Nutrition for a 7 month old baby. Baby nutrition at seven months: what foods to give? What's new in physical development

A baby at the age of seven months recently ate only his mother’s milk or formula, but some time ago vegetables, cereals and fruits appeared on his menu. The child enjoys new tastes, and the parents’ task should be to properly begin to introduce the baby to new food. Let's look at what new foods a seven-month-old baby tries and how his diet should be structured at this age.

What additional products can be introduced into the diet?

Diet

At the age of seven months, the baby eats five times during the day with breaks between meals of 3.5 to 4 hours.

The diet greatly depends on the child’s temperament and may differ from generally accepted norms.

Sample menu

In a baby who was fed only breast milk, at 7 months the menu will look like this:

For a seven-month-old child who began to be fed at 4-5 months of age due to a lack of breast milk from his mother, the menu will be as follows:

A formula-fed baby's diet at the age of 7 months will look like this:

For a baby who has been started feeding based on Komarovsky’s recommendations, the diet at 7 months will be as follows:

Do not treat recommendations for the introduction of complementary foods and tables with timing and amount of food with excessive zeal. They should serve only as a guide, and parents should first take into account the individual characteristics and health status of the baby.

Each child is individual, and deviations in the amount of complementary foods are common.

Consider the following nuances:

• Before giving your baby a new product, you need to pay attention to various factors, for example, the baby’s well-being and absence of diseases (including allergies), weight gain, good appetite, and others.
• A seven-month-old baby is already sitting well, so he should be fed in a sitting position. For greater convenience, you should buy a special children's chair for your baby.
• Prepare fresh meals for your baby every day. Before giving food to your baby, check the temperature of the product and mix well.
• A baby who does not want to try new complementary foods should not be forced. There are many reasons for this behavior, for example, you didn’t like the taste or the child wasn’t hungry enough. Breastfeed your baby, but continue to offer him new foods.
• Spoon feed your baby and don't be afraid to put a spoon in your baby's hands so he can start trying to feed himself. Of course, this way some of the food will end up past the mouth and plate, but the child needs to start learning to master this skill.
• When choosing your first porridge, take into account the characteristics of the cereal. For example, rice contains a lot of starch, but this grain is the safest for allergy sufferers, and buckwheat contains many vitamins. Porridge cooked in water can be diluted with mother’s milk or a mixture.
• A new group of complementary foods should be given only after complete adaptation to the already introduced foods. To make it easier to track which food a negative reaction occurred to, first give your baby single-ingredient food.
• Use a strainer, mixer, or blender to prepare food for a 7-month-old baby. This way you can achieve the desired homogeneity of the product.

Wash the vegetables, cut off the inedible parts (for cabbage - hard stalks, spoiled inflorescences, for zucchini - the stalk and skin), cut into small pieces and place in an even layer on the bottom of the steamer bowl. It is advisable to cover the entire bottom of the bowl so that there are no “gaps”; if there are larger pieces, place them around the edges of the bowl.
Fill the tank with water up to the “maximum” mark.

Depending on the model of your steamer, set the timer to the required time (check the instructions) - usually 20 - 25 minutes is enough.

There is no need to add salt to baby purees - firstly, you will prevent the baby from fully experiencing the authentic taste of vegetables. And secondly, the natural content of sodium chloride in natural vegetables is optimal for a baby under 1 year of age, and adding salt from outside can turn a dish from healthy into its opposite. Don’t be afraid that the new dish will seem bland to your child - his taste by nature is much more subtle than yours, corrupted by tons of salt and sugar eaten throughout your life.

The same goes for vegetable oil. There is no need to add it to vegetable puree for a 7-month-old baby, since the baby still has enough of the fats that he consumes with mother's milk or an adapted milk formula. Starting next month, you will start adding a couple of drops of vegetable oil to its puree - but for now there is no need to create additional stress on the fragile gastrointestinal tract. Co butter the situation is similar, with the only difference that it should appear in the baby’s life a month or two later than the plant one.

Once the vegetables are cooked until soft (they should be pierced with a fork or toothpick without the slightest effort), remove them from the steamer bowl and cool slightly. Then you need to give them a homogeneous state using a blender.

