Breast is best
Breast milk is the best milk for babies. Breast milk provides the ideal balanced nutrition and protection for your baby. Maternal nutritional requirements increase during pregnancy and breastfeeding. Therefore mothers’ diets should include a wide variety of nutritious food and healthy snacks.
If you are considering bottle feeding, always seek professional advice as once bottle feeding has commenced it can be difficult to revert to breast feeding. Partial bottle feeding may also adversely affect breastfeeding by reducing the supply of breast milk. Always use and prepare infant formula as directed by the manufacturer; unnecessary or improper use of infant formula can be hazardous to the health of your baby.
Before using infant formula, always consider the social and financial implications, such as issues of convenience and cost to the household of using infant formula for at least 12 months. If you are considering using infant formula, it is important to discuss this with a health professional.
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Sitting, burping and grabbing!
All by themselves: sitting up
By the time your baby is around six months old they're probably able to sit unsupported for short periods of time. They'll also be able to sit in a high chair - just be careful not to leave them unattended as they can still lose their balance easily.
Excuse me: learning to burp
It’s likely your baby will be able to burp his or her self by this time. Again, there's no set date for when this should happen, if they still need your help that's fine. Gently patting them on the back should be enough. If they haven't burped after a couple of minutes, they probably don’t need to!
Tricky little movements: fine motor skills
By six months or so, your baby's communication and coordination skills will be coming along in leaps and bounds. You might notice they have better control of their hands. They might be able to hold a two handled cup and drink by themselves, maybe grip things better or even clap. These are known as fine motor skills, which use small, precise movements of thumbs and fingers. Fine motor skills also include small tongue movements, like you do when you taste something. These may be slowly coming along, but they’ll play a big part in your baby learning to talk.