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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Six months and beyond: what to expect
From this age your baby will really start to show their blossoming personality. They'll embrace play, be more attached to you and babble away to themselves quite happily.
Here are a few of the things you can expect to see at around six months:
Growth and appetite
They’re getting bigger every day! Don’t be surprised to see your baby gain around 100g per week. During the first year of life, their birth weight triples and they need good nutrition to fuel their growth. From time to time there'll be 'growth spurts' and you might notice a change in the amount they eat around then. There are no set time slots to feed your baby, but you'll probably develop a routine for your family. During hot weather offer your baby additional breast feeds or formula, or water.
Constipation
From time to time your baby may suffer with constipation. It’s not uncommon for it to happen around this age as you introduce solids. There can be a number of causes - a common one is not enough fluids, and it's less likely to happen with breast fed babies. You know if your baby is constipated, as their poos will be small and hard - like pellets. Remember, as your baby eats more food he or she may cut back on their milk intake, so they may need extra drinks of water. If you are concerned, speak to your health professional.
Things that might help:
First try giving your baby some extra boiled and cooled water (about 50ml) once or twice a day, or after solids. If that doesn't work, increase the amount of cooked vegetables in baby's diet. Also, cut back on cooked apple or pear for a few days. Avoid giving your baby bran cereals as their digestive system will still be immature and these harsh cereals can make the problem worse. If the problem keeps coming back you should talk to your healthcare professional.
Diarrhoea
It's really important to seek medical advice as soon as possible if your baby has diarrhoea. You’ll most likely know it when you see it, but this will be very runny bowel motions.
The reason you need to be so careful is that baby can dehydrate quickly when they have diarrhoea, and they'll also be losing essential nutrients from the bowel. If you're breastfeeding, stick with it. You might need to feed your baby more often to replace some of that lost fluid.
Sleeping
With any luck your baby might be sleeping right through the night by now. They'll also need a morning and an afternoon sleep as well. If your baby is still waking at night, you can talk to your health professional for advice.
Bathing
There are a lot of fun times to be had here! Your baby will be able to sit in the bath and be much more interested in what’s going on. They may want to play a few games and have a good splash. The thing to remember is never leave them alone in the bath, if the phone rings or there’s someone at the door – let them wait. Your baby’s safety is much more important than rushing to answer it.