Zucchini for the first feeding: how to cook and how to give the child?

Any young mother sooner or later wonders how to start feeding. Doctors often follow certain rules.

• With a poor weight gain, the food begins with cereals.
• If the baby is gaining weight well, it is recommended to start feeding with vegetables.

Zucchini is the most common vegetable that starts your baby’s acquaintance with vegetables.

Zucchini in the form of the first foods very well proved:

• due to the fact that zucchini is a hypoallergenic product, you can start feeding with it even for allergic children;
• this vegetable improves intestinal motility, therefore, for children suffering from systematic constipation, this vegetable will be a good helper;
• It is perfectly absorbed by a small organism thanks to pectin.

The composition of the zucchini amazes with a variety of useful substances. It contains all the necessary substances for a growing body:

• vitamin A;
• vitamin b1;
• vitamin B2;
• vitamin b5;
• vitamin b6;
• vitamin B9;
• vitamin C;
• vitamin E;
• vitamin H;
• vitamin PP;
• potassium;
• calcium;
• magnesium;
• phosphorus;
• iron.

There are also a few negative points in the use of zucchini in food. For example, in case of diarrhea, the use of this vegetable is not recommended, as it only strengthens its negative symptoms that dehydrate the child’s body, which is extremely dangerous.

Rare cases of allergy can be triggered by zucchini in children with allergic rhinitis caused by ragweed pollen and wormwood.

If mother decided to make mashed zucchini with her own hands, then she should know that not all zucchini will be suitable for this dish.

For baby food, you should choose only young specimens, in which there are practically no seeds. They can be bought in the store, supermarket, and you can grow on your own site. The latter will be the best solution for the mother, who advocates a healthy diet, because she knows for sure how her zucchini was grown, in what soil and what they were fed.

Of course, buying vegetable jars for food is easiest. They are sealed, stored for a long time at room temperature, and the manufacturer guarantees product quality. But if the parents decide to start feeding with home-made puree, then this is undoubtedly the right decision, because the child will receive vitamins without the possibility of poisoning with various chemicals that are used in growing this culture.

Before preparing the first complementary foods, you should familiarize yourself with a number of instructions that every mother needs to know:

• use, if possible, only farm products;
• buy vegetables in season to eliminate the possibility of chemicals in the dishes;
• for prikorma use only young vegetables;
• there should be no seeds in squash;
• if the seeds are still present, then when cleaning the vegetable you need to remove them, leaving only the flesh of the zucchini;
• Part of the home-grown zucchini should be left to freeze to provide the baby with vitamins in the winter;
• In order to keep the maximum number of vitamins in zucchini, it is necessary to follow all instructions for preparing complementary foods.

For one portion of puree you will need 1 young squash of small size. The age of a zucchini can be determined by piercing its skin with a fingernail. If this does not work, then the zucchini should not be used in the nutrition of the baby, as the vegetable is overripe.

To make the first puree, the kid needs to wash the vegetable and peel it. Cutting it into 1 cm thick mugs, you need to shift them into a saucepan, add water and put on the stove. Cook zucchini need no more than 10 minutes. So you keep in it most of the vitamins. After cooking using a blender turn the zucchini pieces into a homogeneous mass.

When cooking zucchini do not salt and do not add spices.

Since zucchini has a rather neutral taste, in most cases it is well perceived, and children eat it with pleasure.

Cooking a vegetable can be replaced by cooking it in a double boiler or a slow cooker. In this case, zucchini preserved more vitamins. It is recommended to treat the vegetable with steam for no more than 10 minutes, after which the zucchini is mashed, and when it cools, it is offered to the child. After the kid has tried all the vegetables, you can cook the mixes of vegetables in the same way, without adding salt and spices.

Many mothers are faced with such a problem that the child does not want to eat, and begin to mash potatoes. In fact, the child’s taste has not yet been spoiled, and the best thing you can do for a baby is to add breast milk to puree. Thus, the taste of the dish will become familiar to the child, and he will gladly eat the proposed product. In addition, salt retains water in the body, which is absolutely not necessary for the growing body.

Every mother should understand that the purpose of complementary foods is not to feed the child, but to acquaint his body with new products and prepare the digestive system for consuming adult food. Some, in turn, misinform young parents about the meaninglessness of eating squash children of infancy, arguing that it is low in calories.

But the young mother is simply obliged to recognize the fact that if she starts feeding her child with boiled potatoes, the reaction of his body can be completely unpredictable. Zucchini as a vegetable is sufficiently adapted for the unformed gastrointestinal tract. It is true that the product does not satisfy the baby, so after eating vegetable puree, you should offer the baby breast milk or a mixture to saturate his body with the required portion of calories.

