Recently, the temperature has been soaring, and it has been torturing for both adults and babies. The baby’s appetite is getting worse and worse, and mothers are crazy, worried that the baby’s nutrition can’t keep up with the need of growth and development.
Why does baby anorexia in summer?
1. Hot weather affects appetite
The temperature in summer is high, the human body needs to dissipate heat through perspiration to maintain normal body temperature. If the body loses too much water, it will naturally drink more water. After drinking water, the acidity of gastric juice will decrease directly, which will also lead to the weakening of digestive function and loss of appetite.
2. Unreasonable catering arrangements
In hot summer, when the baby is thirsty, parents will make juice or drink to quench the baby’s thirst.
Fruit juice has good taste. Babies generally like to drink it. It’s easy to drink too much, and fruit juice drinks contain a lot of sugar. Babies will feel full after drinking, thus affecting normal meals.
3. Bad dining environment
It’s hot in the summer. Eating in a sultry environment can make people feel restless, let alone concentrate on eating in this situation.
However, the baby is in the growth stage, is in need of supplementary nutrition, in summer, how can the baby eat to reduce the burden of the intestines and stomach, so that the baby can spend the summer safely?
1. Drink more water and less cold drinks
In summer, water loss is relatively fast. Sodium, potassium and other minerals will be discharged with sweat, so babies should drink more soup in summer.
Encourage your baby to drink more boiled water. Don’t wait for thirst to remember to drink water. A large amount of water intake at one time will desalinate gastric acid, which is not conducive to the digestion of food and sterilization. Water replenishment should be small and repeated. Babies should not drink more beverages, otherwise, they are prone to gastroenteritis, indigestion and anorexia.
Fruit juice tastes good. If the baby drinks too much fruit juice, it will inevitably affect his main meal intake, make their nutritional status unbalanced, resulting in malnutrition.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends:
Don’t let babies under 6 months old drink juice.
Six months later, the baby can drink a small amount of fruit juice, but for babies over six months, the nutrition of fruit juice is far less than the real fruit.
Don’t let your baby drink juice before going to bed, and don’t use juice as a supplement for dehydration and diarrhea.
For children aged 1 to 6, the daily consumption of fruit juice should be limited to 120-180 ml according to age.
The above is for fresh fruit juice, for commercial drinks, stricter control is needed.
2. Protein should be adequate
Babies’ physical development is fast, their amount of activity is relatively large, consumption is large, but sleep time is less, so we need to ensure adequate intake of nutrients in order to meet the needs of children’s growth and development. An adequate supply of protein is essential.
In the high-temperature environment, the loss of protein becomes larger and the decomposition of protein becomes faster, so the situation of inadequate protein intake is prone to occur in summer. Milk, eggs, soy products and meat are rich in protein, and also contain more zinc and calcium, should be moderate daily with food.
Mothers must pay attention to guaranteeing their babies a cup of milk, an egg, soy products or soy porridge every day, and often let babies eat lean meat and fish to supplement iron.
3. Eat less greasy food
Eating greasy food in summer will increase the burden of the stomach and intestines. Food should be as light as possible.
In addition, babies can eat more fresh vegetables and fruits, fresh vegetables and fruits contain more micronutrients, some can also help open the babies’ “appetite” and is helpful for babies to spend the summer safely.
For example, tomatoes can strengthen the stomach, quench thirst, cool blood, clear heat and detoxify, and its bright color, sour and sweet taste is very helpful to promote babies’ appetite. Cucumber is refreshing and crisp in taste. It contains a variety of carbohydrates, amino acids and vitamins. It can provide abundant nutrients for skin and muscle. It is also a good summer vegetable for babies.
4. Diversification of staple foods
If the baby is tired of rice and pasta, the mother can make soup and porridge for the baby with all kinds of coarse grains such as oats, millet and beans, or steam sweet potatoes, yams, potatoes and pumpkins, which can not only attract the baby’s interest in eating, but also supplement vitamins and dietary fiber and other nutrients.
5. Keep food fresh and clean
Food is particularly perishable in summer, so it’s best to buy it before cook it. Only in this way can we better protect the baby’s gastrointestinal health.
Remind mothers:
First, choose foods with high freshness.
Second, refrigerators are not safe boxes. If food is stored for too long, it is also easy to deteriorate.
Cooked food stored in the refrigerator should not exceed 2 days. When it is taken out for a baby to eat, it should be heated.
Drinks, fruits and yogurt should not be eaten immediately when they are taken out of the refrigerator. They should be kept at room temperature for 20 minutes before they are eaten.
The surface of vegetables and fruits may contain pesticides. They should be cleaned thoroughly before cooking and shouldn’t store indoors for a long time.
When cooking, raw and cooked foods should be treated separately. Cookers, knives, cutting boards and rags should be cleaned.
In addition, the baby’s digestive capacity is not strong, so the three meals must be at a regular time and quantitative. Don’t let babies eat too full in order to avoid increasing the burden of the intestines and stomach.