Diet diversification, the six-month old baby edition

Time flies! Once the wee one and I graduated from the sleepless nights of the newborn stage and rolling at five months, our next challenge is his introduction to solid food. This, to me, means it's now time to diversify his diet (which up til now is 100% formula milk). Finally, his food adventure begins!

As someone who is a rice sensory specialist and who was involved in a project about food choice behaviours in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, and  Metro Manila, I've been looking forward to the day when I can start introducing flavours and textures to my son and see how his food preferences develop... even if this means that I have to stretch my own preferences and eat food that I don't like to eat.

There are two approaches to introducing solid food to a baby. One is the so-called "baby-led weaning", in which babies start feeding themselves with slices of food (small enough to prevent choking) from the get-go. Then there's the more traditional purée approach in which well-mashed or puréed food is introduced to the baby, as his/her first food, via spoon-feeding.

I decided to go traditional. But I didn't want to go to the readymade food route. Instead, I wanted to prepare as much of the food myself. I already have the spoons, the tiny storage jars, and the ice cube tray anyway.

A big thank you goes to Biboy and Barbara who gave me two silicone freezing trays, which I can use to ramp up my purée freezing efforts.

Plus, I purchased a recipe book for DIY baby food batch preparation entitled "Make-Ahead Baby Food Cookbook" by Stephanie Van't Zelfden. 

And so we begin the little one's food adventure.

This book explains that introducing solid food to babies can be divided into three stages. Stage 1 is the purées only stage. And this is where we begin. I bought everything that's on this shopping list at Whole Foods, thinking that I can purée his food batches gradually. 

My first shopping list.

And because I want technology to work hard for me, rather than me doing the manual labour (which I might not be able to do efficiently with a baby strapped onto me most of the day), I also bought a Ninja Foodi blender that can be used for cooking. Cooking and puréeing in the same jar helps prevent the loss of nutrients that comes from boiling and straining vegetables prior to mashing them.

The blender that is becoming one of the more hard-working gadgets at home.

And so I began cooking. The book has a suggested four-week schedule for introducing food: During the first three weeks, the purées are served only at breakfast. The schedule then adds a second meal time (lunch) for another round of purées on the fourth week. On the first day, the schedule says avocado purée; on the second and third days, sweet potato purée; so on and so forth.

But I wasn't reading the fine print. 

I knew that the purées are supposed to be introduced once daily... but I ended up serving the purées twice a day since the first time I introduced him to purées. He tries out a serving of purée after his second and his fourth bottles of milk.

Also, I introduced my son to applesauce (made of Lady Alice apples) first... rather than the avocado purée as recommended by the book. He didn't like the sour notes and the tartness of the applesauce. There probably is wisdom in choosing to go with avocado first, after all. Because I don't want to waste food as much as possible, I used the leftover applesauce as a component of a vinaigrette for my salads.

My salad greens with chunks of MY avocado and dressing made of the leftover from
the purée of the day and balsamic vinaigrette.

The next day, my son tried avocado and he liked it better than the applesauce. He wasn't frowning anymore when the spoon got near his mouth. On the third day, I think that he's getting a hang of the routine, so the mango purée had a great reception too. At some point during the week, I decided to give him some roasted sweet potato purée. Based on the amount of leftover purée in the bowl, it appears that sweet potato is the little boy's favourite so far.

Looks like I won't be discovering what sweet potato with balsamic vinaigrette tastes like.

The first week's purée round-up:

Day No.	Food
1	Applesauce
2	Avocado
3	Avocado/Mango
4	Applesauce
5	Sweet potato
6	Mango
7	Sweet potato

My stash of frozen purées is steadily growing. I've got applesauce, mango, and sweet potato purées in resealable bags so far. As the new week begins, I'm getting more veggies prepped: carrots, cauliflower, and butternut squash are in the queue.