The World of Weaning

There are many new territories a new mom has to conquer the day motherhood begins.

From the moment the baby is brought home, it is a frenzy of juggling feeding times, latching, pumping, learning to discern sleepy signals from hunger cries, diaper-changing, and catching as much sleep in between. That is why the confinement lady is there if you can have the luxury of hiring one. All these are still so fresh in my memory!

Crossing over 6 months, I was baffled by the term called "weaning". What should the baby eat? What can the baby eat? What causes allergy? When should the baby eat? How do I prepare baby's food?

I was frantically reading up, then decided to take baby steps and not jump on the fast-train. I subscribed to the belief that a child has a whole lifetime to eat, and I don't have to be in a hurry.
As if my storeroom was not bursting with stockpiles of diapers and wet wipes, I had to add to it a collection of kitchen appliances called the "steamer" and the "blender". Please don't get me started on the range of appliances available to bewilder a freshie mom like me (especially a know-nuts in the kitchen).

And oh, there are different styles of weaning! Typically there are 5-6 feeds a 6-month old baby take, and ideally l'd liked to do a "milk-puree-milk-porridge-milk" sequence. Some mummies practice BLW (Baby Led Weaning) which means they allow the baby to experiment with a food with their hands, squishing and squashing it till they try to put it into their tiny mouths to savour. I do it the old school way so as to blend with my mother-in-law's methods. After all, she is the main caregiver.

Experts will tell you to let your baby try a new food and keep to it for at least 4 days before moving to another one in order to determine the culprit easily if there's an allergy or uncomfortable tummy. I am not a very experientmental mommy and thus far I have only given white rice cereal, porridge, carrot, potato, butternut squash, broccoli, cauliflower, sweet potato and threadfin. Never have I been so particular about the type of vegetables I buy ie. broccoli and cauliflower has to be from Australia, choose butternut squash over pumkpin. I don't even know what a buttersqash is before this!

You read earlier on that day 1 of weaning wasn't successful for me. Some say it requires a few tries. Jaeden succeeded on the 2nd try and now at a month later, he can finish a full Thermos flask of porridge puree.

Learn, laugh it over and live it up mummies. This journey is so much fun.