A child at 7 months is not yet able to chew solid food, so the puree should have a fairly liquid consistency - like cream. To dilute the puree, you can use either clean boiled water or broth from cooking the same vegetables. Since we did not cook in a pan, but by steaming, there was no broth left, so we bring the puree consistency to the desired consistency using prepared water.

In vegetable puree for a 7-month-old baby, only 2 ingredients are appropriate: one type of vegetable and water!

Smoothies, so popular in recent years, are an ideal example of the consistency of the first purees for feeding babies.

It is not possible to indicate the exact proportions of vegetables and water in this recipe, but every mother will certainly not make a mistake - the main thing is to add water little by little to the finished puree.

Fruit puree for a 7 month old baby

Unlike vegetable purees, the first fruit purees for a child can be made from raw fruits. Pediatricians advise starting to introduce babies to the least allergenic fruits: apples, pears (especially for babies prone to stomach upsets) or bananas. It is preferable to choose yellow or green varieties of apples (Golden, Simirenko, etc.); red ones, as the most allergenic, are best left for later.

In this article:

Just a few months ago the baby was very tiny and helpless. But more than six months have passed and the child is beginning to explore the world. The development of a 7-month-old baby moves to the next stage; he now explores everything around him and brings his parents the first troubles. More often than not, these chores become moments of joy, because at this age nothing bad can be done.

Daily regime

The routine of a 7-month-old baby is individual, you shouldn’t pay special attention to it, but it should be present. With him, it will be easier for a young mother to plan her own day. In general, the regime is developed over time, and is usually formed by this age. If periodic failures occur, it’s okay, it means that the child’s body is being rebuilt and growing. The main issue remains the issue of timely feeding and sleep. With a full day's sleep, the baby will be calm and feel good. Naturally, the mother will also become less irritable, since while the child is sleeping, she will be able to do everything around the house.

The ideal daily routine is the one that has been formed over the past 6 months of life. In general, a child of this age should sleep about 15 hours throughout the day; how they are distributed throughout the day is completely unimportant. Some children sleep all night without waking up to eat, while others cannot get even 3 hours of full sleep without food. Physiological needs shape sleep patterns. Of course, a lot depends on the mother, as doctors say, but in practice, the child dictates the conditions of nutrition and sleep. It is worth understanding that all children are different and it is simply impossible to establish a uniform daily routine.

The approximate daily regimen of a 7 month old child should be as follows::

• morning feeding;
• walk;
• feeding;
• feeding;
• games;
• feeding;
• walk;
• feeding;

There is no need to say that every child should have such a regime. A young mother should look at the child’s behavior, his development, and from this build her own daily routine.

Diet or what to feed a baby at the age of 7 months

If a child at this age knows about the existence of a spoon, this is very good. Complementary foods introduced from 5-6 months should change the diet. Ideally, the time interval between feedings is 4 hours. Five meals a day is considered sufficient for development and growth.

It’s difficult for those mothers whose babies continue to eat at night. It is better to wean off this habit at an early age, until the child shows his character to the fullest and can be rocked to sleep for the rest of the night. Daytime feeding should be accompanied by wakefulness. The child, after eating, requires games, and sleep comes a little later.

Approximate feeding time for a 7 month old baby:

• 6:00;
• 10:00;
• 14:00;
• 18:00;
• 22:00.

If the baby wakes up later, then the feeding time may be shifted. Many mothers leave everything as they are and adjust the baby to these feeding hours. Thus, by developing a clear meal schedule, based on it, a complete daily routine is automatically built.

Diet of a 7 month old baby

At this age, the first complementary foods should already be introduced. The baby’s diet fully includes juices, pureed vegetables and fruits, egg yolk, milk porridge, kefir or low-fat cottage cheese. You need to continue breastfeeding your baby, so it will be easier for him to accept new foods.

You can start expanding the range of juices and purees. If previously everything was limited to apples, now you can try giving pears, peach, raspberries, and strawberries. But it is worth understanding that all fruits must be grown in natural conditions, so to speak natural, without the addition of chemicals. The ideal option for such complementary feeding is possible if you eat your own fruit. Only the dosage of each new product should be minimal. The body’s adaptation to the new product should take place without exacerbations or allergies.

