Weaning: First Foods
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I am a mother of four; all born within the tiny space of 3 and a half years of each other. I’ve had a lot of practice feeding babies: breastfeeding; bottle-feeding; complimentary feeding; weaning; blending up purees; freezing purees; cleaning up the floors, walls, babies and me. (Repeat).
Weaning: First Foods
I think feeding babies may possibly be like riding a bike. Once you do it, you never forget. But, I could be very wrong about this. Many times now, I find myself being very forgetful about the details of raising children. Once I pass through a certain phase of our family life, I am so engrossed with the next set of challenges, that remembering what we just did, to get through the previous phase, is near impossible.
That said, I’m keen to write down our tried and tested first foods for weaning our babies. I’m not a nutritionist or naturopath. I am a mother of four; who has had advice from a nutritionist and naturopath. These are some of our favourite first foods when weaning.
Grains
The very first food we give our children is rice porridge, (otherwise known as congee). It’s very simple to make. Wash some rice, (we use a medium grain rice). For every one part of rice, add nine parts of water. Bring it to a boil, then simmer until the rice is soft. Leave to cool and the consistency will thicken up. If you want, you may puree the congee even further using a blender.
In our children’s first year, we avoid where possible, foods containing gluten. This is based on advice given to us by our naturopath. We have found quinoa flakes to be an excellent alternative. It’s high in protein, iron and fibre; and gluten free. The quinoa flakes are super quick to cook as well. Quinoa has become a breakfast staple in our home.
Barley is also one of our other favourites. It’s a little lumpier in texture, which is great when our kids were ready to move onto more lumpy textured purees.
Fruit & Vegetables
Apples and pears are our go-to fruits. We mix some up with quinoa for breakfast; and if appetites are still ravishing after lunch or dinner, we serve it up as dessert.
When our twin baby boys experienced constipation, our paediatrician told us to feed them some pear. We didn’t believe it, but sure enough, pear did wonders to relieve our babies’ constipation. We’ve since fed pear to our other two babies and we’re most happy to report that they have regular bowel movements; (oh, how priorities change once one becomes a parent – tee hee hee).
With vegetables, anything goes, as long as it can be cooked and pureed. We try to have different coloured vegetables with each meal, a bit of orange and a bit of green is our rule of thumb. Our favourites include: pumpkin; zucchini; broccoli; potato; sweet potato; and carrots.
Meat
Once our babies were happily eating purees of the above, we would then introduce them to small amounts of meat: chicken, pork and fish.
A Typical Day of Meals
A typical day of meals for our babies would look like this:
Breakfast – a combination of fruit and quinoa.
Lunch – 1 part grain (rice/quinoa/barley); 1 part orange coloured vegetables; 1 part green coloured vegetables; 1 part meat.
Afternoon Tea – fruit (and optional quinoa).
Dinner - 1 part grain (rice/quinoa/barley); 1 part orange coloured vegetables; 1 part green coloured vegetables; 1 part meat.
Dessert – fruit (and optional quinoa).
Foods To Take Care With:
Again, I want to stress that I am not a nutritionist or naturopath. I am a mother of four, who is sharing what has worked well for our family.
Based on advice from our naturopath, to minimise potential allergic reactions, during our children’s first year, we avoid where possible, dairy products; beef; eggs; honey; nuts; and foods containing gluten.
Miss K is now 9 months old. In the blink of an eye she has conquered purees. Her appetite is increasing, and her hands are wanting to participate during meal times too. Now I need to start thinking about finger foods.
K: 9 months
About the author
Pauline LessonsLearntJournal; because #playmatters. On Lessons Learnt Journal you'll find activities for children, play, parenting, maths games, handwriting, reading and much more.
Pauline is a Christian, Wife, Mother of 4, Primary School Teacher. When not blogging, she may be found virtually hoarding on Pinterest, trying to decide which Instagram filter to apply, or compulsively refreshing her Facebook feed. Most days you'll find her chasing her kids and that much needed nap.
