Keeping track of your baby’s needs and when to give them can be a real challenge. Routines, such as naptimes, feeds, activities, outings, and bedtime routines, can be helpful for both you and your baby. It will help you adapt to your baby’s rhythm as you learn their cues. In addition to giving structure to your day, a routine will also teach your baby what to expect and when.
Before you deliver a baby, or if you are a new mom, you might face many difficulties dealing with newborn babies. Especially when it comes to baby food. Here in Life Blog, we have spoken to our pharmacists and mothers to gather as much information as you want to deal with your little ones’ routine.
How does your Baby Routine Work?
Well, as your world starts revolving around your baby, it would be easy to say that his/her routine will depend on food, amusement, and relaxation. A baby’s routine is simply about eating, playing, sleeping, and repeating. But as for the newborns, they are trained to sleep about 16 hours out of 24. And their feeding clock is set every 2-4 hours, so basically they sleep in brief spurts of roughly 2-3 hours between feeding.
What are baby essentials that you have to get?
1- Baby Routine for Food:
The baby food routine is divided into 4 stages in the first year. While they learn to focus their vision, explore, and learn about things. They, in parallel, have to obtain their essential nutritional food to grow up healthily and in good shape.
Here are the four stages of the baby food routine you have to follow:
From 0 to 4 Months:
To start with, during the first 4 months, infants need ONLY breast milk or formula milk to have their essential nutritional needs. You shouldn’t add anything to the bottle unless your pediatrician tells you otherwise.
Baby routine for food or newborn food should be given to the baby in 2-4 oz. amount at each feeding and the baby will usually be hungry in 2 to 4 hours.
| 0-4 Months Baby Food Routine | ||
| Portion | Size | Feedings per Day |
| Breast milk or formula milk | Breastfeeding or 1-2 ounces of milk formula | 8-12 |
From 4 to 6 Months:
Secondly, in this stage, your baby almost starts to show signs of readiness for solid food when he/she can hold the head up and sit straight. Also, when the baby shows gained weight and closes the mouth around the spoon.
Here, keep on the same baby food routine of breast milk or formula milk. Plus, feed him/her some pureed vegetables and fruits like Avocado, Banana, Apples, Pumpkin, and Carrots. In addition to that, you can offer your baby some semi-liquid cereals like oat cereal and AVOID rice cereal in this stage. Don’t forget to keep it simple with just a few teaspoons of the mentioned ingredients.
| 4-6 Months Baby Food Routine | ||
| Portion | Size | Feedings per Day |
| Breast milk or formula milk | Breastfeeding or 4-6 ounces of milk formula | 4-6 |
| Solid Food | One ingredient pureed | About 1 to 2 teaspoons |
From 6 to 8 Months:
Thirdly, your baby might show signs of reediness the same as in the previous stage (0-4 Months). Baby routine food in this stage is not as different as you can feed your baby breast milk or milk formula. Plus, pureed or strained fruits and vegetables, mashed chicken, beef, pork meat, yogurt (No cow’s milk until age 1), cereals, and small pieces of bread.
Life Pharmacy Pharmacists advise mothers to have
| 6-8 Months Baby Food Routine | ||
| Portion | Size | Feedings per Day |
| Breast milk or formula milk | Breastfeeding or 6-8 ounces of milk formula | 3-5 |
| Solid Food | Pureed, Strained, or smashed | – 2-3 increasing to 4-6 (fruits and vegetables) – 1-2 increasing to 2-4 (Protein food- grain products) |
From 8-12 Months:
Fourthly, you can start feeding your baby fruits mashed or cut into small cubes, a protein-rich food (tiny bits of meat, boneless fish, and kidney beans), bite-sized vegetables, and cereals like wheat cereal and rice cereal alongside breastfeeding and baby formula.
(We recommend Similac, Humana, or Novalac)
2- Baby Handling Routine
The urge to hold up your chubby ones or to kiss them is a strong emotion you can’t resist. But if you aren’t careful, you might end up risking injury to your baby’s bones and brains. Here are some tips to handle your new baby born.
Hold the baby up with utmost care
Your baby is not ready yet to be lifted up in an arbitrary way. You might risk causing an injury to the baby’s bones and joints. Because the bones are not completely formed yet. When you want to lift up the baby, it is better to support his neck and head like you are holding a ball. Put their back on your forearms and their head snuggled in the inside part of your arm where it bends. This way is considered one of the safest ways to hold a newborn. Position the baby so their stomach is turned toward yours to give the baby comfortable security, especially when you are sitting down.
Be Careful of Baby’s Head Soft Spots
Babies have two soft spots in their heads (Back and Top) because the skull is not completely fused together. And the spot in the back closes after a few months while the top might take two years to close. During playing with the baby, don’t press down these too spots too hard or let anything hit or fall on the baby’s head.
Wash your Hands (Sanitize) Before Touching the Baby
Babies don’t have a robust immune systems. They are vulnerable, and you risk making them sick and infected. Adding to that, doctors put a clamp on clumps of tissue that stay attached to your baby’s belly after the delivery. Keep this clamp clean or wash it with unscented soap and water. It will come off after two weeks or three weeks. If you find any redness or discharge around the stump, it could be infected and require immediate treatment.
To Conclude:
To clarify, being worried about handling a newborn is a common and normal thing. But to make it easier, the more you get used to it, the more you become comfortable handling the baby. We, at Life Pharmacy, always suggest mothers talk to their doctors about everything they are thinking about or if they have any concern regarding their babies, their health, and their baby routine
