Feeding at 8 months

When Alicia turned 8 months, I decided to introduce some new foods to her:

• Healthy Times Mixed Grain Cereal

• Broccoli (only the florets; the stalk gives rise to gas in tummy)
• Cauliflower
• French beans
• Spinach (only the leaves, make sure it’s washed properly and try to buy organic ones because of the large surface area of leaves)
• Minced pork
• Porridge cooked with vegetable (and fruit) stock
Note: Read on for some recipes and pointers

Vegetables
I had put off giving her broccoli and cauliflower earlier because these vegetables are harder to digest and may cause discomfort to baby. Pureeing these vegetables was very, very hard work. The food processor I bought for preparing food for Alicia was not very good at pureeing ‘harder’ food like broccoli, cauliflower or French beans. So I had to do it manually by pushing them through the sieve. I remember that I almost had blisters on my hand after spending an hour pureeing a batch of French beans. That was the first and last time I pureed French beans for her. I decided that French beans could wait till she could chew them properly although beans are really nutritious.

For spinach, one of the most important things to take note of when feeding spinach is NOT to use the water in which the spinach was cooked in to puree it. Always use a fresh batch of water to puree it. This is especially so for younger babies as nitrates may be an issue.


Egg yolk revisited
Some time during the 8th month, I decided to try a new way of feeding her egg yolk coz she simply detested it when I mashed it into her cereal. See her pathetic look after fighting with me over her meal:

She looks like a super-hero with the bib acting as a cape... hahaha...

I decided that I’d just feed her the hard-boiled egg yolk as it is instead of mashing it up and boy was that a hit with her! So sometimes when baby rejects a certain food, try cooking it and feeding it in another way and the baby might just accept it! And so it was, an egg yolk a day was a critical part of the daily menu from then on.

Minced Pork (and chicken)
Try to buy pork fillet and do the mincing at home on your own instead of buying minced pork over the counter. This is because the pork used may be scrap meat and hence lower in nutrients and hence not suitable for our precious little ones. [The same goes for minced chicken (opt for chicken fillet and mince it at home)]. Also, you get the wash the pork really clean before mincing it.

Porridge
And porridge came into the picture in this month. I tried several times before I figured out how she liked it to be served. She liked the porridge when I cooked the grains in stock rather than water.

Vegetable (and fruit) stock

Ingredients
• 1 soup pot of water
• 2 corn cobs (IMPT note: some babies are allergic to corn, so if baby develops any allergic symptoms, stop giving the stock to the baby)
• As many apples as you like (skin and seeds removed, chopped into pieces: you can leave the skin on if you bought organic apples and washed them really really thoroughly. Personally, I wouldn't risk it so I always remove the skin although it is said that the skin adds nutrients to the stock)
• Carrots (only suitable for babies above 8 months due to nitrates)

Method:
Boil on high heat till the water boils then simmer over low heat for 2 hours. Sieve the ingredients from the soup and pack the stock into small portions to be frozen.

Directions for cooking porridge using the slow cooker:
• Wash 1 tablespoon (15ml) of rice grains thoroughly to remove dirt
• Pour in three ladles of stock (about 150ml) and the rice grains into the slow cooker
• Warm the stock and grains on the stovetop till the stock is boiling hot before placing the slow cooker back to cook
• Leave it to cook for at least 2 hours. After 2 hours, check the consistency of the porridge in case the porridge becomes too thick and dry. (If it does become too dry, add some hot water to it and let it cook for a little while.)

By this time, Alicia was having 3 meals:
• Porridge (cooked with stock) with cod and at least 1 type of vegetable (comes up to 1 ricebowl of food) followed by fruit
• cooked minced pork with sweet potato and cereal (and breast milk) (1 baby bowl)
• 2 types of vegetables (mixed with breast milk) with cereal (optional) followed by fruit
• Egg yolk as a small snack

Up to this point, it seemed that she loved eating for she ate everything that I gave her happily… but my happiness was short-lived...

Feeding at 7 months

Besides feeding the usual fare of the food that she’d been eating when she was 6 months, I started her on some new foods when she was 7 months old…
• Peas
• Applesauce (steamed apple) (well, not exactly a new food but this went down much better with her compared to raw apples because it’s sweeter)
• Cod (remember to get the fishmonger to sell you only the tail portion for it contains the least bones, get him to debone and deskin it and of course, remember to mention that it’s for cooking for baby)
• Brown rice gruel (Moon Rabbit Si Shen Brown Rice Powder) – she ate some of it but didn’t really like it
• Baby Bites

This is the full range but we started her with the original flavour first before proceeding to chicken flavour and lastly the carrot one...

Pea puree
Remove shells from frozen (or fresh if you wish) peas.
Steam for 5-7 minutes.
Puree the peas.

Pea puree freezes well.

I usually use Watties' extra sweet frozen baby peas when feeding Alicia peas.

