Nutrition For Healthy Infants And Toddlers

Abstract

Feeding and eating are essential to life. As the infant grows into a toddler, the child goes through transitions with feeding, starting with breast milk or formula, transitioning to complementary feeding between the ages of 4 and 6 months, and then advancing to table foods. It is important to provide adequate nutrition to meet the growing needs of the child from a macronutrient and micronutrient standpoint through infancy to childhood. Throughout this time, anthropometric measurements are obtained to assess proper growth. Feeding is a dynamic part of a child’s life that varies at each stage of childhood, which comes with challenges such as avoiding choking hazards, preventing potential food allergies, providing a varied diet to meet macronutrient and micronutrient needs, and supporting advancement in textures for appropriate development of feeding skills and avoiding issues with picky eating. Providing proper nutrition from quality, quantity, and texture standpoints at each stage of childhood is essential to ensure adequate nutrition to promote healthy and expected growth and development. This review contains 4 figures, 10 tables and 43 references Key words: breast milk, complementary feeding, food, food safety, formula, growth, infant, micronutrients, neophobia, nutrition, oral health, physical activity, toddler