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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Eight months and beyond: a few things to expect
Here’s a guide of some of the things you can expect from eight months onwards.
Development
Your baby’s personality will be showing more, and their fine motor skills will be progressing. You can expect them to have better hand and eye co-ordination around this age, play actively and understand things like how their toys relate to one another. They’ll probably be able to clap grasp things fairly well and may be interested in feeding themselves!
Growth
They’re getting bigger every day. Don’t be surprised to see your baby gain something like 100g per week. During the first year of life, they'll grow quickly. Their appetite might fluctuate, which is normal, but your baby should never go too long without food. From time to time there'll be 'growth spurts' and you might notice a change in the amount they eat around then.
Appetite
It’s a good idea to get into some routine with food. In the early days it's better to give milk feeds when they're hungry rather than sticking to a strict time, but the ultimate goal is to get baby to feed at regular times during the day. Also try to have them on 3 solid meals a day by about 7 months old.
Changing foods
Once your baby is happy taking solids from a spoon you should progress them on to more lumpy food. This is essential for babies to learn how to chew and develop their jaw muscles. By this age you can start offering finger foods. Some babies might be ready as early as six months. This is a great way of giving them more independence at mealtimes and letting them try even more interesting textures. They still might not have a lot of teeth, but they’ll chew well with their gums!
Constipation
From time to time your baby may suffer with constipation. There can be a number of causes - a common one is not enough fluids, and it's less likely to happen with breastfed babies. You will know if your baby is constipated, as their poos will be small and hard - like pellets.
Things that might help :
Offer your baby extra water during the day. If that doesn't work, try a little fruit juice and water (1 tablespoon of juice to 50ml of water) once or twice a day, or you can give them brown sugar and water (1 tsp to 50ml of water) once or twice a day. Avoid giving your baby bran cereals as their digestive system will still be immature and these harsh cereals can make the problem worse. Once their bowel motions become softer you can stop the juice or brown sugar. Remember that those methods are treatment, not a preventive measure so 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.
Bottle fed babies over six months might be able to have an electrolyte solution for 24 hours, but your health professional will discuss it with you. Be careful with hygiene practices to avoid spreading the infection to other family members.
Sleeping
Hopefully your little one should be sleeping right through the wee hours now – that means some much needed rest and relaxation for you. They’ll still have morning and afternoon naps during the day too. If you are still having problems with night sleeps, you can talk to your health professional for advice.
Bathing
There are a lot of fun times to be had here! 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.
Crawling
At eight months it is normal for your baby to be crawling, or learning to crawl. Once they’re mobile it’s time to be extra careful - they can get about on their own and they’re curious! If you haven’t baby proofed your home yet that’s something on the top of your ‘to do’ list.
Pulling up to stand
It’s likely your little one will pull his or her self up to a standing position, using furniture as support. They might even cruise from one piece of furniture to another – that means they’re well on their way to those first baby steps!