OUR BABIES

Grey River Argus, 7 August 1937, Page 6

OUR BABIES

By Hygeia. Published under the auspices of the Royal New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children (Plunket Society). “It is wiser to put up a fence at the top of a precipice tnan to maintain an ambulance at the bottom.” NEW FOOD FOR THE BABY BETWEEN TWELVE AND 1 FIFTEEN MONTHS. ; From twelve months onwards greater variety is necessary in the ; baby’s diet, and this will be appre- ' ceiated if, during the previous three ) months, training has been carried out along the lines indicated in the preceding article. The question arises of exactly what new foods are suitable between 12 1 and 15 months. We will deal with [ this by taking the new foods in the 1 order in which it is usually best and easiest to introduce them. First, however, you understand that you continue as before to give cereal i jellies, increasing tlie proportion of ;■ unstrained porridge bit by bit. Conl tinue also to give twice-baked bread, . crusts, toast and stale bread. It is mostly at the mid-day meal that new foods are introduced, and ’ baby may have either baked apple pulp or a few ounces of broth at this meal round about his first birthday. Baked Apple.—To prepare: Bake the apple in its skin, and press the pulp through a wire sieve, unless, of • course, it happens to be absolutely i fine and fluffy. Add a few grains of r sugar (or honey for preference) if ; the apple is tart. Give only a tea- ; spoonful at first, and gradually increase to one or two tablespooniuls. 1 Serve nice and warm, with a few tea- ; spoonfuls of top milk or thin cream. ; Needless to say raw, ripe apple should ■ be continued as described last week, , or introduced if not already started. Prune Pulp.—As an alternative to ■ apple the pured pulp of stewed - prunes may be given, also with a little top milk or thin cream. , Broth.—Vegetable milk broth. or ; vegetable mutton broth are perhaps ; the most usual broths for this period. ■ At first strain the broth clear. After ■ a few days add some of the pulp by : pressing the vegetables cooked in the broth through a wire sieve. All sorts ' of vegetables, both roots and gieens, . should be cooked in the broth, also barley or rice. This applies whether : mutton stock is used or not. Clear 1 meat broth contains very little nourishment, but all vegetables contain mineral and other elements, which are absolutely essential for health. Mutton stock is not an essential basis for broth, but if to the vegetable puree is added an equal quantity ,of milk, a palatable and nourishing broth results, and makes for variety in the child’s diet. Start by giving one tablespoon, and increase to five or six tablespoons. < Vegetables. —Baby’s taste and digestion have by now become accustomed to vegetables served in broth, and the next step is to introduce them separately. Spinach, cauliflower, carrot and floury potatoes are the best vegetables to use at this early stage, Potatoes should be baked in their skin, and other vegetables should be cooked in as little water as possible, and in the least time possible. Press the pulp through a fine sieve, and serve warm with a dab of butter 01 a few teaspoonfuls of meat gravy. Occasionally a little parsley may be served with the vegetables. (Be sure to save the red gravy which drips from the family roast of meat, as it is carved—not the gravy made m the roasting pan with' flour when the flour is often insufficiently cooked'. Start with a tablespoonful of vegetable, increasing gradually as the child grows accustomed Io the new taste. Milk Puddings. —Well-cooked milk puddings may be given now alone or with apple or prune pulp. Giound rice, semolina, and junket arc the best. Later in this period sago may be given occasionally as a change, but avoid cornflour, which is pue Eggs.—During this period introduce coddled egg. Begin cautiously by giving 'a small portion of the yolk, thus accustoming baby to the now flavour, before egg becomes a rcgulai part of his diet. Work up to about half the volk, with stale white bread ■ crumbs and vegetables given two pr three times a week at the mid-df y meal A little of the white may be added later. The digestibility of eggs largely depends on the method of cooking. Coddling or light poaching is the best. To coddle, place the egg in water which is boiling fast and iover the pan. Immediately remove from the fire, and stand aside five to seven minutes. The white will then be lightly set. Quantity of Milk.-The average baby may start this period on a mi. ture containing about 220 z 0 * ™ b and Boz of water, with the addition of one tablespoon of Karilac and three teaspoonfuls of Plunket Emulsion. During this time, provided, of course, that baby is taking an adequate and varied diet, the days md * mixture may be gradually Sl !pP llb £ till baby is having cows n m ?l k water only-20oz (one pint) of cow > milk and soz of water. The mdk , should always be properly scalded. Number of Feeds. Four feet Is < day are quite sufficient from the end of'the first year. Give baby.a drink of his milk mixture on waking—6o/. to Boz. It is usually best to give break- < fast from 8.30 to 9 a.m. dinner about 1 o’clock, and tea about 5 p.m.; but of course the actual times will be fixed to suit the habits of the remainder of the individual household. Regularity is essential whatever the I hours chosen. | The early morning drink may be ; discontinued as soon as the child takes sufficient milk at the thiee meals—that is, a pint. A drink of water or diluted fruit juice may then be substituted—breakfast being the fruit meal of the day. Always give the milk drink at the end of the meal. £ Orange or other fresh fruit should be given once a day, also drinks of water between the meals. c

THE TRANSITIONAL PERIOD.

