This post is written as a diary to our child (Guriya).
Dear Guriya,
As much as we were excited to begin weaning with you, we were hell confused about where to begin from. This was the tough decision because it would be the first start for your food and nutritional journey of your life, and thus this has to be very very special and pleasing experience for you.
while I wanted to make your taste buds go in love with the food. I really wanted to make sure that we maintain balanced diet and serve you the foods from all food groups. However, this was always on the mind that from six month to a year you will get most of the nutrition from breast milk and formula milk as recommended by World Health Organization (WHO). The solids at this stage is to get sensory (taste) and oral motor (movement of mouth) stimulation in addition to developing love for the food. I could understand how difficult it must be for you to take your first solid in mouth, chew it and then swallow it, when all you were doing before was drinking milk!
The food from six months to one-year should only be aimed for oral stimulation and developing love for the food.
Traditionally, your grandparents share that they began weaning with milk and biscuits. The recent research shows that biscuits have high content of artificial sugar, preservatives and baking soda which can cause gastro-intestinal issues. Doctor suggested to begin from khichdi and vegetables and people around us suggested to begin with suji and saghudana. Where to begin was still a question.
Keeping all the food values and suggestions, I decided to begin with carrot puree. Many people would ask why carrot puree? The simple answer is Carrots are good source of Vitamin A, full of fiber and are naturally sweetened to give you the blissful experience of first time food. In addition, here in Pakistan it was winters and thus we had variety of freshly harvested vegetables in the market which is not available throughout the year. I believe I could begin with fresh vegetables this season and then after a month or two when vegetable season ends, I will introduce daliya, khichri, suji, saghudana and all other cereals.
Carrots! The first baby food for you because its winter season with fresh vegetables available in market, Cereals can surely wait!
To introduce you carrot, I made a purée out of it. After Carrot, I introduced you to broccoli, peas, apple, sweet potato, beetroot purée in silo and then in combinations.
Do you know that steaming is the better option for softening than boiling because steaming can save most of the nutritional content of the food?
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