Seven To Nine Months

Introduction

Your precious one will be a continuous source of pride and joy to you and will continue to win the hearts of your family and loved ones with her heart warming antics. She will have begun recognizing familiar faces and will start responding to you and making overtures herself by the time she is 6 months or a little older.

By now your little one is not so 'little' any more, weighing approximately twice as much as her birth weight. In addition to breast feeding, your baby now needs 2 to 3 supplementary feeds daily, preferably one in the morning, a second in the afternoon and the third in the evening.

She will also have got used to the liquid and semi-solid supplements in her diet. Most babies are at their active best and may also establish a fairly regular eating pattern providing You will need to pay special attention to her diet to provide energy for all her activities over the next 3 months. Your baby will need all her energies and so will you!
At this stage, your baby will welcome new textures in her diet like finely chopped and cooked vegetables, whole cooked dals, unstrained soups and juices. You can start reducing the number of breast feeds by introducing juices and liquids in your baby's diet.

Your little one may drool and be irritable at times and chances are that she's teething.Give your baby finger foods like a small piece of toast or carrot, peeled and de-seeded tomatoes or peeled cucumber to nibble. These will help soothe your baby's gum irritation. Your baby may also start showing signs of independence and will want to hold on to foods. Check out other teething foods such as Teething Biscuits, Whole Wheat Bread Sticks, etc.

These foods encourage your baby to be independent and also give her an opportunity to savour different tastes and textures.

Supervise carefully while your baby is chewing on such foods as she can gulp a big piece down and may choke on it.This is also a great opportunity for her to start learning eating techniques like biting and chewing. As your baby starts cutting teeth, she will want to nibble at anything that comes in her way. She may be irritable and refuse food, wanting to bite on hard objects. This is the time when you have to be most careful and alert and take care not to keep any sharp objects within your baby's reach as these can hurt her.

During the teething months, sometimes babies may show signs of indigestion or vomit out their food. This is usually a result of chewing on all kinds of things to ease gum irritation. Sterilise all the toys that your baby is likely to chew on. Be careful that your baby does not eat any uncovered food to relieve her irritation, as the latter may be unhygienic and cause digestive problems like diarrhoea and dysentery. Please do not panic and do consult your pediatrician at such times.

You can also now start adding more flavours to your baby's food. Temper her meals with subtle spices and condiments like salt, pepper and herbs so that she develops a taste for them. Some babies may just love this addition to their meals and happily consume spicy foods like onion, garlic after 6 months while others may find even a simple carrot indigestible. Introduce spices to your baby's meals only gradually. Add a regulated quantity of iodised salt to your baby's meals, as it is rich in iodine. Iodine is extremely essential for the functioning of the thyroid gland which controls the metabolism of the body. Also, lack of iodine leads to hormonal irregularities.