ABSTRACT

Complementary feeding is when breast milk alone or infant formula alone is no longer sufficient to meet the nutritional requirements of infants and were found to be positively associated with development. The study assessed the influence of complementary feeding pattern and psychosocial stimulation on the anthropometric status of young children (6-24 months). The study is a cross sectional study which includes 6-24 months children. The sample size for the study were 110 6-24 months children. The data realized were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation. It show that more half (50.9%) of the index children were male while less than half (49.1%) were females. The result show that majority (65.5%) of the children were breastfeeding one hour after birth, while about 91.8% were fed breast milk for the first six month.  In the result it was observed that 50.9% of the respondents still breast their child and about 10.9% of the respondents stopped breastfeeding the child between the 6-7 months.  More so, about 54.5% of the respondents introduced food between 6-7 months and 38.2% texture of food was watery, while a good number (48.2%) ate 3-4 meals. Majority of the participants consumed from all the food groups. The result show that responsive, acceptance, organizational, learning materials, involvement and variety had a mean score value which ranged from 3.03-8.70. It was observed that psychosocial simulation was attained by more than half (60.9%). The result on Height for age revealed that 51.8% and 68.5% of the children (male and female) were normal while about 12.5% and 16.7% (male and female) were stunted.  The study concludes that there was a relationship between complementary feeding pattern, gross development milestone, psychosocial simulation, anthropometric and demographic characteristics of the children and mother. The study recommends importance should be placed on nutritional surveillance, to ascertain suitable intervention to improve the nutritional status of children and to avoid occurrence of malnutrition.