If your baby is six months old or he/she is about to reach that age, your pediatrician will advise you to start introducing complementary feeding. Without forgetting that at this age the milk is still the basis of the feeding of the baby, the truth is that it is the moment that the WHO has stipulated for the little one to begin to try other foods.
At this point, you can join the Baby Led Weaning (BLW) stream, which consists of offering uncrushed food or giving it purées for lunch and porridge for breakfast. If your choice is the latter, the medical advice is to start with cereals, as they are the basis of a balanced diet. They are the fuel of the body, as their greatest contribution is energy, carbohydrates, minerals and fiber.
Of all the cereals that exist, the first to be offered to the little one are those that do not have gluten, because an early introduction of gluten in the infant diet can lead to problems of intolerance or even celiac disease. We don’t want to miss the opportunity to tell you that a few years ago, pediatricians used to recommend parents not to give their children cereals with gluten until they were 8 or 9 months old. However, now the medical prescription has shortened the deadline to 7 months.
But until this time comes, you can give your baby gluten-free cereal porridge. And in this sense, the most popular are corn and rice. Especially rice, for the countless properties it has and its benefits on the body from the earliest childhood. Do you want to discover them?
Properties of rice
Normally, rice is the perfect cereal to start a child’s complementary feeding.
First of all, because they like it a lot, it is also easy to prepare and very versatile. But above all, because of its important health benefits. And especially the babies.
Any time is a good time for your child to enjoy delicious rice pudding, but if we were to advise you on a meal of the day, that would certainly be breakfast. The reason for this is that rice’s main contribution to the body is energy. Besides, they also contain a high percentage of iron, which helps to avoid anemia.
Rice is rich in vitamin A, which prevents eye disease, strengthens the immune system, which is essential in the early stages of life, and has anti-cancer properties.
The digestive system of babies matures over time, so the first foods they eat should be especially digestive, such as rice.
Also it is important for the child to have a source of fiber, which will help the little one to do the digestion and will contribute to the enjoyment of intestinal regularity.
And if that were not enough, this cereal contains a lot of protein, which helps the development of muscles, which is very important at this time that is in full process of development.
As well as more than 15 vitamins and minerals. Besides, it does not contain cholesterol, and that helps to maintain a healthy weight in children. When your child begins to eat porridge, you will notice that he or she is much more satiated after each feeding, but you can rest assured that he or she will be gaining weight healthily.
This is why it is essential to choose a porridge that does not contain additional sugars, as is the case of the Nutribén Rice Cream, an instant and very soft porridge made with rice flour from an innovative natural system in which no chemical process intervenes: Thermal hydrolysis. This ensures that baby foods dissolve very well and thicken properly, so that there is no need to add anything, avoiding the baby’s overfeeding and, consequently, possible overweight problems.