Thursday, October 15, 2009

Weaning Wednesdays: Yucky or boring?

One of my friends recently sent me this which sort of summarizes what has been happening at mealtimes:



Well, I said sort of. Baby J still prefers breastmilk and usually cries for "mummum" (which for him, means milk) halfway through his meal. But before he does that, its already an uphill task getting him to open his mouth to eat his food (unlike the baby in the video!). He'll bite on the spoon, as well as suck on his fingers and smear the food all over the tray table. Recently, he's also learnt how to stick his tongue out when I am wiping his mouth, so that the food in his mouth gets wiped off as well! The only thing he seems to enjoy is drinking from his sippy cup, which he grabs to drink from, but try taking away his cup and he starts to throw a temper tantrum. He also insists on sitting like an "ah beng", by putting his leg ON the table, and all attempts to put his leg down usually are futile since he puts his leg up again after that.



I always thought that babies will look forward to eating their solids, even though they'll take some time to get used to new tastes.  So far, he seems to only finish meals containing oatmeal with pear or applesauce, and only eats a portion of all other things offered to him, and that is after I've tried various means of getting him to eat, from the spoon being an aeroplane to letting him hold the spoon to feed himself.  SIGH.  I'm not sure if he just dislikes the food, or if he's getting reflux from the food which makes him uncomfortable and hate the idea of eating.   I'm hoping that when he starts finger foods soon, he'll start enjoying mealtimes more. 

Anyway, we've tried prune puree as well as chicken this past week.  He absolutely hates prune, even though I've been sneaking in small portions into his applesauce, and only eats a few mouthfuls each meal.  Oh, and prunes don't freeze well, becoming this black fibrous clump that doesn't come away cleanly from the ice cube tray, so I don't think I'll be doing prune purees anymore, at least for the moment!

As for chicken, we started on that yesterday, and he didn't take too well to it, partially because he was having reflux since Tuesdays as I drank soya milk (I was trying to see if he was still sensitive to soy, and apparently he still is).  About half an hour after the meal, he had a little bit of spitting up during his playtime, but I'm not sure if that's due to the soy or the chicken, so i'm going to risk it and try it one more time today.  *fingers crossed*

4 comments:

  1. Hey Jus

    we're starting LJ on solids - rice cerel + Bmilk. He's only 2 weeks away from being 6mth old so we thought it's close enough. Besides my supply has been down lately.

    Just read on ur blog that u've given baby J chicken? That's a big step isn't it? Did u puree it or is he chewing already? Btw, i thought not supposed to give meat proteins till way later?

    Anyway, help! How did u start feeding BB J with his first solids? We tried using a spoon but he doesn't really suck/swallow from it, bites down and pushes the stuff out with his tongue. Wasting a lot of it, wetting his bib so much. SO i'm mixing it with more Bmilk to make it really runny to put the stuff in his bottle. Lucky the rice mixture is small enough to be sucked out of the nipple.

    Am also wondering about the tell-tale signs of when baby is ready to chew?

    Is BB J still using his bottle for milk if at all or he's solely on the sippee cup?

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  2. Hey SY!

    I had to puree the chicken, since cooked chicken seems pretty hard to chew (at least for him at this stage!). He can mash food using his gums, so he can handle slightly larger chunks of cooked fruit though. I've read that meat proteins can be introduced from 8-10 months, and chicken and turkey are apparently recommended as the first meats to try...

    Seems like LJ still has his tongue thrust reflex, where the tongue automatically pushes out stuff that has been put into the mouth (to protect from choking). At least for baby J, it took about a week of feeding with the spoon for him to slowly get used to getting food from the spoon and keeping food in his mouth, but you can see from his photos food still gets all over the place during feeds! You might want to try a slightly smaller spoon, or try introducing foods on your little finger as they may not be used to feeding from the spoon! It'll take time for him to learn...

    Think you can tell about the chewing once he's on solids, as you can observe if he's mashing the food between his gums.

    Baby J's using his bottle for milk during feeds. He likes drinking from the sippy cup but will start to play with it after drinking from it, and I don't want to risk my milk being spilt on the floor for the dog to drink! :p

    Oh, and I think it seems common for milk supply to drop around 4 months onwards, if it gets really low maybe you might want to take fenugreek again?

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  3. Yeah, i have been taking the fenugreek + other herb mix pills and drinking the tea as well. I just can't do the every 3h pump again. So am keeping to the 5-6h schedule. Supply is not up tremendously but enough thanks to the rice cereal! And everytime we feed him the cereal, he sleeps longer than usual! And through the night as well! i'd like to believe that it helped. Of course his tummy must be ready for solids already by now as well. So i'd have 1 serving of cereal for him before bedtime and he sleeps at least 5-6h straight. :D

    Shd we keep trying to feed him with the spoon despite he keeps pushing everything out?

    Oh, when did u start giving and how much water are you giving BB J? Our pedia visit is coming up only 2 weeks from now.

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  4. At least the supply is enough for the demand... that's all that counts! :) So nice that LJ can now sleep at least 5 hours straight. Baby J absolutely cannot. SIGH.

    Perhaps you might try using your little finger first to see if it helps. If there's no difference, then go back to the spoon, it may just mean he needs time to learn... Or perhaps you might want to try other foods to see if he prefers other tastes?

    We started water about 3 weeks into starting solids as he was taking in more food. He doesn't drink much though, about 15 ml each time? Think its cos I usually let him drink milk before the meal (otherwise he'll cry for milk halfway through his meal!)...

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