Japanese snack menu for babies from 5-18 months old

The Japanese-style snack menu is a combination of different foods and suitable for each child's developmental stage. As a result, the child will eat well, digest well and fully absorb nutrients.

Currently, the Japanese-style weaning method is interested by many Vietnamese mothers because of its outstanding advantages in child care. With aFamilyToday Health, learn about the advantages of this method to make a snack menu for babies from 5-18 months old.

4 advantages of Japanese weaning method

The first advantage of this method is that the food preparation does not use a mill, but uses a grinder and a sieve to smooth the food, making it easy for the baby to swallow and feel the full flavor and properties of the food. At the same time, it helps mothers to easily adjust the liquid, thick, and coarse of the dish according to each child's development stage.

During the baby's practice of weaning, eating from liquid to solid, from smooth to rough, from a little to a lot ... helps the baby gradually learn good chewing and swallowing skills.

Taste stimulation: When you feed your baby each type of food separately, he or she can recognize the taste of each food.

Limiting overweight, obesity : The Japanese do not use bones and meat to cook broth to prepare baby food, but use dried fish and seaweed (foods with high calcium content, low fat) . This broth is called dashi. As a result, the child is healthy and not obese.

Japanese snack menu for babies from 5-18 months old

Depending on your baby's development, you choose the appropriate time to feed your baby. Usually at 5 - 6 months old, babies can sit with support. This is a good time to start weaning your baby.

Note that giving your child snacks on the Japanese snack menu doesn't mean you have to eat the same foods as Japanese. To match local food sources, you can use vegetables such as carrots, radishes, cabbage, spinach, pumpkin, chicken ... to make baby soup. Here are the menu for baby food through 4 main stages. As follows:

1. Japanese-style snack menu for babies 5 - 6 months old

This is the stage when your baby learns to wean, you should only feed your baby 1 meal / day, liquid and smooth food. The aim is for the baby to learn to get used to foods other than milk, and to practice swallowing food.

The amount of milk consumed by the baby in a day:

Breastfed babies: Breastfeed on demand.

Children drink formula milk: 6 meals a day, each meal ranges from 90 - 120ml.

Number of meals / day: 1 meal / day should be fed near noon (10 o'clock). The amount of food increases gradually: porridge 5 - 30g, vegetables 5 - 20g, protein 5 - 10g.

Note when cooking porridge for children 5 - 6 months old:

White porridge cooked according to the ratio of 1 rice: 10 water or 1 rice: 4.5 water. Note that this ratio is for rice cookers with porridge modes. If you cook in a regular pot, increase the amount of water accordingly.

You should not add salt to your baby's food, only give your baby fish with white meat such as snakehead fish, perch, red tilapia, mackerel, seabass ... to avoid allergies.

After the baby learns to eat solids about 1-2 weeks, the baby's meals must contain all three main food groups including: starch (rice, vermicelli, noodles, noodles), protein (meat, fish, beans ...), fiber (vegetables, roots, fruits).

Vegetables that your baby can eat in this period are: pumpkin, carrots, broccoli, potatoes, sweet potatoes, peas, choysum, spinach ... steamed / boiled, crushed, sifted. smooth. For babies 5-6 months old, you should only feed your baby white tofu, chicken, egg yolks (hard-boiled), white fish (snakehead fish, red tilapia, anabas) ... to avoid allergies. .

You can grated fruits such as avocado, banana, mango, papaya , watermelon , pear, apple ... for dessert.

Suggestions of snacks for babies from 5 - 6 months old:

2. Japanese-style snack menu for babies from 7-8 months

Many babies at this age can swallow mature foods and eat more coarse foods. You should cook the food soft, crushing it so that the baby can easily crush the food with the tongue and gums.

Milk quantity:

Breastfed babies: Breastfeed on demand.

Children drink formula milk: 4 meals / day (the amount of milk depends on the baby's needs).

Number of meals / day: 2 meals / day, morning - afternoon, increasing food intake: porridge: 40 - 70g, vegetables: 25g, protein: 10 - 15g.

Note when cooking porridge for babies 7-8 months: White porridge cooked according to the ratio of: 1 rice: 7 water or 1 rice: 3 water or feed your baby with vermicelli, vermicelli, noodles ...

