The daily battle with the solids

I started solids with S as soon as she turned 4 months. Couple of reasons why I started so early. Mainly I stopped exclusive nursing when she was 25 days old and I felt S was not getting as nutritious a meal from formula as she would have got from nursing so I wanted to supplement with healthy solids as soon as possible. Secondly S had developed this habit of vomiting quite often (at least once in 3-4 days) immediately after a bottle feed and each time I fed her I was gripped with this panic attack- is she going to vomit this time. And let me tell you, it is pretty scary to see a baby vomit with such force that milk comes out of her nose. Anyway I am digressing-the point here being since she won’t take in as much air during a solid feed, chances of her vomiting were lower.
And initially it was good going. S loved the porridge (millet + milk) which I used to give her once a day, and her meal used to vanish in minutes. Then came 5 months and I decided to increase meals to twice a day. The paediatrician also suggested increasing the number of feeds and there were suggestions of fruits, vegetables, rice and lentils etc etc. I quite excitedly bought a book of meals for babies age 5 months and above and started trying out the recipes.
But S never took to the feeding twice a day concept and starting going off her initial lunch time meal of millet nad milk as well. It started of with her clamping her mouth shut someeher halfway between the meal. Then we would need to entertain her for the second half and only the noisiest of toys (mokey banging drum, elephant banging drum) would elicit an opening of the mouth and the food would be thrust in. I had read somehwetre and some of my friends firmly believe not to force a baby to eat, and not to entertain them while eating as they will not get to realsie how much is their appetite and how much they want to eat - however I have always been paranoid about S weight gain (since she did not put on much weight initially) and try as hard as possible to get the last bite down, even if it takes upto 1 hour.
Then it started getting progressively worse with S crying from the moment she was put on the bouncer/high chair. With immense patience and entertainment about 1/3 of the feed would go in and there would be a very frustrated and upset mom at the enf of the feed (who would start worrying about weight gain, future eating habits etc) and a creying baby (whose mood would magically change once pulled out of the high chair/bouncer

I started getting advice from various family members and even maids about how to feed the child, the most popular being that they used to make their kid lie down on their legs and stuff the food into the baby’s mouth. I am uncomfortable with this for two reasons- first I want S to get used to sitting on a chair and eating food ( Nevermind that I have now shifted back from the high chair to the bouncer since S hates the high chair, but it is sitting nevertheless) as this lays down the foundation for future eating habits at the table. Secondly, S has a habit of crying very loudly if food is thrust on her and when she cries a lot she ends up vomiting her whole meal. So the whole exercise becomes pointless. I still stick to the bouncer and rely on a good mood (from S) and entertainment from whoever is around to get the solid meal down.

Entertainment is essential for any meal. It varies from popular songs on Dad’s mobile, to a showcase of toys (when my mom Ajji is around) to vigorously banging two toys (from my maid) and saying “Bird is coming” in a very loud voice. Some recent innovations are opening and closing my laptop (S loves to come and bang on my laptop when I am working next to her), bringing all the masks down from the wall towards S (we have a nice collection of masks, and S favourite one is the Sun mask from Phillipines which we call ‘Surya Mama mask’), putting on and off the multicoloured light and also looking towards S favourite painting hanging on the wall. However the entertainment only helps about 1/3 of the feed going in and if S is not in a mood to eat (meaning S clamps her mouth shut or starts standing up and down vigorously on the bouncer) then no amount of entertainment can change her mind.

I have also tried all sorts of foods in the hope that I can find the particular food that S likes. They range from all sorts of cereal- millet, rice, oatmeal, broken wheat, the popular “Cerelac” (I desisted as much as I could since the hubby says this is mainly wheat and not particularly healthy); to rice and lentils, all types of vegetables, fruits etc etc. All I can figure out is that S hates rice and lentils and anything else is acceptable if S is in a mood to eat. S however does like Gerber fruits quite a bit. I try to make fresh fruit as much as possible but I think Gerber fruits are slightly tangy and S likes that taste. Recently we had gone for this ‘babies’ party (covered further in post “A week of firsts”) and I enviously looked on as another mom fed her child a whole jar of Gerber vegetables. Somehow S does not like her vegetables too much – I gave her peas, spinach and beans (Gerber) and she absolutely disliked it. Of course most people I know would not particularly like the taste of this combination of garden vegetables so I don’t blame her. Recently S has been unwell and was off her solids quite a bit for about 2-3 days, so now I am not experimenting much and basically giving milk/cereal based stuff. Managed to get some very dilute vegetable soup in today and some fruit but not really experimenting with the other exotic stuff mentioned in my baby book. My cousin who was recently in town mentioned that I should start giving her some of our normal food so that she gets used to it because basically by 1 year they should be eating most of our food. I am slightly apprehensive about this because 1) she is not liking the baby food we give her 2) she has stopped opening her mouth for anything new (not even cheese which I think she would like) and 3) our cook makes extremely spicy food. Once a friend had come over for dinner with her son and I asked the cook to make food with no spice and my friend found even that too spicy. Anyway am off to my mom’s place for Diwali in another 3 weeks so will try some home made “normal” food there.

Anyway will battle with the daily solids feeds- have recently upped to three in the hope that even if S has half of each she will get something nutritious.
I was recently commenting to my mom- when will S become big enough to feed herself, Just then I bumped into a neighbour in the lift who mentioned she still fed her children breakfast else they would not eat anything nutritious (and they must be at least 15 years old!!!!). Hope this is not a sign of things to come.