Abstract

Objective: This study was conducted as a qualitative research to determine the opinions of mothers about the difficulties they experienced and their coping with difficulties during the transition period to complementary feeding.

Method: The study was carried out with 10 primiparous mothers who applied for vaccination or routine controls of their 6-12-month-old infants in a Family Health Center. The data were collected with an introductory information form and a semi-structured questionnaire. Permission was obtained from the institution and the ethics committee before the study started. In addition, verbal approval was obtained from the mother by giving information about the purpose of the research and voice recording. The obtained data were analyzed by inductive content analysis method.

Results: It was determined that nearly all of the mothers who were included in the study had already received information about complementary nutrition, but did not feel themselves adequately informed. Most of the mothers started to provide complementary feeding during the 6th month, but more than half of the babies had difficulties like disliking the taste of some food, resisting to try new foods, reluctancy to intake the food with protein content, rejecting intake of food due to toothache, nausea and swallowing. It was determined that mothers were more prone to extra feeding thinking that their babies were still hungry and felt despair and fear thinking that their babies might be harmed.

Conclusion: In the study, it was determined that mothers felt insufficient during the transition period to complementary feeding and had difficulties due to reactions of their infants. According to these results, it may be suggested to give repetitive trainings on the transition to complementary feeding and to support mothers by nurses during this process.