At this age, you can safely replace two breastfeedings with purees, juices, kefir or cottage cheese. Egg yolk is necessary as a source of vitamins for the development of the baby. It is ideal if it is included in the diet after complementary feeding with meat. Boiled chicken meat must be passed through a meat grinder several times, or use a blender. A baby at this age can be given 20-30 grams per day. It is better to alternate the yolk one day and the meat the other. Thus, the load on the stomach and intestines will be minimal.

Feeding plan for a 7 month old baby:

This is an approximate feeding schedule, for some it is ideal, but for others, the feeding time may be different.

7 month old baby games

At this age, the baby is interested in everything, he is ready to play with his mother’s nose, earrings, anything. His arms develop and a grasping reflex appears. You can lure a child of this age with almost anything that makes a sound or has an interesting shape and color. Children really love something that they can hold in their hands, grab, press, and it is not at all necessary that the object be soft. Beads of various shapes and colors are ideal for playing.

But the baby is not limited to tactile sensations. He is still attracted to different sounds. Rattles with bells, musical toys, you can try giving your child thin foil; when squeezed, it makes a special sound, previously unknown.

Physiology and psychology of the child

Quite often, at this age the baby gets his first tooth. This may happen earlier or later, but around this age the lower incisor erupts. This is individual for everyone, and even if teeth have not erupted in a year, you should not worry that the child is lagging behind in development, such are his physiological characteristics.

The two lower teeth will appear first, then the upper ones, or vice versa. During this period, the child may become more irritable and capricious. In order to avoid this, he needs to be given special teething toys. While chewing them, the baby stops noticing the itching.

In the seventh month of life, the gastrointestinal tract is ready to digest foods such as egg yolk and meat.
From a psychological point of view, this is a period of very active maturation and psychological development. It is necessary to give the baby the opportunity to communicate, you can even enter into a dialogue with him. Now he begins to perceive his parents’ reaction to his actions, the timbre of his voice and the frequency of the sound tell him how to behave in a given situation. The child must understand the difference between the intonation of praise and education.

Freedom, that’s all the baby needs, he tries to explore the world as quickly as possible, so he can grab prohibited items.

At the end of the seventh month, the child can play educational games and leaf through books. The first book can be a brightly colored rag with images of animals or birds. All images must be commented on and soon the child will be able to independently show the animals after hearing their names.

Give your child the opportunity to explore the world on his own. He makes his first discoveries; it is vital for him to move around the entire apartment or house. Parents will have to make a small rearrangement, remove heavy, sharp, unstable objects from the accessibility zone.

Observe and warn, that’s what is required of parents at this age. If a child takes a prohibited item, you should not raise your voice at him; it is enough to simply explain that it is not necessary to take it.
It is strictly forbidden to force-feed a child with foods that he does not like. The child’s body itself knows what it lacks.

And of course, try to stick to your feeding and sleeping schedule. With them, it will be much easier for you to build your own daily routine.

Useful video about baby development at 7 months

The introduced complementary foods significantly expand the diet of a 7-month-old child. But there are still significant restrictions that must be observed in order to avoid digestive problems. So, what can you feed a baby at 7 months?

What vegetables can be given to a 7 month old baby?

A child's diet at 7 months gradually expands with vegetables, diversity is achieved by increasing their assortment. You can offer your baby purees from carrots, potatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, zucchini, pumpkin, etc. Later, you can make mixes, mix vegetable purees with each other or with various cereals. An excellent combination would be broccoli and rice, carrots and potatoes. You can prepare the puree yourself, for example, boil potatoes and carrots, chop them and pass through a sieve.
Parents often ask pediatricians the question of whether a 7-month-old child can be given beets? Despite the fact that beets are an unsurpassed source of vitamins B, C, PP, iodine, iron, mineral salts, fiber and organic acids. A child should be introduced to this vegetable no earlier than 8 - 9 months. First of all, this is due to the high sugar content in the vegetable and its bright color, which can cause allergic reactions. In addition, beets are a herbal laxative. It is possible to introduce beets ahead of schedule to children prone to constipation, but only after consultation with a specialist.

What fruits can a 7 month old baby eat?

