Among the many concerns and questions that arise when you become a parent is how much food to give your child. Is baby eating enough?
What follows in this article will certainly reassure you. Your baby has a wonderful ability calledself-regulation. This is your child's ability to eat what he or she needs by regulating the amount taken in. A study has shown that the lower the caloric density, the greater the quantity ingested. This skill is present especially in the first year but unfortunately fades gradually with time.
Before diversification, breastfeeding will be on demand and/or the quantities of infant milk will follow the recommendations of the child's doctor. It is important to let your child feel confident in his or her relationship with food and to let him or her adjust his or her intake according to his or her feelings. This is one of the principles of child-led diversification (or DME or self-diversification). At all times, it is necessary tobe attentive to recognise the signs of hunger and satiety, and let baby's self-regulation do the rest.
Listen to baby's signals...
Hunger cues may include: crying, excited arm and leg movements, mouth opening as the bottle or spoon approaches, pointing at food. Signals of fullness may include falling asleep on the bottle or at mealtime, slowing down or stopping feeding, spitting out the teat or spoon or closing the mouth, being distracted, turning the head... Crying is not always a signal of hunger; it is advisable to look for other possible causes when your child cries.
Feeling of satiety
Babies are born with an authentic sense of satiety, which means that it is not influenced by their environment or previous experiences. It is therefore essential to preserve this innate and natural ability. Respecting baby's feeling of satiety allows him to be in tune with his body and his nutritional needs. This will be beneficial in his adult life by limiting the occurrence of certain pathologies or eating disorders! The parents' essential role will be to ensure the quality and frequency of the food offered. In short, parents are responsible for the "What, When and Where" and the child for "What and How much". Everyone has a job to do when it comes to food!
It should be noted, however, that this article is aimed at children without any pathology. To ensure that baby is consuming the right amounts, weight, height and head circumference must be monitored regularly and the transfer of these measurements to the curves in the health record enables the child's development to be controlled.
As you will have understood, it is essential to respect the child's appetite and as such, we should never force him to eat! The opposite is also true, we should never prevent a child from eating (healthy food)! You have to accept that quantities can vary from day to day and from meal to meal. It's just like us adults, some days we are very hungry and others less so! Isn't that so?
Dietician - Nutritionist specialising in paediatrics
Sources :
Sources :
CHOZEN BAYS Jan. Mindful eating. Les Arènes. 336 pages
TALBOT, BERGEVIN, RICHARD. Small hands, big plate. Editions La Semaine. 234 pages
Relationship between portion size and energy intake among infants and toddlers: evidence of self-regulation. J Am Diet Assoc. 2006