Nutrition for a child at 9 months: what can be included in the diet?

Prop­er nutri­tion of a child in the first year of life is the most impor­tant com­po­nent for his nor­mal psy­chophys­i­cal devel­op­ment. At the age of 9 months, chil­dren should already be famil­iar with a large num­ber of foods, since the intro­duc­tion of com­ple­men­tary foods is rec­om­mend­ed to start from 5–6 months of age. Many par­ents get lost and wor­ried when it comes to what nine-month-old babies can eat. Below we will talk about the nutri­tion of a child at 9 months.

Should I keep breastfeeding?

The impor­tance of breast­feed­ing a child has long been proven by numer­ous stud­ies. At the age of nine months, breast­feed­ing still plays a sig­nif­i­cant role in the nutri­tion of the baby.

How­ev­er, as he grows old­er, the crumbs of nutri­ents and calo­ries that enter his body with moth­er’s milk become insuf­fi­cient. That is why doc­tors rec­om­mend leav­ing no more than a third of the diet for breast­feed­ing. Ide­al­ly, babies at 9 months of age should only be giv­en milk before bed at night and also after wak­ing up in the morn­ing.

Note that by this age, not all women man­age to main­tain lac­ta­tion. There is no need to wor­ry about this espe­cial­ly, since the child can get most of the nutri­ents he needs with com­ple­men­tary foods. In such a sit­u­a­tion, experts sug­gest replac­ing the two above meals with an adapt­ed mix­ture.

What can a 9 month old baby eat?

The intro­duc­tion of com­ple­men­tary foods is an extreme­ly impor­tant moment in the nutri­tion of a child in the first year of life. In 2017, sci­en­tists from the Nizh­ny Nov­gorod State Med­ical Acad­e­my pub­lished a paper in which they con­clud­ed that at the present stage, com­ple­men­tary foods are con­sid­ered as a long-term fac­tor that affects the health of not only a child, but also an adult.

The menu of a nine-month-old baby is already quite diverse.

• At this age, the baby can receive a wide vari­ety of cere­als pre­pared with water, breast milk or for­mu­la. Pref­er­ence should be giv­en to rice, corn, oat­meal and buck­wheat. The rec­om­mend­ed vol­ume of a sin­gle serv­ing is 200 ml.
• In addi­tion, var­i­ous veg­eta­bles are allowed, such as zuc­chi­ni, broc­coli, pota­toes, pump­kin, and more. A vari­ety of fruits and berries are also need­ed, which can be giv­en both sep­a­rate­ly and in addi­tion to oth­er dish­es, for exam­ple, cere­als.
• At 9 months, lean meats and fish should be present in the diet of the crumbs. Meat is best served in the form of minced meat, pref­er­ence is giv­en to rab­bit meat, veal, turkey. Fish is a new prod­uct, appear­ing at nine months of age. It is admin­is­tered in the form of puree, start­ing with a min­i­mum amount and grad­u­al­ly increas­ing to 30 grams per dose over a month.

The menu nec­es­sar­i­ly includes fer­ment­ed milk prod­ucts, cot­tage cheese, egg yolk (half a day). Addi­tion­al­ly, wheat bread and crack­ers, baby bis­cuits, but­ter and veg­etable oil can be used.

What products are prohibited?

At 9 months of age, your baby should still not be giv­en whole cow’s milk.

In addi­tion, experts rec­om­mend refrain­ing from eat­ing hon­ey, mush­rooms, pack­aged juices, foods high in sug­ar, includ­ing choco­late.