From 7 months, the child is allowed to introduce fruits - juices and fruit purees. The first to introduce is fruit puree that is not brightly colored - green apples, natural pears that grow in the region of residence, apricots and peaches (according to the season). It is necessary to gradually expand their quantity; by the end of the month you can mix purees.
They must be administered one teaspoon at a time, gradually increasing their dose, and by the end of the 7th month, the amount of fruit puree should be 50 g. Many parents are interested in whether it is possible to give a banana to a child of 7 months? Bananas are a valuable source of vitamins B, C, PP, E, K, potassium, magnesium, sodium, iron, fluorine. In addition, the fiber contained improves digestion and is a source of energy. Bananas are hypoallergenic, so they will not only be recommended for children, but also useful.
In addition to bananas, there are other fruits rich in vitamins and microelements, for example, persimmons. Is it possible to give it to a child of 7 months? Persimmon is a seasonal product rich in iodine and many other trace elements and vitamins. But still, it is not recommended for feeding young children, because... refers to exotic fruits. Even residents of coastal areas, where persimmon is a common garden tree, should not experiment in order to avoid the formation of allergic reactions.
A child of 7 months can be offered compotes, what kind? They should be made from light fruits, without added sugar, and slightly concentrated.

What kind of cereals can a 7 month old baby eat?

The introduction of cereals and cereals will prepare the child for the transition from liquid food to more solid food. But still, the child’s first porridge should be liquid and prepared without adding sugar, but you can add salt. Add no more than 5 g of butter to a ready-made portion of porridge.
A child of 7 months should eat buckwheat and oatmeal - sources of protein and plant fibers that are beneficial for the digestive tract. For small children, corn grits and rice, enriched with starch, are recommended to cover all the baby’s energy needs; corn contains iron.
From the middle of the month, in addition to gluten-free porridges, gluten-free ones can be offered, but provided that there is no individual intolerance.
When choosing a specific cereal, you need to take into account its properties: rice - envelops and strengthens, oatmeal and buckwheat - a source of fiber with a laxative effect. Based on this, it is recommended to alternate cereals or combine them with each other. You can add vegetables to porridges, for example, pumpkin, carrots, apples.
You can prepare commercially produced porridge for a 7-month-old child, which is better processed and sterilized and additionally saturated with vitamins and minerals, according to age-related needs.
After introducing porridge, parents begin to think about introducing soups - no soups are recommended for a 7-month-old child, their introduction period is much later - from 9 months.

What other foods can be given to a 7 month old baby?

At 7 months, the diet is not yet so extensive; vegetables, fruits and some cereals have already been introduced as complementary foods. To diversify your diet, different combinations are recommended.
Parents are trying to expand the diet by introducing new products. For children 7 months old, it is not yet recommended to give cottage cheese, kefir and meat. There is a time for introducing these products.

The child, who is already 7 months old, has managed to get an idea of ​​several types of vegetables. Sometimes a baby approaches this age with a more varied list of dishes in his diet, especially if the first complementary feeding occurred at 4 months. In any case, in the eighth month it’s time to expand the baby’s menu; you can offer him meat, yolk, as well as cottage cheese, kefir or yogurt to try.

Feeding regimen

It is very important from a very early age to properly organize the child’s daily routine and nutrition. How many times a day should you feed your baby? According to pediatricians, between feedings seven month old baby there should be a gap of 4 hours. In this regard, a well-designed diet can be like this:

• 6-00 – breakfast;
• 10-00 – second breakfast;
• 14-00 – lunch;
• 18-00 – dinner;
• 22-00 – second dinner before bed.

If it is not possible to strictly adhere to the schedule, deviations in one direction or another are acceptable. It is advisable that the delay does not exceed a quarter of an hour. This feeding pattern is most favorable for a 7-month-old child, and over time it will be easy to transform it into a 4-meal meal plan.

You should distribute calories so that the first and last meals are the lightest. At the same time, the calorie content in the daily meal is maximum.

