Feeding my baby used to be a nightmare. I woke up in the morning dreading her meal times and went to sleep at night far from relieved that I was done feeding her for the day, but fretting about tomorrow’s meals instead, and then woke up the next day still dreading her meal times.
Up till recently when she turned a year old, my yummy baby was most obstinately resistant to food. She gagged, she choked and she even vomitted.
No matter what time I fed her – I made sure it was right after she has woken up when she’s in the best of moods – she was always angry at having food thrusted at her. No matter what food I fed her, she remained persistently defiant. Organic cereals of different grains – rice, barley, oatmeal – we tried them all. Homemade purées – pear, apple, sweet potato, banana, plum, carrot, pumpkin, green bean, french bean, etc – we tried more and more in the hope she would surely like something. She didn’t, though there were some she didn’t react as violently towards. No matter how smooth and fine I puréed the food, she made a face, shook her head rigorously, and swiped my spoon away with cat-like precision. There was no difference with jar food – I missed counts of the number of times I had costly commercial organic baby food spat out on my face and splattered all over my clothes when we were out.
I surfed the net, I bought many cookbooks. But no matter how confidently the websites and recipes proclaim that THIS ONE is a healthy tasty meal your baby will SURELY love, my own yummy baby’s little face still soured and doured at meal times.
Having exhausted my modern resources of feeding her, I decided to return to more traditional Chinese methods. I bought a slow cooker pot and painstakingly boiled porridge with vegetables and meat for hours till it simmered with flavours. Surely, this would whet yummy baby’s appetite. Good old porridge cooked the good old fashioned way… just like how my grandmother and mother used to feed me when I was a baby, and how almost every baby in Singapore eats.
She hated it. After the first mouthful, she clamped her mouth so tight there was no way I could even sneak in another sip. Rather than tasting it again, she spat the warm porridge with its bits of vegetables and meat out and let it dribble down her neck onto her body. I tried for 45 minutes every day, then gave up before the week was up, and went back to feeding cereal and purées.
I soon became known among family and friends to be always feeding my yummy baby since each meal took at least 30 to 45 minutes. One day, in a fit of inspired frustration, I renamed her Miffy – the Sanrio rabbit with a cross for a mouth.
Yummy baby with her favourite bear
(Picture credit)
I was at my wits’ end.
So I decided to stop trying to feed her. We went back to happily breastfeeding. Purely breastfeeding with zero solid meals per day. Who said babies have to start solids at 6 months old? Well, the same people who said meal times should never be a power struggle, I sniffed to myself as I cuddled my yummy baby suckling contentedly at my breast.
Yummy baby’s triumph was shortlived though. When we popped into the neighbourhood paediatrician’s clinic at 8.5 months old, I was given a mini lecture about baby eating habits by the paediatrician when I let slip I was no longer trying to feed yummy baby any semi-solid food. He informed me that she would have problems accepting food if she was not established on 2 meals a day by the time she’s 11 months old.
In my mind, I thought, but but…but all my resources say that milk should be the main source of food when the baby is less than a year old! However, in my heart, I fretted, as would all mothers. When I confided in Mr Fluffy Hubby, he snorted and asked, “Have you ever come across any adult with problems eating simply because he started eating solid food later than other babies?” I laughed too, but I suspect his response arose out of concern for my mental well-being if I went back to tussling with our yummy baby about food.
But it was inevitable, trying to get yummy baby to eat. And then was as good a time as any. So we went back to the dining table and resumed our daily meals, our daily battles. Nothing changed. Yummy baby was just as averse to food. But she was older now, so she had a whole arsenal of newly acquired techniques to fight me and my increased number of meals for her. Besides, gagging, choking and vomitting, she now also held the food in her mouth refusing to swallow, pushed the spoon out with her tongue, and even clamped her mouth shut so tight she bit down on her own lip till it bled.
Sometime after her 1 year-old birthday, things took an almost miraculous and certainly wondrous change though. Yummy baby went to the other extreme and developed an obsession with food. She not only polished off her own meals, picked the crumbs off her high chair table, wiped the plate with her hands and licked them, but she also pointed to our food and loudly demanded them throughout our meal times. As soon as I gave in and popped whatever I had in my bowl into her mouth, she would immediately point and demand again, even before she had started chewing, much less to say, swallow. Nowadays, I would often end up dropping food into her mouth till either Mr Fluffy Hubby or her grandmother were done eating and carried her away from the dining table, before I got a chance to start properly on my own meal. Not that I’m complaining. Not at all.
Here’s a typical menu in yummy baby’s day:
Breakfast
Organic multi-grain baby cereal with fruit purées
Lunch
Baked cod fish flavoured with basil, black pepper and lemon juice
Steamed pork flavoured with chopped onion and garlic
Steamed tomatoes
Soft white rice
Tea
French toast
or
Toast with cinnamon, nutmeg and olive spread
or
Mini pancakes with cinnamon, nutmeg and olive spread
or
Baked potato with black pepper, dill and olive spread
Dinner
Threadfin/cod fish, chicken/pork/beef, vegetables, fruit purées
Dessert
Cut fruits – usually longan, cherry and strawberry
All these with milk in between throughout the day. I am pleased.
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