Dinner is an important meal not only to help your baby sleep well and stay awake less at night. The most important thing is to ensure the health and development of the baby. So what time is the best time for children to eat dinner, is it good for children to eat dinner late?
What time is the best time to offer dinner and advice from a dietitian
Whether your baby is just starting to eat solids or growing up, it is very important to develop a feeding schedule for your baby . This will help your baby form good habits. Mother is more active in activities and ensures the best and most comprehensive development for your baby.
For babies before 1 year old, the time schedule for solids is 2-3 meals / day. Meals must be separated from each other. With children from 1 year old and older, the number of meals increases to 3-4 meals / day. Particularly, because the dinner is before bedtime, many mothers wonder what time should the children eat dinner.
What time do children eat dinner so that they can sleep well, without affecting their health
Many mothers often think that feeding babies late at night will help their children not get hungry, sleep well, and stay awake at night to ask for milk. However, according to a nutritionist, all baby's meals should end before 7pm. After 19 hours, only breastfeed or formula milk.
There is practically no common timetable for all babies. Mother must base on the needs of the child to make suitable diet. But to ensure the principle when feeding children dinner is to be at least 2 hours from bedtime.
After feeding the baby, the mother should keep the baby awake and play so that the food can fully digest. If you feed your baby eggs, milk, or soft drinks, the digestive time will be longer.
Practice for your baby the habit of eating on time, do not let him eat dinner too late
The "dangers" when feeding late dinner babies
If the mother wonders whether to feed her baby at 9pm when the answer is NO. What time you give your child for dinner will depend on the needs of each family. But should not be fed too late because it will significantly affect the baby's health.
Esophagitis leads to a cough
Many children suffer from a chronic cough and cannot be found sick by the doctor. Until the doctor learns carefully, giving advice to many new parents "falling back" when knowing the cause is because the baby has a late dinner.
Feeding your baby too full, close to bedtime, whether it's rice, milk, flour or fruit, will prevent the stomach from digesting all the food. Along with that, when going to bed, the amount of gastric juice is secreted more, causing swelling, filling in the stomach, reflux into the esophagus, then leaking out of the throat and up into the larynx. This happens often and can cause esophagitis, leading to a cough.
Therefore, babies who often eat late at night will cough at night. Even during the day when playing, sleeping, resting. More dangerous if reflux into the nose will cause a prolonged rhinitis extremely uncomfortable and dangerous.
Make your baby not sleep well
Many mothers feed their children a lot at dinner, eat close to bedtime with the desire that their baby will sleep better. But in fact, this has the opposite effect. Feeding your baby full, eating late at night will increase the risk of bloating, making babies uncomfortable, not sleeping well.
Affect the later physical development
Eating at night regularly will become a difficult habit for your baby. When growing up, the baby will continue to eat solids, eat before going to bed, causing the baby to gain weight too quickly, uncontrollably, even leading to obesity later.
Children should eat dinner at least 2 hours before going to bed
Note when building a dinner schedule for your baby
It is not advisable to feed children a late night or snack at night. But if for reasons that require children to eat, they must eat according to their needs and not overfeed.
- When building a meal schedule, or feeding a baby, the mother needs to be flexible. Time between meals for children must be far apart, should not be too rigid. Mom needs to make sure your baby is full of food, enough energy for an active day and a night of sleep.
Do not overfeed your baby at dinner
- For children with anorexia, when starting the weaning phase, mothers should not divide too many small meals. If your baby eats too little, after each weaning meal you can feed your baby more. This helps digestive enzymes form a one-time "habit".
The above are answers to questions for what time to eat dinner. Mother please base on the above information to give your baby a reasonable, punctual meal! Read the next article to learn more information about diet, scientific activities for your baby.
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