The “transitional period” is the name we sometimes apply to the stage following the end of baby s ninth month. It is a stage of transition in many ways—-transition from mixed feeding to mixed foods, from suckling to eating and drinking, from comparative inarticulateness to possession of powers of speech, fioni complete dependence to 1 the joys of free locomotion. What stirring times! What rapid development! So rapid indeed that we are apt to forget the “transition” in the accomplished facts. Nevertheless, all this development is accomplished by a gradual merging of one stage inlo lhe next, and it is very important not to lose sigh of the fact

that baby’s digestive and nervous system needs safeguarding from strain during this period of rapid development. It is well to keep the idea of “gradualness” always in mind. Remember the axiom, “Never make sudden changes.” The digestive organs have so far been accustomed to dealing only or almost only with milk in some form. They need educating to deal with other foods by a process of “gradual transition.” Much digestive trouble at a later stage is attributable to too sudden and too early, introduction of a large variety of foods.

Somewhat the same thing applies to methods of taking food. Hitherto the baby has been accustomed solely or almost solely to obtaining his food by suckling, often at the breast. Sudden weaning throws a strain on the nervous system, a« well as on the digestion. Wise is the mother who has trained her baby to drink water or his fruit or vegetable juice from a cup previous to this period (this applies to the artificially fed baby as well as the breast fed), as the few minutes spent daily at this task will have prepared her baby for the gradual change from suckling to drinking I from a cup. i The second nine months of baby’s life are supremely important from the point of view of education—the child is learning all the time. It is the bounden duty of parents to . see that he learns to do right things in a right way. The foundations of character and good or bad mental health are laid down during this period no less surely than the foundations of purely physical health. LEARNING TO EAT. To come back to practical consideration of the question of food, a point which is often overlooked is the fact that a properly graded milk mixture continues to supply all the essential food elements and by far- the greatest part of the actual nourishment needed during the whole of the first year. Food other thar. milk is mainly of importance from the point of view of educating baby to feel and taste and digestion of solid and semisolid foods. The essential thing during this period is that he should learn how to eat. He should learn how to eat from a spoon and drink from a cup, and, most important of all, should learn to chew his crusts and bones, and to reject solid objects which he cannot reduce to pulp by biting, tearing, mouthing, and chewing. Once learnt, this lesson will stand him in good stead throughout his life, helping to protect him from indigestion, decaying teeth, and many other evils which come in the train of these two. Also he will be much less likely to swallow foreign bodies off the floor or elsewhere than the baby with whom the act of swallowing is almost automatically simultaneous with the placing of anything in the mouth. the best kind of hard foods Twice-baked bread is the best form of “hard” food for the baby of this a CT e The bread should be about one day old, and a slice about three-quar-ters of an inch thick should be cut in fingers and baked dry in a slow oven. Enough may be done for several days and kept in a well-shut tin. These home-made rusks are hard and yet not tough, and do not have the tendency to break off in the leathery, slithery lumps which make ordinary crusts'so dangerous. All the same, the baby should never be left alone with any sort of crust. If the gums are sore for a few weeks, he may be able to tackle the softer kinds of crusts, but as soon as possible teach him to eat the twice baked bread. GENERAL FOODS. In addition to milk and crusts, the baby should eat semi-solid cereal foods, the most important of is well cooked oalme il porridge— oai - jcllv." This may he varied by barlev.' rice, or whealmeal, elc., but oatmeal is the main standby. H should be given as firm jelly, unsweetened, and the milk it is served with poured over, not mixed into it. HUMANISED MILK.

Mothers often ask, Is it necessary to make humanised milk alter nine months or after the baby is weaned . Without exception, babies under one year should be weaned on to humanised milk, aim every baby should continue to have part ot the day s allowance of milk humanised (or modified) until the end of the first year or later. The additional sugar and fat used in making humanised milk is a neeessaary part of the baby’s diet. The small amount of mixed foods taken before a year or age do not make up for the lack of these ingredients in the food if the milk is given simply diluted without suitable additions of sugar and fat. During this period properly modified milk is the most important part of the diet from the point of view of nutrition, whilst from the point of view of education various hard foods and cereal foods are specially Important. Neither can replace the other. The child must have an _ adequate amount of milk, and also daily lessons in chewing and eating, if he is to reach his first birthday well up to the mark in every way. Next week we will describe in detail a few practical points in connection with the introduction of new foods between nine and eighteen months of age—small points which sometimes present difficulties.