The main reason behind introducing veggies before fruits for infants is to avoid the rejection of the greens later in life. Since fruits tends to be sweeter than veggies, the assumption is that babies will accept them easily. Right? Nah…
From my experience with Hannah, it wasn’t smooth sailing when I started her on fruits. She ate all her veggies, including plain spinach puree. But I had no success with fruits. I started on apples with her – she didn’t like the home-made apple sauce nor scraped raw apple. Bleh. Okay, banana should be a winner…fed her with mashed banana…*Eeeee* was Hannah’s reaction. That was really discouraging. I went on to learn that some babies were like Hannah too. My guess was that she was not used to the acidity in sweet apples or probably the latex taste in bananas.
I was not about to give up even though the first few attempts were so dampening. Fruits are good stuff and Hannah should love them! I fed her banana again after 1-day break. But this time, instead of mashing the whole fruit up (and actually it oxidises pretty bad), I broke the fruit into halves, used my clean index finger and thumb to mash up a bit of the flesh, and fed her by placing some on her tongue with my index finger. I’d say ‘Ah’ and Hannah would open her mouth for food. She did her usual ‘dab dab’ around the new food with her tongue and swallowed it. Yay! And she took the second serving, and the third….can check banana on our baby’s food list liao! My hunch to the solution was to serve the fruit in its freshest form on my finger. No more mashing, pureeing or cooking (in the case of apples).
Apples are not exactly soft fruits and so a little preparation work before actual feeding is required. Firstly, I’d cut out a portion of its white flesh and slice it thinly. Secondly, when feeding Hannah the thin slices, I would soften them by pressing using my index finger and thumb before placing a small slice on her tongue. She’s still not big on apples but she eats them now. I find organic Red Delicious best in terms of sweetness and fragrance. Will be trying out the organic braeburn apples next. Hannah started with Royal Gala and USA Fuji but these were not accepted readily. Will revisit them on her again.
Mango was welcomed readily after my successful attempts with apples and bananas. May be it was also due to its sweetness and aroma. I used honey mangoes. I also mixed it into plain yoghurt to ease the acceptance of the latter. :)
I had been wanting to introduce pears but organic ones are hard to come by at the nearby supermarkets. See first lah. I might try out other new veggies such as eggplant and capsicum next. :P
It sounds like Hannah is on the right path! So, when do you introduce her to durian and cempedak? : ) Haha!
LOL.:)
Haha. Soon I hope :D
Hi,
I’ve been starting my daughter on solids and alternating between one fruit and one veg for allergy-testing so that she can get used to different tastes.
I havent started my daughter on porridge as I feel she is still young n e amt she is eating doesn’t seem to make it worthwhile for me to cook porridge for her as yet. (I admit I’m a lazy FTWM!) Do u mind sharing what ur daughter’s menu for a week looks like? Do u feed her different porridge dishes for all her main meals and then feed her the same fruit that u r allergy-testing for 3-days?
Tks!
Hi mumsy,
I absolutely agree that it is too much work to cook porridge for a little diner with a small appetite. Unless you have the convenience of a slow cooker, cooking it over the stove with constant stirring for nearly an hour is plain maddness. The slow cooker takes away the stirring part. However, it takes a little longer to cook the porridge until it is very soft. I use ground rice grains to shorten the cooking time.
My girl is currently spending half her day at an infant care centre. The centre will feed her porridge for lunch. When she comes home, I’ll prepare dinner. Since she has tried a greater variety of veggies, fruits and meats, I have more room for creativity in preparing her meals. Dinner can be either a puree of a mixture of veggies and one meat or a porridge with a combination of veggies and one meat. I don’t have any fixed menu for each day but my current repertoire looks something like this:
Mon: Puree of sweet potato, green peas and egg yolk (desert: Red Delicious apple)
Tue: Puree of potato, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower and chicken (desert: papaya)
Wed: Porridge with potato, carrots, broccoli and cod (desert: banana)
Thu: Puree of Japanese pumpkin, eggplant and green peas (desert: pear)
Fri: Porridge with potato, carrot, cauliflower, chicken stock and chicken (desert: mango)
Sat: Puree of potato, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower and salmon (desert: pear)
Sun: Porridge of potato, carrots, spinach and cod (desert: papaya)
I make sure that my refrigerator is stocked up with veggies, fruits and meat so that I can mix and match to make each meal interesting for my girl. I cut up the meats in small portions (each portion for one meal) before freezing them. THe chicken stock is home-made and frozen in portions too. My standard veggies and fruits are what you see in the menu. Now that I’m on this topic, I realise that I should continue to expand her tastes. Cheese next! :D
Oh ya, I forgot to mention that her breakfast is oatmeal cereal with milk :) And her current meal portion is about 2/3 of a standard rice bowl. :) She’s turning 9 months tomorrow!
Hihi! Happy belated 9 mth bdae Hannah! :) that is quite a repertoire! How do u manage to steam so many ingredidents at once for her purées? Do u make sure all e veg u choose in e combo have e same cooking time to achieve that? N u have to make chicken stock?! N how do u keep track of when u bought which ingredient in ur well stocked fridge?
I cannot imagine doing so many things for juz one of e little one’s meals!
Hi hi mumsy,
Thank you for the greeting :)
Preparing a meal for my girl may sound like a lot of work but after a few practices, it became part of my routine at home. I steam all the vegetables together on a medium-sized plate for 20-30 mins regardless of the type of vegetables in the combo. Come to think of it, if carrots or peas are on the plate, I’d usually steam everything for 30 mins as both of them take a longer time to soften. THe rest of the veggies soften much faster, say about 20 mins. I also sliced all the veggies thinly to speed up their cooking process. Once the veggies are steamed, I’ll use the same pot to steam fish for the next 10 mins while I puree the veggies. For chicken meat and egg, I will boil them in water for about 10 mins in a separate pot while the veggies are steaming.
While the veggies are steaming, I’d usually try to do other chores such as washing and sterilising milk bottles, do laundry, etc. Gotta be even more efficient now that there are more things to do in a typical day.
Chicken stock is optional. I wanted to make her porridge taste more yummy lah. I did it over the weekend (as hubby is at home to help out with the baby).
About keeping track of my refrigerated foods, it is not so daunting as I open my refrigerator at least once a day to refresh my memory. The frozen ones (fish, chicken and peas) can last for a long time and so I have no worries about finishing them asap. The roots veggies (i.e. carrots, potatoes and sweet potatoes) and fruits like apples and pears can keep well for weeks too. Between broccoli and cauliflower, the latter can keep longer and so I try to buy small broccoli and finish it asap. The leafy ones are tricky as they only last for about a few days. They are the ones I seldom buy as they are sold in bulk. One good way of using all of it is to puree all at once and freeze them as ice cubes for later use.
My hubby also thinks that I’m doing too much for a little stomach. :) Hee hee. That’s just me…I try to provide a good variety of nutrients for our little one.