Many parents care about the proper nutrition of children, including the mode of eating. Some children eat poorly and are difficult to feed, while others, on the contrary, may not experience food restrictions. In this regard, you need to take seriously to the diet of the child, as well as to adopt some rules for feeding the baby, which should be adhered to.
The term "diet" means not only the time intervals between meals or specific hours of nutrition, but also the number of meals, and the correct distribution of the daily ration for calories.
The most rational is 4 meals a day. This is due to the fact that the digestive tract experiences a uniform load, then processing food with digestive enzymes is the most complete. And, of course, eating at certain hours helps to develop a conditioned reflex, which consists in the active allocation of digestive juices to a specific time.
With age, the child develops a chewing apparatus, and the taste perception also increases. By the end of the 1st year of life, the baby already swallows, and chews the food well enough. This makes it possible to diversify the diet of a child and gradually bring it closer to the composition and taste and type of that for adults. Note that the transition from breastfeeding to adult nutrition should be gradual. The nutrition of the child must be balanced, differentiated and appropriate to age. Toddlers under the age of 1.5 years should be fed 5 times a day, and after 1.5 years - 4 times a day. The volume of food should correspond to the volume of the stomach.
It is determined that the time intervals between meals for babies should be at least 4 hours. This scheme of feeding is optimal, so in 4 hours the child's stomach digests and is released from food. The daily diet should be properly distributed. Take note that in the first half of the day it is better to give beans, fish and meat dishes, for dinner it is recommended to serve cottage cheese and vegetable dishes. In the daily diet of children should be two dishes of vegetables and one - porridge. Until a year and a half, babies are fed puree dishes, and with age they begin to serve garnishes and meat in the form of small pieces.
Children of 1-3 years of age have the following diets: breakfast - 1/3 of the daily energy value; lunch - 1/3; afternoon snack - 1/5, dinner - 1/5. Breakfast is recommended at 8.00 in the morning, lunch at 12.00, lunch at 4 pm, dinner at 20.00.
It is very important that children eat at least 4 times a day a varied, full-fledged food. A meal should be every day at the same time. In case of deviation from the diet, the time should not be shorter than 15-30 minutes. And this is important, since with observance of certain intervals between meals constantly, the child has an appetite for a specific time, there is a feeling of hunger, digestive enzymes develop.
It is not recommended to give the children sweets between breakfast and lunch, for example. Leave a delicious little snack for example, cookies, dessert. If the kid ate poorly at lunch or breakfast, the baby, parents need to show will, and for the benefit of the child to remove all the food from the table and not give him a snack before the next main meal. Such a short starvation will bring up in the child a culture of eating and eating at the table.
If the diet of children is selected correctly, they eat with great appetite, eating the whole portion and getting used to the volumes of food, which allows them to gain weight, grow and develop. With improperly selected diet or complete absence of food, children, as a rule, poorly gain weight, can sharply lose weight, which is due to problems of digestibility of food. And coercion of the baby is more, can lead to overeating, and then to obesity, which will lead to serious health problems. Remember that a child who has been accustomed to eating tasty, useful, varied food at a certain time even before the age of one has the right biological clock in the body, which only has a favorable effect on his development.