Weaning Babies on Solid Meals

The impatient and forceful attitude of many nursing Nigerian mothers in weaning their babies on solid foods has been a source of concern for health experts, writes Rebecca Ejifoma

For mothers, breastfeeding follows swiftly immediately after child birth. This task requires no special skills. And, observations show it is the simplest and sweetest part for nursing mothers. Truly, health experts maintained that breast or infant formula milk is the exclusive and only meal for babies in the first six months of their lives.

After six months - to help the baby stronger and healthier - according to the UNICEF the baby becomes used to the taste and sweetness of the milk. This makes it reject virtually other meals.

While a handful of nursing mothers have complained profusely of weaning their babies with other daily meals prepared in the family these experts and gynecologists have urged that weaning is a gradual process.

However, observations have shown that in Nigeria, most babies are fed with pap (popularly known as akamu) or other cereal blended with powdered formula or breast milk for their ages. Sometimes, pap is mixed with powdered soya bean, crayfish or boiled Titus fish splattered in bits.

While some babies easily eat solids without shedding tears, others simply whimper and struggle for justice.

For Mrs. Anthonia Uchegbu at Ago Palace, Lagos State, it is always war to feed her babies. “I feed her the best way I know how to. I do same with my sister’s twin babies,” she explained.

As a working class mother of three, she says because she has no one to take care of her little baby, she uses the old style. “I cover slightly one of the nostrils. This way she will cry out. When she does she will open her mouth then I pour a spoonful of pap inside. After that I release the nostril. Before you know it, she has finished eating.”

When asked if such deranged method would not harm the child, Uchegbu added that it still works fine. “Crying will not harm them. Our parents did it to us, too. Rather, if you leave them without food, something bad may happen.”

Because Mrs. Uchegbu wanted to teach this reporter how to do it, she demonstrated it clearer. “Hold your baby’s two hands across each other, firmly. Envelop one of the baby’s legs in between your own legs. Even at the public healthcare centre, we were told to force the babies if they refused to eat solid meals,” she said. Even though this result achieves the purpose of forcing food into the child, health experts have condemned such act of feeding outrightly, saying it was barbaric. In the words of Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist, Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals, England, Professor Rotimi Jaiyesimi, it is outrageous. “That a nurse or a healthcare worker would advice nursing mothers to force their children to eat that way, doesn’t make it right. Although while growing up in Nigeria, I saw where mothers turned their babies’ heads and gushed food into their mouths,” he explained.

According to him, it was a thing of the past, and no one should practice it. “If that child refuses to eat, check it, something may be wrong with the child. Maybe the child is sick or anemic, or generally, the child does not like the food.”

Meanwhile, when THISDAY visited Omni Medical Centre and Advanced Fertility, Lagos, the Head of Nursing Department, Mrs. Eyisogie Helen, said: “It is stale. It is not healthy. It is very barbaric.” She rather said there were many ways to make a baby eat, and that it may also depend on what the mother prepared for the child.

How to make babies eat solid meals

According to her, some ways of making babies eat include entertaining them, stressing that when one sings, dance or do other things that make them laugh, then the baby might just lighten up and eat.

“They are babies. You don’t need to force them. Just give them the right meal.” She emphasised that the child needs carbohydrate foods for energy; protein, fats and oil, fruits and vegetables, and of course water, but must be given in a friendly and gradual manner.

Such Carbohydrate foods include: rice, yam, corn, millet and cereal.

Proteins are beans, fish, egg, milk, crayfish (very affordable), meat and soya beans. Fats and oil, red oil (good for sight), vegetable oil.

Fruits and vegetable: These are the ones the babies can easily eat and digest without stress. Banana, orange, watermelon, pawpaw, strawberries and grape (little wine sold alongside apples), tomatoes. They can take these by themselves without any help. How to prepare meals for babies to eat Eyisogie, who is also in charge of nursing mothers and pregnant women at Omni, explained that these home-made meals should be well cooked and matched to complete paste.

“For example, after preparing yam, mothers should match it to complete paste, pour a little oil in it, and then sprinkle just a pinch of salt. Other meals should be prepared very fluffy, too. “Babies are meant to eat very soft home-made meals. Because these babies, even after six months, do not have teeth. The only meals they can eat are what can be swallowed smoothly.” Speaking on the attitude of some nursing mothers, Eyisogie decried, “They don’t have patience with babies. They just want to throw all the food into the child’s mouth - forgetting their gullets are still tiny. Little babies eat slowly with fun in front of them.”

Meanwhile, President Nutrition Society of Nigeria and Professor of Community and Public Health Nutrition, Professor Ngozi Nnam, maintained that babies eat more when their meal is colourful. “Babies are different in nature. But the common thing that can attract their attention to eat is when you make the food very playful.”

She told THISDAY that babies’ meals could include fruits like boiled carrot sliced into tiny pieces, green beans, tomatoes among other colourful fruits. “Nursing mothers should boil these fruits very well for easy consumption. They should slice them into cubic or tiny pieces.” She added: “Babies begin to point at the food you dish them. The colours call their eyes. Just be patient.” Nnam, who is also the Dean, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Nigeria, said, babies eat without stress when their meals were colourful and playful.

“You don’t get serious with babies. They are not adults. These colourful meals attract their eyes and captivate their attention. That way they get curious and begin to point the meal for their delight.”

The fact that most children in those days were forcefully fed does not make it right ...babies don’t need to be forced to eat. If a child refuses to eat, check it, something may be wrong with the child. Maybe the child is sick or anemic, or generally, something is wrong