to a new dish.
Have you noticed that a child, having tried a new product, sometimes does not immediately accept it. To help your child get used to this product faster, try mixing it with an already familiar dish, a favorite dish. You can mix a new product using the following method: first add 1/10 of the new product, then increase the amount of this product day by day. Do not think that a child refuses a new dish because he finds it tasteless. No, the dish is simply unfamiliar and you still need to get used to it. Some mothers, in order to quickly accustom their child to new food, flavor the dish with various spices: garlic, herbs, etc. large quantities onions... Don't do this. Also avoid giving your child dishes with sauce, smoked meats, pates, and spicy marinades.
Nutrition of a child at eight to nine months.
At 8-9 months, breast milk in your baby’s diet should account for no more than a third of the total food volume. We have already listed a lot above different products, but this does not mean that you yourself should not try to somehow diversify the child’s menu. Prepare vegetable purees from all the vegetables available to you (depending on the season). In vegetable purees, do not miss the opportunity to add herbs - dill, parsley, lettuce (avoid hot herbs and spices); when the child grows up - and the onion. Some mothers prepare milk porridge only from oatmeal, buckwheat, rice and semolina. But if you try a little, you can steam delicious barley porridge. Many people have an undeservedly bad attitude towards pearl barley. At about 10 months you can start preparing your child fish dishes (low-fat, of course) - hake, cod. Remove the bones from the fish very carefully. Fish can be given both in the form of steamed cutlets, and boiled - in mashed form. It is recommended to cook milk porridges with whole milk - do not dilute it with water. Store cow's milk in the refrigerator and boil before drinking. If you give your child boiled whole milk to drink, then it must be in a cup. But you should only pour milk into the cup a little at a time so that the child does not spill it on himself.
The menu of an eight-month-old baby can already be quite varied: it includes cereals, vegetables, fruits, meat and even fish. You can make it healthy and at the same time very tasty if you cook it yourself. After reading our article, you will learn what recipes for dishes for an 8-month-old baby can be prepared quickly and tasty.
Children aged 8 months are fed five times a day, with three meals: breakfast, lunch and dinner already consisting of complementary foods. We recommend that from now on you accustom your baby to the fact that children eat porridge for breakfast and soup for lunch. This allows you to quickly establish a regime and more easily adapt to kindergarten subsequently. In addition to porridge for breakfast, you can offer your baby fruit puree and cottage cheese, purchased or made yourself. We'll talk about it a little later.
What to cook for an 8 month old baby for lunch: recipes may vary depending on the ingredients. Most often it is vegetable soup with meat or vegetables with a steam cutlet, well mashed. For those babies who were introduced to complementary feeding from 4 to 5 months, meat can be gradually replaced with fish once or twice a week. At the same time, choose low-fat ocean varieties with white meat (cod, hake, pollock). You can also offer it for dinner vegetable stew, porridge or cottage cheese, depending on what the baby ate before.
Of course, feeding a baby at 8 months can consist exclusively of jarred purees, the range of which is now very large. But many mothers strive to cook on their own, because this way they can be responsible for the quality of the dishes. In addition, some little picky children refuse children’s canned food, but they eat mother’s porridge and purees with pleasure. In the following chapters we will talk about specific recipes for soups, porridges and making homemade cottage cheese.
What kind of porridge can a baby of 8 months eat?
Recipes for purees and porridges for an 8-month-old baby form the practical basis of his diet. In this chapter we will talk about delicious and healthy cereals. At this age, children can eat both dairy-free and milk porridges prepared with mother’s milk or formula. If you are using cow's milk, cook the porridge using a 1:4 ratio, that is, one part milk and four parts water. It is worth noting that pediatricians do not recommend introducing cow's milk into the diet before one year of age due to the high likelihood of allergies.
An eight-month-old toddler can be offered corn, rice and buckwheat porridge in the absence of contraindications. If you have already introduced all these dishes into your diet, expand the assortment with oatmeal or barley groats. Now let’s figure out how to cook porridge for an eight-month-old baby. Choose finely ground grains (corn, buckwheat), and grind the remaining grains in a coffee grinder until they become flour. Any porridge should be cooked in water with the addition of a minimal amount of sugar, or better yet without sugar at all, until completely cooked.
Before turning off, add a little adapted formula or expressed breast milk (20 - 30 ml), as well as butter (3 - 5 g) to the porridge. At this age, porridge should be liquid, so take cereal at the rate of 5 g of cereal per 100 ml of water. Gradually it can be made a little thicker. To diversify porridge recipes, a baby at this age can add fruit puree (apple, pear, pumpkin, prunes and even carrot) to the dish. This way you don’t have to add sugar, and even the little picky eater will eat the finished dish with gusto.
For those parents who are interested in how to cook semolina for an 8-month-old child, we will give a little advice. You have the right to listen to him or do your own thing.
Despite the fact that at the end of the last century, children were fed semolina almost from birth, now the approach has changed dramatically. Pediatricians do not recommend semolina porridge children under one year old in general for a reason high content gluten and phytin (a substance that prevents calcium from being absorbed).
Soup for an 8 month old baby: recipes
Soup is a desirable dish in a baby's diet starting at eight or nine months of age. It improves digestive processes, serves as a source of energy and nutrients. Therefore, you can give it to your baby for lunch every day. The main thing is to know the features of preparing this dish. First important point- what kind of soups can a child of 8 months eat? These are vegetable soups with the addition of meat. In this case, the meat should be cooked separately from the first course and added to it already prepared. Meat and fish broths are contraindicated for children under the age of one and a half years.
Let's talk about general recommendations pediatricians. Vegetable soup For an eight-month-old baby, it is advisable to cook before use and beat thoroughly with a blender. You can add to it cauliflower, potatoes, carrots, zucchini, onions, broccoli and a little butter before serving. In this case, there should be a minimum amount of salt in the soup, and it should be added a few minutes before removing from the stove. It is not recommended to cook such soups for too long, as the vitamins are destroyed. Cooked and blended turkey, rabbit, veal or beef meat is added to the finished dish, depending on what kind of meat is already in your diet. Meat can be replaced with fish.
Here are some recipes for unusual delicious dishes:
- How to cook soup for an 8 month old baby with pumpkin. For the pumpkin puree soup you will need pumpkin, onions, carrots and vegetable broth. Boil the vegetables in water until fully cooked, remove them from the water and blend with a blender into a homogeneous mass. Add broth to achieve desired consistency. Add a little oil to the finished dish and serve.
- Vegetable soup with veal. For this dish you will need veal, zucchini and broccoli. Boil vegetables in water, boil meat separately. Grind them in a blender to the required consistency.
- Zucchini puree soup. Prepare zucchini, rice, butter and expressed milk or formula. Boil the zucchini and some rice until tender, rub through a sieve, add milk and butter. Delicious soup is ready.
