Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Cereal independence

The Scout is staging a struggle for independence. Independence from being fed cereal and veggies and other such good mush. The spoon is batted away. The head is turned vigorously this way and that and the mouth is clamped shut. But put him on the high chair and lay out pieces of dosa or chapathi or croissant etc in front of him and he picks them up between his thumb and fore-finger and eats them with a great air of confidence. Confidence that I wouldn't have if I had no teeth like him. But he eats and chews and grinds pretty well. Only, I don't have the time to wait for this program to finish, especially at breakfast. Not to mention all the other problems with the finger-foods not being nutritious enough and all that. I'm almost wishing that he hadn't learnt to eat on his own. :(

15 comments:

  1. Totally unsolicited advice (whats the point of being an ancient mother of two if you can dole it out?): whoop with joy!

    I know what you mean - its easy to get nutrition into them if they eat mush. Will tell you a scary story though - a friend's kid refused to eat non-mush till age 6. That of course is an extreme case but believe me - its a question of effort now vs. effort later. I'd say rein in your sources who've been there and get ideas on nutritious non-mush.

    Okay end of gyaan-giving!

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  2. Chox: This post was soliciting gyan very much although I didn't say it explicitly. And you are not ancient. And you are an expert. So thanks for the anecdotes. Looking for nutritious non-mush that are also not slippery for him to hold. He doesn't touch any soggy stuff.

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  3. Try ragi dosa.. or dosa batter with palak puree, tomato puree.. instead of chappatis .. try small puris with potatao rolled into the dough.. or mashed carrots mixed in the dough.
    Its good hes started on regular food. Don't worry. :)

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  4. Thanks Shruti! I infact made dosas with rice cereal. Went down alright. :)

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  5. You should be thrilled that he is having food on his own..and nutrition comes from all places including chapati, dosa and what not hehehe see smart chap already knows the basics of the food pyramid :)...did you try giving him oranges...R sucks out all the juice and gives back the empty cover or try giving him carrot cut into thin long pieces...even without teeth they just suck in the nutrition..though they do throw away the rest :) okie enough said now :)

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  6. Is it about him wanting to eat what you guys are having?

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  7. R's mom: Thanks for the assurance. :) But don't you think iron-fortified multi-grain cereal etc are necessary for his age and are somewhat better than dosa / chapathi in terms of nutrition?

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  8. No Avg J. The mushy cereal-ly stuff hinders that all-important sesne - the taste and texture and smell of food, which is what makes one want to eat. its not just about nutrition, right? its also about relishing what we eat.

    once again, i hope i'm not sounding patronizing bt these are lessons i have learnt. i stuck with the nutrition-is-more-important bit with Fb while with Lb all of that went out of the window. i never pureed lb's veggies even. courgette pieces would get steamed and beaten a bit with a spoon and fed straight from a normal spoon. she pretty ate what we did from 14-15 months, the sabzis i'd ladle out before putting masalas. and at the huge risk of jinxing it i'm telling you this - she is one non-fussy eater.

    just rack your head a bit - you'll find that everything you eat can be baby-fied. lesser spice, more ghee, more nutritious version - it can be done. maybe it'll make your diet healthier too!

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  9. eeks. look at the typos.

    normal bowl, not spoon. meant not a special baby bowl/spoon.

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  10. Chox: Warning! Multi-para comment ahead..

    He used to eat regular food, i.e. dumbed down and mashed (with spoon) versions of the same dal and veggies that we cook on any day but mixed with cereal and I was super glad about that. He ate them mixed with cereal (and not rice, and from my experiments I don't think he cares much for rice) because of the fortified iron in the cereal. As an exclusively breastfed (10 month old) baby he needs to get iron from other sources, at least to pass the anemia test that happens at every wellness check.

    As far as I can see, this strike is more about wanting to eat on his own and is not limited to cereal. For example: I lay out dosa pieces for him and he eats some and then gets distracted and takes for ever to pick up the next piece. So I try to sneak one into his mouth but he clamps shut. And get this, if I'm able to sneak it (dosa or cereal) in, it goes down without much fuss -- no spluttering or spitting as babies are wont to do if they don't like the taste.

    So I definitely think this is more about wanting to eat on his own. I'm trying to add nutrition into finger-foods-- like mixing cereal or veggies into dosas etc. But I still think he is eating less cereal and less veggies that way than he would if he ate what I fed him with a bowl and spoon.

    And I'm still trying to figure out what changed, because till last week he was not fussy at all and took about 5 minutes to finish a bowl of cereal with dal and now he takes about 45 minutes to eat half a dosa and it's not even that nutritional anyway. I just want to find some ways of getting some sufficiently good (baby or non-baby) food into him and have the confidence of him finishing the meal in reasonable time. Uhuh, high hopes, eh?

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  11. okay got it. good luck with the figuring out :)

    btw i remember a post by cee kay of mytwocents, about food for 1 yr olds. will see if i can dig it out.

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  12. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  13. http://my2centstoo.blogspot.com/search/label/Baby%20Food

    there. got it. not sure how useful it'll be for you, but sticking it here nevertheless.

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  14. chox: Thank you very much for digging these out for me! Will inculcate..

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