Your baby has just entered its 4th month. If he still mainly drinks milk, he needs fewer bottles but which contain larger quantities! This age also marks for some the beginning of food diversification. How to pass this course smoothly? Advice from Christine Zalejski, expert in infant nutrition 0-6 years old.
Your baby is already 4 months old and the time has come to start to diversify your diet. It is now from 2nd age milk what he needs if you give him the bottle. Either way, you can start gradually introduce fruits and vegetables to introduce him to new flavors. What exactly can he eat and what do his meals consist of? Here is the advice of Christine Zalejski (Dr, Ph), expert in infant nutrition 0-6 years old and author of the mixed diversification guide with Céline De Sousa (Ed. Larousse).
How many meals per day for a 4 month old baby?
“If the child has to go to nursery or other, it may be necessary to “respect” schedules. Otherwise, “you have to let baby follow his own rhythm if it does not disturb the parents“, explains Christine Zalejski. Also, if your child is in a community, remember that four months = four meals a day! It is not imperative, but it is an average.
Baby meal schedule at 4 months
Each child has their own rhythm, but, on average, baby takes 4 milk meals, 5 sometimes at night and little by little solid food is added during the midday meal and then the snack.
How much milk at 4 months?
“Baby drinks the amounts he wants and needs“, underlines Christine Zalejski. Each baby has, indeed, its own needs, but on average, a 4-month-old baby drinks between 720 and 840 ml of milk divided into 4 or 5 bottles.
“On average, a 4-month-old baby drinks between 720 and 840 ml of milk divided into 4 or 5 bottles”.
“It is possible to start food diversification at the age of 4 months without forcing your child“, says Dr. Zalejski. Initially, you can first give the baby a bottle or breastfeed, then offer him a few spoonfuls of vegetable purée at lunch, or do it the other way around. set rules that are too rigid.It is above all a question of familiarizing him with new flavors and a new texture.
List of vegetables to taste for a baby from 4 months
For Christine Zalejski. no reason to wait to introduce baby to all types of vegetables. “You can offer many vegetables to baby except those can be white cabbage and red cabbage to limit at the very beginning“, she says. The first days, you can offer (non-exhaustive list):
- Carrots
- Pumpkin
- butternut
- Zucchini
- Extra fine green beans
- Spinach
- Pumpkin
- White leek
- Tomatoes
- chard
- Broccoli
- Parsnip
- turnips
List of fruits to give to a 4 month old baby
“You can offer your 4-month-old baby many fruits,” advises Dr. Zalejski. So, you can start with (non-exhaustive list):
- Apples
- Pears
- Bananas
- Apricots
- Khaki
- Melon
- Mirabelle plums
- Oranges
- watermelons
- Peaches
- Plum
Baby food chart at 4 months old
| Quantity | |
| Infant milk | Between 720 and 840 ml |
| Breastmilk | On demand |
| Fruits | 50 grams approximately in the form of compote |
| Vegetables | 50 grams approximately in the form of a smooth puree |
| Cereals | 1 tablespoon per 100 ml (optional) |
Should we start weaning babies at 4 months?
If you haven’t started food diversification yet, you can go about two weeks before the desired weaning date and go gradually by gradually replacing a feeding with a bottle of infant milk
In case baby is already diverse, there is no question of directly replacing a feeding with a solid meal right away. It is better to offer to eat with a spoon after a feeding, at each meal, going gradually. At snack time, breastfeeding can for example be replaced by infant milk or a dairy product.
Thanks to Christine Zalejski, (Dr, Ph) expert in infant nutrition 0-6 years old, author of the mixed diversification guide with Céline De Sousa (Ed. Larousse) and founder of the website www.cubesetpetitspois.fr.