Babies six to 12 months of age, there are a couple of nutrients that's especially important for them. And these include calories, iron, vitamin A, and fats. So the first one is energy needs. from six to eight months baby needs about 200 extra calories from food alone. And from nine to 11 months they need about 300 extra calories from one to two years old. They need about 550 extra calories per day to meet their needs.

This graph shows you the calorie needs for babies. based on age a baby girl has much less needs than a baby boy. Usually, their calorie needs isn't a lot. You can see that even at one year old their calorie needs per day is less than 1000 and General and Adam need somewhere between 1800 to 2200 calories a day. So when you think of the portion size, it's really important to keep this in mind. Because even a quarter to half of our portions will be able to meet our babies.

Baby also need to meet their own needs starting from six months there are needs from seven to 12 months is 11 milligrams per day. That is the same I need as an adult man. That is quite a lot considering their body size and their stomach size. We really want to make sure that their needs are being met because during this period, their growth and development is the fastest and that's why they need the most iron. So how to make sure that we're meeting babies are in need starting from six months. One we want to be introducing iron rich foods soon as we start solid There are two types of iron in the diet.

There is the heme iron and then there's the non heme iron. heme iron is generally found in meat and fish. They're well absorbed by a body that have 15 to 25% absorption rate versus the non heme iron, which is poorly absorbed by our body and only has three to 16% of absorption rate. So non heme iron is found in things like the fortified babies cereal, beans and lentils, tofu more of the plant source of more of the plant sources of iron vegetarian needs about twice as much iron as people who are eating meat. So it's fairly hard for babies to meet their own needs through a vegetarian diet, especially during the first year of life. So if you are a vegetarian in your family Some people would consider offering meats during this time to help baby meet the needs.

Iron deficiency is the most common nutrition deficiency in the world. Iron is needed for their brain development, delivering oxygen to their bodies so that they have energy and can fight off infections. iron supplements can be toxic to children, especially young infants, so we don't recommend starting or using any iron supplements unnecessary or recommended by Doctor some tips to help meet baby's needs. Number one, offer iron rich foods at every meal. When you're offering foods that are high end heme iron, like meat and fish, you don't really need to worry about vitamin C because they are generally well absorb acidic, but when you're offering plant based sources of iron, like the beans and lentils and tofu The dark green leafy vegetables, the fortified baby cereal, you want to be offering it with a source of vitamin C to help with the absorption. So a lot of fruits and vegetable have some vitamin C in them.

But in particular berries, tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, oranges, and also if you add any meat or animal protein in the same meal that can also help absorb the non heme iron. Another way that you can increase iron intake in the diet is to cook food in a cast iron pan. And because it's so hard to meet baby's our needs on a vegetarian diet, it would be wise to have his iron levels checked at one year old fats. Fats are needed in the first year of life for brain development, fission heart, immune system, and central fats are really important for baby's brain World, their brain grows to about 80% of an adult brain size in the first three years of life. So we want to make sure that they're getting plenty of the healthy fats at this stage are different types of omega three fats. One we call the Al a.

And then the other one we call the EPA or tha, the DHHS, EPA are the ones responsible for brain development. And they are found in fish, seafood, fortified eggs, and fish oil. So we want to focus on these sources of omega three, one offering and such a fast baby. Through its first year of life, baby's food needs are mainly met by breast milk or formula one, but we do want to introduce water at the same time as we start solids to help with the swallowing and also to help get baby onto drinking water in an open forum. Should not replace breast milk or formula. You want to give baby sips of water during meals or snack time only in the first year, and about two to three ounces of water at a time.

Baby usually wouldn't drink more than that anyways at a time so there's really no concern in measuring the amount of water. We recommend using Open Cup when you introduce water starting at six months, and there are a couple of ways that you can help Baby Learn to drink an Open Cup. We don't recommend using any sippy cups because it's not good for their own development and we want to get get them used to drinking out of an Open Cup. The first way is to use a toddler sized cupboard sized cup just feel modern. These are taken toss cups. I just don't use the lid on them and I can hold it to baby's mouth for him to take sips of water on a second way is using a straw.

So these are kid sized straw regulars straw, sometimes maybe we'll be able to train up a straw easier than using an Open Cup. So that will be another way to help Baby Learn sucking water out of an cup. Once they get used to using a straw, then it's easier for them to use an open cut. The third way would be using a sharp class. These ones work really well because there's very small so it's very easy for babies to be able to get water out of this cup. So you can hold it to baby small for him to take sips of water in.

And then eventually once he learned to sip of this cups, then you can transition back to a toddler cup. It might take some time for your baby to get used to drinking water and that's okay and that's why we want to start offering waters when we start solids because we know that it will take some time for baby to get used to drinking water. He that his fluid needs is made We met by breast milk and formula at this point so it's not really for the needs itself, it's more so for them to get used to learning the skills. For those of you who use a bottle for breast milk or formula we want to be transitioning all these bottles starting up one year old, and that's why it's good to get them used to using an Open Cup for water so eventually you can transition them out of the bottle feeding to using an Open Cup.

Sodium, therefore, one year old baby's kidneys cannot handle too much sodium so we really want to watch the for the sodium improved. We don't want to add any extra salt in our cooking because natural foods already contains sodium and minimizing foods that are high in sodium like eating out any processed foods and the foods with a lot sauces in them. If you are offering family food to your baby, I would recommend taking a portion out for baby first before adding in any salt for the adults but otherwise you can try some of these other herb to add flavor in your meals without adding any extra salt, restaurant meals and eating out should be limited for a baby before one. Element a vitamin A is important for baby's growth and development and I found in orange fruits and vegetables and dark green leafy vegetables. In general we're not too concerned about having too much vitamin A except for foods like liver which is very high in vitamin A one teaspoon of Turkey liver is already exceeding their upper limit for vitamin A.

And we want to be avoiding use of fish liver oil for baby because there's too much vitamin A and can cause Vitamin A toxicity