You should continue breastfeeding during these months. In the morning, noon and evening meals, give additional food other than breast milk. If he wakes up at night, you can breastfeed your baby.
From the 7th month on, you can start giving these foods to your baby:
- Egg
- White cheese, jam and bread
- Meats (meatballs, chicken, fish)
- Biscuits, crackers
In the months 8-9 you can add the following to the additional foods:
- Single vegetable food, pasta, viscous vermicelli soup
- Some foods from your diet
From the 7th month on, begin to familiarize your baby with more solid food. However, your baby has still few teeth; he is chewing food with his gingiva to a large extent. Therefore, give, for example, not too much large meat pieces, but little crushed or rough puree to your baby.
When you give the egg, take care to boil thoroughly. Since the egg white can be allergen, first start with the yolk. Give him half a teaspoon on the first day. By increasing half a teaspoon every other day, give him a full egg yolk finally after 8-10 days. Start to give the egg at vegetable meals and then at breakfasts.
You can give desalted or salt-free cottage cheese as mashed. Give red meat or chicken, as minced or chopped in very small pieces and thoroughly cooked. You can also give well cooked fish meat into very small pieces.
Starting from these months, you can give crackers or biscuits but don’t give too salty or sugary ones. You can let him to eat by holding them in his own hands, called the finger food. But these finger foods like bread, crackers and biscuits can only be given when your baby is sitting and under your supervision. With this development, the risk of nutrients sticking in his throat may also occur. Your baby that was not able to keep very small objects with two fingers previously, will be able to achieve this. However, besides this achievement, he may throw the coins, buttons, etc., to his mouth other than the foods he can eat. Therefore, be careful not to keep your baby out of sight. Do not give your baby raw foods such as popcorn, hazelnuts, whole peas, carrots or pear-apple pieces etc. that can easily stick in his throat and he cannot chew with his gingiva. His molar teeth will begin to grow towards the end of the first year at the earliest, after which you can give real chewing foods. Because the first foreteeth are to bite not to chew.
The first finger food you can give to your baby should be food that he can make it to be swallowed by his gingiva and which can be dissolved in the mouth without chewing. Divide them into chewy pieces. Crackers or breads made of whole wheat, rice cakes and crackers that are the foods easily dissolved in the mouth are suitable finger foods. Put these foods in front of your baby in a dish or directly on the feeding table, but put 4-5 pieces and wait him to finish each time. If you put too many nutrients altogether, your baby may try to throw them all in his mouth. Give food to your baby only when he is sitting, never give it to the baby who is trying to walk or crawl. Don’t give junk food without nutritious value, prepared foods with excess salt or sugar, and refined breads to your baby yet. Thus, your baby will understand that these are not part of the normal daily meal order.