Authorized Products

As we have already mentioned, by the age of 7 months a breastfed baby has time to try very few foods compared to those babies who are fed formula. However, all children, regardless of the type of feeding, should already be eating by the eighth month:

• Several types of vegetables - zucchini, potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, pumpkin. If your baby hasn't tried anything from the list yet, it's time to fill in the gaps.
• Porridge – rice and buckwheat are suitable for feeding. Now the baby is ready to try corn, barley and oatmeal.
• Fruits – the child is already allowed to be fed applesauce and pear puree (we recommend reading:). It’s worth stopping at this for now - it is not recommended to expand a child’s fruit menu at 7 months.
• Fats - butter and vegetable oils. They are usually added to soups and porridges no more than half a teaspoon per serving.

We will separately list additional products that a seven-month-old baby on IV is ready to consume if his complementary feeding began earlier than 6 months. Among them:

• Chicken egg - only the yolk is used for eating. You need to boil it hard and start adding it to the puree in very small portions - at the tip of a teaspoon. If the child responds well to this product, gradually increase to half the yolk.
• Meat - in the eighth month it is administered only to those babies who are on IV (artificial feeding). The baby should receive this product twice a week, preferably for lunch. In the second half of the year, the baby can eat rabbit or turkey fillet. Also suitable for him is chicken, which is best to take the breast from. The meat requires long heat treatment and careful grinding - it is served in the form of pate, puree or pudding. By lunchtime it is enough to give the child 50 g of puree. However, you should not prepare soup for your baby with meat broth - you can only use vegetable broth.
• Cottage cheese and low-fat yogurt (kefir) can also be offered to your baby. It is best to prepare cottage cheese yourself, as this product often causes poisoning. If it is grainy, it is advisable to rub the cottage cheese through a sieve.
• Compote.
• Crackers, children's cookies.

Sample menu

We have developed a sample menu for a seven-month-old baby, designed for 1 day. At the same time, the nutrition of a child on breastfeeding is still poorer than that of an artificial child. Due to the fact that each of them is allowed different products, we present two types of diet - for feeding babies on breastfeeding and for artificial babies.

In addition, a separate diet is presented for a baby with an allergy to cow protein. For ease of perception, all information is summarized in tables.

Table 1. Menu for a breastfed baby:

Table 2. Menu for an artificial child:

Table 3. Menu for a child with an allergy to cow protein:

Children with an allergy to cow protein are offered either vegetables or dairy-free porridge for lunch, which is diluted with a special formula or breast milk. It is also allowed to feed the baby mixed dishes - for example, instead of vegetables (170 ml), give dairy-free porridge and vegetables (85 + 85 ml). Such babies should eat according to a schedule, observing intervals between feedings.

Dishes for children 7 months and older

Next, we suggest using our recipes for preparing food for a 7-month-old baby. Our list includes cereals, soups, compotes, as well as dishes that use a combination of products. In addition, we will talk about homemade recipes for fermented milk products. Check whether you are cooking for your child correctly, and at the same time try to cook something from our selection for him.

Porridge

The general rule for cereals intended for infants is their liquid state. Experts note that porridge for children 7 months old should be 5%. To achieve this ratio of liquid to cereal, you need to use only 5 g of cereal (approximately a teaspoon) per half a glass of water to prepare the porridge. When the child gets used to the new dish, and this will happen in 2-3 weeks, a more concentrated version should be prepared - 8-10% porridge. That is, use one and a half to two teaspoons of cereal per half glass of liquid.

Experienced parents know that it is convenient to prepare porridge for a baby in two different ways. Let's describe each of them:

• Rinse the cereal and then dry it. After this, it must be ground in a coffee grinder until it becomes flour. Pour the prepared cereal powder into boiling water, stirring constantly to avoid lumps. Before use, the porridge is diluted with mixture or milk.
• Our parents also know the second method. For it you need to take washed cereal, add water and cook under the lid for about an hour. It is important that the heating is minimal. During this time, the cereal will boil well, and it will be easy to rub it through a sieve. Milk or mixture is added to the mixture and, while stirring, is brought to a boil. It is advisable to add a little butter to the finished porridge.

Soups

Soups for babies should also have a fairly liquid consistency. They are made from vegetables - potatoes, zucchini, carrots, broccoli. You can add cereals to the soup if the child has already tried cereals and vegetables separately. They also offer a yolk with the soup, mix it with vegetable oil. The main rule is that the soup should be homogeneous and thoroughly ground.