In addition to the vegetables like in the menu for 5-6 months, you can add tomatoes, mushrooms, cabbage, vegetables, spinach, amaranth , spinach ... puree. Baby 7 - 8 months, you can feed your baby lean meat (pork, beef), red fish (anise), liver. You should feed your baby little by little to see if he has any food allergies.

For fruits, you should cut into long forms to practice baby holding and biting themselves. This helps children gradually learn how to adjust the fruit bite by themselves so that they can chew and swallow easily.

Suggest weaning menus for 7-8 months old

3. Japanese-style snack menu for babies from 9-11 months old

At 9-11 months of age, many babies begin to know how to bite, chew, crush food with their gums with their tongue. You can soften some vegetables, then chop them so that your baby can chew and swallow easily. From this stage onwards, you can season your baby's food.

Milk quantity:

Breastfed babies: Breastfeed on demand.

Children drink formula milk: 3 packs of milk (about 500 - 600ml).

Food amount: 3 meals / day (morning, lunch, dinner), amount of food / meal: 40 - 70g porridge, 15 - 20g protein (if tofu is needed 40 - 50g), vegetables 25 - 30g.

Note when preparing food for 9-11 months old:

Porridge cooked in the ratio of: 1 rice: 5 water or 1 rice: 2 water.

Vegetables and fruits are steamed / boiled, sliced ​​or mashed for babies to practice chewing.

Pork, chicken , beef, shrimp ... steamed, shredded, crushed. Cooked fish, crushed. In addition, you can cook the same meat / fish with your baby's porridge.

The fruits should be sliced ​​as long as the little finger for the baby to hold themselves. Particularly, grapes are peeled, split vertically, to avoid choking. Oranges, tangerines, and grapefruit peeled, removed, separated into small pieces.

Suggestions of weaning menu for babies 9-11 months:

4. Japanese snack menu for babies from 12-18 months old

At this age, babies have more teeth, so they can chew and swallow food easily. Baby food does not need to be cooked as soft as before. When your baby knows how to handle food properly, let him scoop the food with a spoon. This is to help your baby become more independent and able to eat by herself.

If you have weaned your baby (for breastfed babies), you need to give your baby 2 additional meals / day. For babies who drink formula milk, you should practice for babies to drink milk from a cup to easily clean the equipment and quickly know how to drink water and milk like an adult.

Food quantity: 3 meals / day (breakfast, lunch, dinner) with 2 snacks.

Broken rice: 80 - 90g

Protein: Fish, shrimp and crab: 15 - 18g, egg yolk: 2/3 fruit, pork, beef: 5 - 18g, tofu: 50g

Vegetables: 40 - 50g.

Note when preparing baby food:

Broken rice cooked according to the ratio of 1 rice: 2 water or 1 rice: 1 water.

For vegetables and fruits such as carrots, green beans, baby corn ... you should boil / steam and then cut the pieces for your baby to eat.

Meats such as chicken, pork, beef, shrimp, etc., cut thin pieces according to the horizontal grain and processed for easy biting. Children at this stage can eat shrimp (boiled / steamed, peeled to the whole), oysters.

Dessert fruit: Thai into long bars or small pieces for the baby to hold themselves.

Suggest a snack menu for 12-18 months

4 notes when preparing baby food according to the Japanese weaning method

You can use a spoonful of spoon to measure the amount of food for your baby, 1 teaspoon is equivalent to about 5g or 5ml of food.

Because the amount of disposable food for the baby is relatively small. Therefore, you should freeze dashi broth, chicken broth or vegetable broth by using an ice tray with a freezer lid to use it gradually.

The above ratio of rice and water to porridge is used with a rice cooker with a porridge mode. If you cook in a conventional pot, increase the amount of water accordingly. Let the rice soak 30 minutes - 1 hour before cooking to make the porridge soft quickly.

Porridge let cool, put in ice tray with lid to freeze to use gradually. Therefore, you should cook porridge a little more than you need to use to reduce consumption.

In the process of solids, you should pay attention to the baby's psychology. Create the most comfortable psychology for your children, choosing the foods that they like. In addition, you should also avoid forcing the child to eat, causing him to become afraid of eating. If you do so, you will create good eating habits for your child in the future.

In addition, please refer to the article " 6 important secrets about Japanese weaning method " to better understand this method of weaning.