Weaning Wednesdays: Eating on the go

Its the day before the trip, and I'm still packing.  As we are not too sure what to expect in terms of the hotel amenities, we have to pack quite alot of things for baby J, and yet I'm trying to weed out as many things as possible since some of the luggage weight will have to go towards hubby's medical equipment.  So it seems to be alot of packing and unpacking and arranging and stuffing going on... (I did say I'm a slow packer!)

One of the challenges for me is to think about how to feed baby J solids when we are there.  Granted, I can just take the easy way out and just breastfeed him entirely, but I do want to try working it out since we tend to travel overseas quite abit (especially since hubby's family is in Malaysia), and baby J eventually will be totally on solids.

So what I'm planning to do will be to bring my baby food processor along, and use it to cook food.  I've tried cooking his food by heating it using the boiling water bath (that actually is meant to heat bottles, but oh well, we can improvise right?), and it seems to work.  My usual stainless steel mug doesn't fit, but I tried using the Pigeon porridge cooking pot and it fits nicely inside.  :)  I'll be bringing instant baby oats as well as ikan bilis (dried anchovies) powder for him, since toting along homemade purees don't seem to be feasible.  I also bought a jar of applesauce and a jar of squash (from Gerber, since it seems to be pure apple/squash, with no preservatives), just in case I can't get fruits over there.

Oh, and since I'm not too sure about the airline's regulations, I'll be bringing baby J's sippy cup and rice crackers for him, just in case I'm not allowed to put him on my lap to breastfeed him.  Most mummies I spoke to recommended letting the baby drink/eat during take off and descent, so that he swallows to help him deal with the pressure changes.  Will pack his feeding bowl for his morning meal on the flight, and am planning to place oats in one compartment, and his bib and towel in the other, to save some space!

Ah yes, as I've just mentioned, we've introduced ikan bilis and rice crackers to baby J's diet.  I tried feeding him ikan bilis since it was one of the easier things to bring along on the trip that won't go bad easily, and he seems to like the new savoury taste.  Most western baby food sites recommend introducing fish at a later stage in case of allergies, but the Asian guide mentioned that ikan bilis can be introduced from 7 months onwards.  I think fish allergies would probably be extremely rare in our case, seeing that fish is such an integral part of the Asian diet!  To prepare the powder, the fish has to be soaked in water, rinsed (to remove as much salt as possible) and then pan-fried or toasted (without oil), and finally ground to powder in the blender.  The only weird thing is that baby J eats the ikan bilis mixed up with oats, since he now absolutely refuses to eat any rice.  Give him rice, and he cries and spits everything out!

We've tried feeding him rice crackers as well, as I thought he might be ready for finger foods, but didn't want to use the usual teething biscuits since the wheat-based biscuits are usually very hard (and it seems a big waste to discard all the broken bits as recommended since they cost so much!).  I thought the rice-based crackers would "melt" in the mouth, making it easier as a first finger food.  We managed to only find 2 brands of baby rice crackers: Baby Bites by Take One, and those from Pigeon.  The Baby Bites version was on offer and I bought it, only to read the ingredients to find that they had all sorts of stuff in it, like chicken powder etc.  Also, it was one of the products implicated in the China milk scandal, so I returned it and exchanged it for the Gerber purees instead... We ended up getting the Pigeon fish and brown alga crackers, since they did not contain preservatives, colouring or flavoring agents, and had minimal salt added to it (I tried a little bit!).  We gave a piece to baby J to try over the weekend, and he loved holding and nibbling it, all the while looking like a hamster... Hopefully the cracker can help distract him from the discomfort of flying!