If your child has tried zucchini and cauliflower, you can offer him these vegetables in the form of soup. Required:

• zucchini without seeds – 50 g;
• cauliflower – 50-70 g;
• butter – 1 tsp;
• water – 200 ml.

Chop the zucchini and several cabbage inflorescences, add water and simmer covered for half an hour. Cool, grind in a blender along with the broth, season with butter.

If the baby is on artificial nutrition, you can prepare a more complex soup for him. We offer a recipe for rice soup with green peas. Required:

• rice – 10 g;
• green peas (boiled) – ½ cup;
• butter – 5 g;
• water – 200 ml.

Pour the washed rice with water, simmer covered for 30 minutes, cool, and grind in a blender along with the broth. Separately, rub the boiled peas through a sieve and combine with the rice water. Place the soup on the fire and bring to a boil. At the very end add a little butter.

Dishes from several types of products

At 8-9 months, the child already has time to try many types of dishes (we recommend reading:). Now he can already be offered multi-component dishes. What food combinations are acceptable? Porridges go well with vegetables. Pediatricians recommend starting with the following combinations:

• rice and zucchini;
• oatmeal and pumpkin;
• buckwheat and broccoli (we recommend reading:).

Both components are taken in equal volumes and flavored with butter. Over time, you can try adding yolk to this puree.

It’s a good idea to combine meat products with vegetables. The following combinations are allowed:

• rabbit meat and carrots;
• turkey meat and zucchini.

The volume of meat puree together with vegetables should be 50 g; the ingredients should be combined after heat treatment. For juiciness and a milder taste, the finished puree is diluted with vegetable broth.

Meat dishes

The baby’s gastrointestinal tract is ready for meat purees at closer to 8 months, and if the baby is bottle-fed, they begin to offer him meat at 7 months (we recommend reading:). It is important to remember that at first you should give your baby only low-fat varieties, and offal only from 10 months. Rules for preparing and introducing meat into the menu:

• A small piece of meat is thoroughly cleaned of fat, films, veins, filled with water and cooked under the lid until soft. After this, the meat is twisted through a meat grinder twice, or chopped in a blender.
• If the baby does not like the taste of the new product, the meat puree is combined with a familiar vegetable.
• Gradually, the volume of meat puree is increased to 50 g. It is recommended to mix the meat with vegetable broth to make it more juicy.

Dairy products

Cottage cheese can be safely given to a baby starting from 8 months (we recommend reading:). Dr. Komarovsky recommends starting with kefir, to which you should gradually add cottage cheese, ½ teaspoon at a time. Since cottage cheese is a perishable product, and pathogenic bacteria can get under the parchment packaging, it is better to prepare it yourself for the baby.

• To prepare the cottage cheese you will need ½ liter of milk and half a glass of kefir. The milk must be brought to a boil, pour kefir into it and remove from heat. Wait until the whey separates (this will happen within 15 minutes) and drain the curd onto cheesecloth or a fine sieve. You will get a very small portion of tender cottage cheese. This product should be eaten immediately and should not be left for the next day.
• Just like cottage cheese, you can prepare kefir. It will require boiled milk at room temperature. Add 1 spoon of kefir (store-bought) to the milk and leave in a warm place until the product ferments. This kefir can be used as a starter for preparing the following portions.

Kefir, cottage cheese and yogurt can be prepared using special starter cultures. As a base, it is best to use medium-fat milk, which must be boiled. Fermented milk products using starter cultures are tasty and healthy, since they contain required amount living microorganisms.

Beverages

A seven-month-old baby can already try compotes. First, it is recommended to brew him a drink from green apples without adding sugar. Over time, pears are allowed to be added to apples. It is not desirable for the compote to have a rich taste; you should take 1 fruit (apple or pear) per 500 ml of water. It is correct to cook compote so that it retains more nutrients. To do this, the fruits are washed, cut, filled with water and brought to a boil. Then cover the pan tightly, turn off the heat and leave for a couple of hours to steep.

After the child gets used to such drinks, he is offered compotes made from dried fruits. It is important that the apples and pears in the compote are green varieties. A little later, you can offer the baby to drink compote with prunes - a drink with this fruit will have a laxative effect. Next, peaches and apricots are added to the compote, carefully monitoring the child’s reaction to the new components.