Exclusive Milk Feeders
Food, and the feeding process is important to young infants for two reasons. First, their needs parallel their rate of growth. During the first year, babies may triple their birth weight and double their length. Second, during the feeding process they establish their relationship with their parents. Babies learn to trust and recognize these warm, soothing people, and begin to learn about their world.
During the first 4 to 6 months, breast milk or infant formula should meet all nutritional needs of the baby. Early feeding of solids may cause infants to take less of the milk they need. Developmentally, infants under 4 months of age are not ready for spoon-feeding. Infants tend to spit out the solids. Also, young infants are unable to cue the adult when they are full. It is also thought that early introduction of solids may contribute to the development of allergies.
If you are breast feeding:
We encourage you to continue to nurse as long as you can, if you and your infant both want to do so. There will be times when your baby seems extra hungry and you may worry that you didn’t have enough milk. If your baby is growing and wetting six or more diapers a day, the baby is probably in a “growth spurt,” which may be handled by nursing more frequently for a few days until your milk supply catches up with the demand. Frequent nursing is all that is necessary to establish your milk supply. These periods are more common around 2 weeks, 6 weeks, 3 months and 5 months. Avoid using milk or water supplements. Nurse every 2 to 3 hours during the first weeks during the day and every 3 to 4 hours at night.
The quality of breast milk remains fairly constant with little regard to the mother’s nutrition. Breast milk is complete. We recommend that you continue to take your prenatal vitamins as long as you are nursing. You should also be sure to drink plenty of fluids (a glass of water with each feeding), but avoid excessive intake of coffee, cocoa or cola drinks. It’s a good rule of thumb that the foods which bother you, bother the baby – so eat them in moderation or not at all.
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