The girl who LOVES milk!

In a few days' time, Bean will be 7 months and that means she has started on solids for about 1.5 months now. Exactly how well is she reacting to her solids feeds? My dear readers, if you have seen the videos we uploaded on the first few sessions of cereal feeding you would have thought she's pretty much into cereals/purees by now. Wrong! Eversince don't know when (at least 3 weeks ago?) it has become a nightmare when giving her her evening feed. Strange thing is the morning feed at daycare (fed by teacher), she finishes it according to teacher.

Anyway here's a list of food Bean has tried so far:

01) Instant Cereal - Healthy Times, Only Organics, Heinz Vanilla Custard, Earth's Best (sample from Mummy Sherryl). Since she refuses to open her mouth during feeding time, I have resorted to mix about 1-3 teaspoons of cereal into her regular milk for night feeds. This way the cereal don't get wasted and she gets some nutrients.

















02) Homemade Vegetables/Fruits puree - Pumpkin, avocado, potato, sweet potato, apple, papaya. Rejected everything except for avocado which she showed great likeness for. I had wanted to re-do the avocado but the Fairprice near our home only sells Israel origin and when I cut up the fruit, it's spoilt. Phobia for avocado now. NZ origin is still the best. Papaya puree was fine only on the first attempt. To think I went through all the work (steam, blend, seive) for pumpkin and sweet potato and she refused to open her mouth at all.

03) Oats/Millet/Rice porridge & Poultry/Meat - Oats is very simple to prepare. Just had to cook it over a slow fire and it's ready within minutes. I used water for the first attempt (which she actually finished it!). Second time I used breastmilk instead of water and added a whole egg yolk as a bonus (no egg white before 1 year old). She refused to open her mouth on the second oats meal. Millet is very tricky to prepare. I have no experience with other grains except for rice. Had to soak millet for some time before it is ready for cooking. I cooked millet in old cucumber pork rib soup base and added in some soft tofu and broccoli to blend. No salt added as I scooped a bowl of stock for preparation of Bean's meal before adding seasoning to the whole pot of soup. Honestly the thing tasted quite yucky. K even said it tasted a bit bitter. Ok I decided to use normal rice for porridge the next round. I used regular rice (Fairprice housebrand which consists of 80% Thai fragrant rice, 10% red rice and 10% unpolished rice) which I recently decided to switch to (I give up on organic whatever. I need "Certified Baby-Eats" more than "Certified Organic" at this point of time after all the failed attempts). Rice was cooked in stock of sweet corn/baby carrots pork rib. When porridge is almost ready to serve, I added a small portion of minced pork seasoned with a little soya sauce. Don't lecture me on the "no-salt-before-age of 1 year" policy or the 4 day rule. Obviously all those theory crap (to me it is crap) don't work for everyone. How was I supposed to do the 4 day rule when my baby refuses to open her mouth during every feed? Even if I force the food inside her mouth, she will only eat a little and the next few mouthfuls, simply ooze it out immediately. It was like fighting a battle trying to push the spoon inside her tightly closed mouth. So I had to try new food at each meal don't I? How to attract Bean to open her mouth willingly during feeding time? Obviously to make the food smells nice right? Anyway, she did give me some face by opening her mouth for the rice porridge. K and I were quite happy about it. K even had good things to say about the porridge. At least it tasted like real food. So K and I were like doing a stage play, using a super high pitched tone to praise the porridge while feeding her at the same time. In fact we do the stage play thing at almost every feeding time and I always loudly remind K "Hey Daddy pls don't eat Bean's food". *LOL* It's apparent that out performance sucks big time. K was a little over-enthusiastic in feeding I guess cuz soon after, Bean actually puked everything out. Yes, including the first few mouthfuls which she ate voluntarily. What to do? Clean up the mess and bath her. I did attempt to give her the remaining portion left in the pot but it was just a waste of time. Hahaha...
















04) Teething Rusk/Baby Biscuits - Heinz teething rusk, Pigeon baby biscuit (courtesy of Auntie Yvonne), Gerbers puffs and 旺仔小曼头. Teething rusk was bought during the teething saga. First 2 pcs were thrown away after Bean soaked them up in her saliva stock and seemed not interested after that. Pretty normal I guess since I haven't come across any baby who likes it. Pigeon baby biscuits contain salt!!! That's the reason why I was put off by it but since Auntie Yvonne was so sweet to buy it, I let Bean eat it. Well, who doesn't like tidbits? Of course Bean likes it. We all had a taste of it. Everyone agreed it was pretty tasteless except for me who thought it is mildly tasty which probably is saltish enough for Bean since baby's tastebuds are very sensitive. Gerbers puffs (which is supposed to be very nutritious) didn't work either. 旺仔小曼头 was fine but it was only after she ate some then I realised they contain EGGS. Well what to do? Anyway I don't see Bean getting any allergic reactions after eating so I guess should be fine?
















05) All sorts of non-baby food - Too much to list out. Yes I know it's such a bad habit to feed baby with whatever is in our bowl but I was really curious about finding out whether Bean is not interested in baby food or just any food. Was having tea at TCC with Auntie Den on Tues afternoon and I gave Bean nibbles of most of the food we were having. Bits of beef patty, bread, tomato. She opens her mouth big big whenever I bring food near to her! Surprised right? And all the while we thought she doesn't like solids! So the very same day I bought Fromage (cheese) bread from Four Leaves for her dinner. She liked it quite a bit though she didn't eat much. Probably like 1/50 of 1 slice. Haha... I was at Four Leaves again 2 days later and she had a taste of "Hawaiian" bread; those small bread which was sold at 3 for $1.80. The following day I ta bao-ed a MOS rice burger while on the way to Clarice's. Yes, this little girl has had her first taste of fastfood. Not to worry cuz I gave her only the rice part :P. Well, not only once but twice! Another strange thing, she was ok to eat the egg yolk from her daddy's kway chap (we took the yolk that has not touched the gravy) but when I made hard boiled egg yolk for her at home she was not interested. Anyhow, she managed to eat about 1/10 of the yolk. Not too bad for a picky eater like her.

This is the Fromage bread from Four Leaves
















At least now we know she's just not interested in baby food so we'll continue to feed her with whatever adult food that is consumable for infants. No point spending time and effort keep repeating the same procedure now that we know her likes and dislikes right? Current favourite for Bean now is still Mummy's milk although we might start her on NAN Pro 2 anytime soon.