The introduction of vegetable foods depends on what kind of food the child is on. If he is breastfed, the supplement is administered at 6 months. If the baby is bottle-fed and eats the adapted mixtures, then it is recommended to start feeding with 4 months.

Each mother decides for herself what kind of food she will feed the baby. Fortunately, now there is a choice - buy canned mashed potatoes in a supermarket or cook it yourself. The principle of introducing a new dish into the diet of both purchased and cooked at home is the same. Begin with 1 tsp of zucchini puree in front of milk 1 time per day. In the following days, with normal tolerability of the product, its dose is increased every day by 1 teaspoon, bringing to 7 teaspoons in a week using zucchini. If a negative reaction of the body to this hypoallergenic product does not occur, then begin to enter the next product.

The following signs indicate a baby's willingness to complementary foods:

• on the proposal to try a new product the child does not turn away;
• he is trying to reach the plate;
• may sit for a long time and eat the proposed food;
• after drinking the milk, the child remains hungry.

There are also some more tips on introducing complementary foods to the baby’s diet.

• Feed the baby should be before the dairy food, otherwise, after eating milk, he will not want to eat anymore.
• Starting lure is allowed if the child feels good, and all the signs that he is ready to try a new product are present at the moment.
• At the beginning of prikorma mashed potatoes should be one-component.
• Do not add any more vegetables until he has eaten all seven spoons at a time.
• In no case can not force a child. If he does not eat, then it is worth trying another time.
• If there are any changes in the color of the chair, but the child feels good, then you should not focus on this particular attention.Thus, the adaptation of the gastrointestinal tract to a new product.
• If any reactions occur, it is recommended to complete the introduction of complementary foods, and contact your pediatrician.

If mashed zucchini is purchased at the store, then the storage of the open product is written on the package. Most often it is recommended to store the open puree no more than 24 hours in the refrigerator. The shelf life of closed cans varies from 12 to 24 months.

If mashed potatoes are cooked on their own, then it must be prepared for each meal. Some mothers keep their own home-made mashed potatoes in the fridge for 24 hours. When the vegetable is just introduced, it is recommended to feed the child only with freshly prepared mashed potatoes in order to avoid the appearance of a negative reaction to the stale product.

But also zucchini, like homemade puree, can be frozen in the freezer. To freeze you need to send only young vegetables. Their age can be determined by their small size and thin, shiny and smooth skin.

To prepare zucchini, it is necessary to wash them, peel and cut them into 2 to 2 cm cubes. Then zucchini is blanched in boiling water for no more than 5 minutes in order to avoid boiling down and loss of vitamins. After drying, they are laid out on a board, so that each piece does not touch the next one, and is sent to the freezer for 6 hours. Later, the frozen cubes are laid out in batches, so that in one package there is a standard portion that a child eats for lunch.

Packages are placed in a freezer in the freezer and take out a portion as needed.

Some mothers prefer to cook baby food exclusively themselves. So they know exactly what it is prepared from, and the possibility of poisoning is completely excluded.

Freezing such mashed potatoes is the best way to keep them intact.

For cooking you will need young zucchini, which is washed, peeled, cut into cubes and blanched for 10 minutes in boiling water.

Then using a blender zucchini turn into a puree, laid out in containers for freezing the product. As soon as the mashed potatoes freeze, the blanks are laid out in batches and get them as needed.

Storing mashed zucchini in the freezer allows you to feed your child with fresh food each time, which can be stored in freezing conditions for quite a long time.

Fresh vegetables are also frozen. To do this, they are washed, peeled, cut into cubes or circles, lay out the pieces on a baking sheet covered with polyethylene, and sent to freeze. After 4-6 hours, frozen vegetables are laid out in portions in small containers and removed for storage in the freezer.

Defrosting such a billet, you can make an excellent mashed potatoes with the preservation of all the nutrients.

Fresh whole vegetable marrows for feeding can be stored in the refrigerator. There their shelf life reaches 3 months. In the apartment storage of zucchini is provided in the coolest and darkest place.

It is more and more common to hear from moms that store food for infants does not meet their requirements, and which is much more beneficial for the child to make homemade mashed potatoes. Indeed, there is some truth in these statements. After all, parents do not know on what soil the vegetables were grown, what feedings were introduced into the soil, and what chemical means were used to process mature vegetables. Also, parents can not know which vegetables were specifically used for mashed potatoes - young or mature.In some products of low price category, in addition to water and vegetables, you can notice other components, which contradicts the recommendations of doctors.

By the way, Doctors also do not recommend starting supplements with purchased mashed potatoes, but give preference to cooking at home.

But it is impossible to disprove the fact that purchased mashed potatoes simplify the life of young mothers, who in the first year of their child’s life are very tired of constant worries about it. Therefore, ready squash and vegetable purees, of course, simplify the process of introducing complementary foods.

How to cook zucchini for the first feeding of the child, see the following video.