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What a great post! Can’t believe in only 3 months this will be coming round again for us! Time flies!
Just saw your Real Life Wednesday post and Bek, your little ones are GORGEOUS! xoxo P
What a great post. I think it’s great to share with other mums what you feed your kids- and what works.
Your opening paragraph scared me. I’m just having my second child after 3.5 years, and you’ve already got 4. Feeling lazy !!!!!! and don’t know where you find the time to blog.
My opening paragraph scares me too Jackie. Scares me a lot! lol xoxo P
Pears were magical for us as well! I have to say a lot of what you describe above sounds good to me as an adult– add some seasonings and a glass of wine and you have a great meal!! Hee!
I concur Stephanie ;P
Great post Pauline!!! I love your pics…they make me want to go and cook something right now!! I really loved the solids stage…think i would prefer to go back there rather than this fussy 2 yr old stage we have hit!!
LOL. The 2 year old fussy eater stage deserves a series of blogposts don’t you think? I just remind myself, my boys will consume loads of food when they’re teenagers… it’ll all balance out
xoxo P
Daughter no 2 just asked about this on the weekend so very timely thanks, will pass it on. especially low the gluten advice as I am intolerant and think it can possibly run in the family. When did you start feeding rice to your children?
I think I started feeding them rice around 4-6 months. When they got to that stage when they couldn’t sleep as long as they used to, and they could sit (supported) and hold their heads up well. Rice porridge was such a great first food. Xoxo P
Pinning this and coming back to it in about a year, when I’ll be ready to feed bub #2
Thanks for the pin Kylie and hope you’re doing well. xoxo P
A wonderful post for a new mums! Luckily, I’m past the pureed food stage but I can’t see the end of the tunnel with cleaning myself, toddlers and walls. Will it ever end?
When you get to that end of the tunnel, can you tell me so I know that there is an end? lol xoxo P
One item missing that our kids are still huge fans of is avocado. Here in the US Southwest it’s available year round at a great price. It’s excellent first finger foods along with banana as well. The only thing to be weary about is allergies, of course. If your child has allergies to bananas and/or potatoes then from what I read, avocado follows with those two.
My kids gobble them up, however, and they are loaded with all kids of good stuff for kids!
Oh yes! Avocado and bananas are great first foods. We devour bananas very quickly in our home. With avocado, I still haven’t figured out the trick to keeping them from turning brown once they’ve been cut (as we never finish one whole avocado in one sitting). Didn’t know about allergies to bananas/potatoes/avocado. Thank you for your lovely tips. xoxo P
I love how healthy this post is for feeding babies! I skipped purees completely with my second and started straight with table food, cut into appropriate pieces or softened for a baby learning to use their fingers. I felt more confident that baby would eat just as much as they want to while also experimenting with the textures from the get-go. However, if I were to use purees, I would totally do something like this!! Full of great information! No more nasty jarred food!
Hi Kendall, I’ve only just started hearing about people skipping the purees completely. How old did you start doing this with your second? xoxo P
He was six months old when I started.
He would only take some bites here and there. I didn’t even give him 1/2 the serving portion I gave to my first. Just a couple pieces of everything we ate. He started eating food really good at about 10 months old.
This is a great reference. Doing this baby food thing for the third time (soon. He\’s grabbing at everything and sticking it in his mouth!). I\’ve never made my own rice porridge but definitely will be since we\’re now living in Uganda. Have you tried it with brown rice? Does it take more water/time?
Hi Vanessa,
Babies grow so quickly don’t you think? I’ve never made rice porridge with brown rice before, sorry. I’m guessing it would require a bit more water. Perhaps start with the 1:10 ratio and as it boils, if you think it needs more water, add more? Would love to hear how it works out. Just about to hop over to your blog now to explore. Uganda! How can I resist?! xoxo P
Will probably try it out sometime next week. He’s only (almost) 5 months, but he is giving all the signs that he is ready. Perhaps this will help him sleep a little longer than 3 hour increments!
Will let ya know how it turns out.