My Breastfeeding Diary (Baby #3): Weaning

My littlest girl has been exclusively breastfed but part of that journey meant that we had to start introducing solid food to her once she is ready.

At 4-5 Months:
The recommended age to start pureed food is 6 months but we started to feed her pureed earlier because:

She refused to drink from the bottle so we thought she will have something to eat while I was at work.
She was very ready for food (watches us while we eat, licks lips, opens and closes her mouth, etc)

Enjoying her pureed meal

Loving her food! True blue foodie!

My mum-in-law, our in-house masterchef, is in charge of all our food. My children have always liked pumpkin so it was the first food that she pureed for the littlest girl. The food for babies this age is filtered through a sieve and contains no fibrous bits. We also added my breast milk to give it additional taste.

Her favourite food is pumpkin and carrot. For some reason, she dislikes apple!

To aid us in feeding her, her dad bought her an Ingenuity chair that can be used on the floor as well as the chair

At 6-7 Months:
The mum-in-law aka masterchef started making porridge with the girl's favourite ingredients for my baby girl. It was carrot porridge one week and pumpkin porridge the next. The mum-in-law cooked a batch and kept it in the fridge so that it can last for about 3-5 days.

We also introduced her to baby snacks, which she enjoyed in between her meals.

Her favourite snack!

At 8-9 Months:
Baby girl was starting to show her true colours as a real foodie and would sometimes reject food that she had eaten consecutively in a row. The mum-in-law had to think creatively on feeding her a variety of food so that she won't be bored! She was also extremely interested in the food that we were eating! There were a number of occasions where she rejected the home cooked food we were feeding her in favour of the food the rest of the family were eating!

I'm not one who insists my baby eats organic natural food. I prefer to let her have a little taste of everything just so that she can explore what she likes or dislikes. Balance is key of course.

Likes:
Pumpkin, carrot, old cucumber, soup, orange, tofu, chawanmushi, chicken, beef.

Dislikes:
Apple (though she eats Fuji apple selectively).

At 9 months old, she still drinks breast milk every 3 hours (via direct latch or spoon-fed expressed milk) but eats a small bowl of porridge twice a day.

Ultimately, despite her love for food, one thing is clear. It is still NOT yet a replacement for her favourite food of all: my breast milk! 💖😄

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This post is part of my series My Breastfeeding Diary, where I document the highs and lows of my breastfeeding journey.

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Thursday 10 October 2019

My Breastfeeding Diary (Baby #3): Weaning