You want the best for your baby when you’re a parent. You have to make sure that everything your baby eats is essential for his or her growth. We let them try different baby food for their taste buds to explore. It’s a fun part of parenting when you see their reaction once they taste new baby food.
One of the health trends that everyone’s so fond of these days is coconut oil.
It’s known for the claimed health benefits that its users are experiencing. Coconut oil’s universal benefits make it one of the health-conscious people’s most sought ‘miracle food.’ How about adding coconut oil to your baby’s food?
Is Coconut Oil Safe to Add to Your Baby’s Food?
Coconut oil has been spreading great news, mostly to adults, but is putting coconut oil in your baby food safe? The best answer is YES. IT’S SAFE. You can add a sufficient amount of coconut oil to your baby’s food to enjoy the health benefits of this natural and safe alternative.
Babies need healthy fat, and it should still be taken with a proper dosage. The fats in organic coconut oil are considered good fat. Healthy fats help babies with their cell repair, brain development, energy, and the growth of their bones and organs. Stay away from long-chain fatty acids as they love to stay in your baby’s body for a long time.
A child below two years of age should have a daily calorie intake of good fat of about 40-50% of their daily diet. An insufficient fat intake may result in growth problems.
Coconut oil and a mother’s breast milk are rich in lauric acid. A medium chain fatty acid helps keep the body healthy and fight infection and inflammation. Also, the medium-chain fatty acids are directly converted to energy to fuel your baby’s energy.
How to add coconut oil to your baby’s food?
But before you add coconut oil to your baby’s food, it’s still safer to ask your doctor first to avoid future complications. When your baby reaches 6-8 months, you can add a teaspoon to a tablespoon of coconut oil (it depends on how much baby food you’re making) to your baby’s food. You can make an apple, plum, and pear puree with coconut oil! If your baby loves sweet potatoes, add coconut oil for more flavors. You can use coconut oil as a replacement for butter as a healthier option.
Here are ways to use Coconut Oils for your baby’s pamper time.
Moisturizing the Skin
Coconut Oil is known for its essential fatty acids and protein component that helps nourishes and gently moisturize the skin. According to research, using refined coconut oil as body lotion coconut oil externally has deeper advantages while still boosting hydration and reducing water loss in severely dry skin. Your baby’s skin is a bit more sensitive because it’s brand new, thinner, more susceptible to irritation, and has fewer moisturizing oils.
Help Treat Baby Acne
Coconut oil’s antibacterial characteristics are thought to help battle acne-causing germs while hydrating the skin and minimizing acne scars. Simply add a small amount of coconut oil to a cotton ball and gently apply it to the afflicted area to cure baby acne.
Giving Infant A Massage
One of the most enjoyable ways to bond with your baby is through infant massage. This time-tested method soothes and relaxes newborns while assisting parents in better understanding their child’s needs. Infant massage provides various physical advantages for newborns, including relief from colic, improved sleep, and immune system stimulation. Adding moisture to the skin by massaging your infant with coconut oil is an easy approach to boost the benefits.
Hair Care
Pure Coconut oil has a high moisture retention capability, keeping hair hydrated and silky. Coconut oil can aid in the reduction of protein loss in both damaged and healthy hair. May use coconut oil to condition, style, cure dryness, control frizz, and prevent dandruff in your hair. Coconut oil can be used as a therapy underneath a baby’s hair to alleviate the symptoms of cradle cap, a common rash that forms crusty, greasy, or scaly spots on the scalp. Rinse after 20 minutes after applying coconut oil to your baby’s scalp. You may also massage coconut oil into the baby’s hair at night and wash it off the next morning.
Bathing
Add a scoop of virgin coconut oil to your bath or your baby’s bath to make the most of bathtime. Coconut oil softens and soothes sensitive skin thanks to its hydrating characteristics. Coconut oil is abundant in saturated fats and medium chain fatty acids such as lauric acid.
Teething Pain Relief and Teeth Whitening
Teething occurs in the majority of newborns throughout their first year, usually around the age of six months. It can cause babies to be unhappy, lose sleep, and become irritable. Applying and adding coconut oil directly to their gums or on a teething toy will help reduce your baby’s discomfort by reducing inflammation. For parents, swirl roughly one spoonful of coconut oil around your mouth for 10 to 20 minutes before washing with water to help whiten your teeth. Before attempting any home cure, consult your child’s physician.
Benefits of Coconut Oil for Your Baby
- You can use coconut oil to help moisturize your baby’s skin and prevent infections.
- You can also use coconut oil to remove your baby’s cradle cap.
- If your baby’s suffering from diaper rash, coconut oil helps provide protection and healing in the affected area.
- You might as well use coconut oil as a substitute for your usual baby toothpaste; that may be harsh to your baby because of its chemical content.
It acts as a Natural baby Moisturizer.
Medium chain fatty acids, also known as “good fats,” are the main component of coconut oil. These “fats” restore the skin’s barrier and maintain the skin’s softness and smoothness. Due to its special makeup can easily and deeply penetrate skin pores to draw in moisture even while feeling light on the skin.
Diaper Rash Relief
Due to diaper quality and urine absorption, most babies have diaper rash. Diaper rash is less likely to develop and spread thanks to coconut oil’s moisturizing and anti-fungal qualities. Candida Albicans, a fungus that causes infections, can also be effectively treated with coconut oil. Coconut oil works as a barrier between the infected skin and the dirty diaper to cure the frequent condition known as yeast diaper rash in infants.
Use it as a Baby Oil for a Good Baby Massage.
Infants who are fussing or fussy can be calmed down and, most importantly, put to sleep with a nice body massage. Given its anti-bacterial qualities and ease of absorption into the skin, coconut oil is a wonderful choice for massages. Use coconut oil that is of high quality.
Help Treat Oral Thrush
Using virgin, organic coconut oil on your breasts before nursing or inside your baby’s mouth will help prevent spreading the yeast infection back and forth between you and your baby. However, we always advise consulting your doctor if you think your baby has oral thrush.
You’ll need more than this to get things straightened out, though, since our baby coconut oil lacks some of the anti-fungal components your baby needs to treat their oral thrush. While you wait to visit your doctor or for any prescription medicine to start working, maybe you’ll both feel better in the interim.
NOTE: Please try a little portion of coconut oil first on your baby to check if they don’t have a coconut allergy.
Conclusion
So it’s a yes; you can add coconut oil to your homemade baby food to add more flavor and use the benefits coconut oil can offer your baby. Coconut oil benefits for newborns are readily available and useful to all mothers. Always check on your Pediatrician regularly to ensure your baby’s development is right for their age!