Applesauce
Cut apple into pieces and remove the core. Keep the skin intact for nutrients retention.
Steam the apple for at 20-30 minutes. It is ready when the flesh is easily scooped out from the skin.

I watched a programme about cooking and this is the most recommended way of arranging the apples for steaming

Remove the flesh from the skin.
Puree the apple flesh.

Applesauce freezes well.

Cod
She liked the cod (I’d just steam it and serve it plain)… oh well, she liked it better than threadfin though I wouldn’t say that she loved cod. From then onwards, she has been eating cod every day till today and I’ve been slowly increasing the amount of cod she takes a day. It’s pretty expensive but I feel that it’s essential for my little one…

About allergies and such, some literature also state that fish should only be introduced after 10 months but from my own observation, Asians tend to introduce fish much sooner, almost as soon as the baby starts on semi-solids. My take on this is that as long as you start with a fish with low-mercury levels, it should be fine for the baby. I have also come across comments that cod is too oily and hence difficult to digest. Personally, I think it’s ok to just give the baby a little to try and see if there are any real problems. If it is true that the baby does have difficulties digesting the fish or if the baby detests the fish because it is too oily, then just switch to another type. There is really no need to strike cod off your list of fishes to introduce to your baby immediately.

Egg yolk
Oh, and at 7 months, she still didn’t quite like egg yolk. Anyway about egg yolks, some sources state that egg yolks should only be introduced after 9 months in case of allergies but the literature I worked with at that point in time (a pamphlet from the polyclinic handed to me by the paediatrician at KKH) said that egg yolks can be introduced at 6 months of age. The kiasu mummy that I am followed closely to the advice and fortunately, Alicia didn’t have any allergies… :)

Feeding at 6 months - Alicia's first foods!

Just thought that I’d share what I did for Alicia when she started eating semi-solids at about 6 months old. It seems as if I have only just started but looking at the range of food that she can eat these days, I’d say that she has come a long way in her adventure with food.

A summary of the foods that she tasted this month (read on for more details):

• Healthy Times Barley Cereal
• Healthy Times Oatmeal Cereal
• Healthy Times Brown Rice Cereal
• pumpkin
• sweet potato (orange)
• carrot
• banana
• avocado
• apple
• papaya
• egg yolk
• porridge
• threadfin (ngoh hee)

Her first taste of food other than mummy’s milk was Heinz Rice Cereal (mixed with mummy's milk) at about 6 months. She was alright with it and even wanted to help to feed herself by holding the spoon. After eating some of it, I decided to let her try other cereals (following the 4-day wait rule of course):
• Healthy Times Barley Cereal

• Healthy Times Oatmeal Cereal and

• Healthy Times Brown Rice Cereal.

This range of cereals is suitable for babies 6 months and older and I’d really recommend the Healthy Times cereal as it is not only tasty and organic, it has no added sugars (perfect for a young baby). Of this range, Alicia liked the oatmeal best and indeed I’d say that she has good taste as the oatmeal cereal smelt the most fragrant! Well, it’s a pity that we didn’t take any pictures of her when we fed her her first semi-solid meal (but I think we did take a video if I’m not wrong) but here’s a picture of her in her bumbo seat for the first time after we brought it back from Takashimaya:

After the four-day wait to check if Alicia was allergic to the cereal, we proceeded with introducing orange vegetables:
• pumpkin
• sweet potato and
• carrot (waiting for at least 4 days before introducing a new food).

She didn’t quite like the pumpkin, was ok with carrot and simply LOVED sweet potato. That’s just like mummy!

I notice that sometimes the vegetables may contain some fibers so I actually prefer to push the vegetables through the sieve to 'catch' those bits of fiber which could cause choking.
Other foods that we tried before she turned 7 months are:
• egg yolk
• porridge and
• threadfin (ngoh hee).

She didn’t like the porridge or threadfin, so we gave them a pass and just gave her iron-fortified cereal mixed with one of the orange vegetables.

At 6 months, we tried giving her
• banana,
• papaya,
• avocado (hated it)
• apple.

Of these, her favourite was papaya, and it remained so for quite a few months – and she became affectionately known as the “papaya freak” within the family for she’d end off her meal with papaya puree every day. Other fruits just didn’t quite appeal to her. Well, as you have probably expected, feeding her so many foods high in beta-carotene resulted in her taking on an orange hue, a medical condition known as Carotenemia. It’s really nothing dangerous although it sounds so frightening and honestly, having people nagging and telling me that my alicia’s turned ORANGE was really quite annoying and irritating. They’d sound as if it was terribly serious and make it out to be as if I was overdosing my daughter with Vitamin A. People should read up on facts before they comment: Vitamin A may be dangerous and even lethal when too much of it is taken in the form of a vitamin supplement BUT natural Vitamin A, such as that which beta-carotene converts to, is harmless and is indeed very beneficial for promoting good vision and eye development as well as helping sustain healthy growth and development! That said, I did try to cut down a bit on the orange vegetables and fruits…