Meal Time!

Around 5 month's age we started Sid on some supplementary food (or at least we tried). These included mashed and sweetened ragi paste, dried, sweetened raw banana paste etc. all traditional malayali initiation food. I'm not very sure what is followed in other parts of the country and I decided to go the safest route as this is what the rest of everyone else I know has grown up on and has fed their next generation too.

One thing I can guarantee, trying to feed a baby anything other than milk is not for the faint hearted, the impatient or the short tempered. Or rather, I should say it is a good lesson for everyone of the kind I just described (ahem...like me).

In this context, my mom was talking about a senior paediatrician colleague of hers who has written books on infants and toddler care and her most important advice to all parents who complain about the difficulty of feeding their babies is to let them be, that kids don't stay hungry and they shall eat without much coaxing when they are sufficiently hungry. Until...she had her grandchild. After that, during a conversation, she happened to tell my mom how she thinks she might as well rewrite her book cos she has realised that however hungry, if babies don't like the business of opening their mouth and swallowing their food, THEY WILL NOT! Oh No they won't. And for all the coaxing, goading, distracting and everything one might invest in, one might as well learn, a NO means just that.

It is amazing how, before learning to chew and swallow, these tinies learn to spit and even more importantly to clamp their mouth shut with such force as soon as they spot a spoon in the horizon. How quickly they understand tricks and distractions and will not even open their mouths to giggle, instead settling for a tightly closed lip smile, even at their favourite tricks!

gooey redefined

So, as this struggle progresses, we have started Sid on almost everything a little by little except tough animal proteins and eggs. (All paediatricians strictly advice against feeding babies eggs before 10 months.) Over and above the aforementioned gooey stuff, he has a little rice, lentils some steamed fish, potato, apple juice, oranges and so on oh! and of course cerelac too. Only thing is by the time he has about 4 spoons of anything, my breakfast, lunch and dinner gets digested.

The irony is how they put anything and everything else into their mouths, especially dirt, shoes, floor mats and stuff that are normally kept out of reach with good reason, while they shut their mouth like a mouse trap the moment there is food in the vicinity.

WOW! to imagine what it will be like once he begins to run!



initial feeding days with grandma n grandpa



grandma grandpa gave after these first few attempts!