8 months

Can't help it but exclaimed once again, how times flies! It seems like time passed by much faster as a SAHM and 24hrs never ever seem to be sufficient everyday.

 

My little sweetie pie turned 8 months old yesterday. She can be very cheeky and adorable at times but horribly monstrous at times too. Then again that's what motherhood or parenthood is all about, if the baby does not whine and cry, it's gonna sent us into panic mode. The advantage of being able to be with her 24/7 means that I get to witness most of her milestones as compared to Zethan's which is a blessing so I ought to remind myself no matter how tough the situation/s can be, rough it out!

 

Oh before I forget, her first pearlie on the lower gum just peeped through 2 days back while the one beside is cutting too which means we are facing the horrifying teething nightmare in double dosage!

 

For this post I will mainly touched on weaning since there is a handful to recall thus most probably resulting in quite a lengthy post.

We started her on white rice cereal around 3rd Dec when she is 5months 2 days old and she loved it much more than her milk feeds. In fact she took to the concept of spoon feeding very well  and could master swallowing instead of pushing out the food with her tongue. For ease of measurement we used formula scoop so we started off with 1 scoop mixed with about 40ml of BM. She polished up everything on her 1st try which is like Wow! I made the decision to wean with white rice cereal for fear of brown rice causing constipation. It was pretty tough to find organic white rice cereal and after searching high & low, managed to get Organix First Organic Wholegrain Baby Rice. Subsequently I switched to HIPP Organic Cereal Pap Baby Rice which she certainly enjoyed more than the former. Portion was gradually increased every 5 days or so to identify how well she is taking it and of course to ensure she is not over fed resulting in bloatedness and indigestion. At the same time I adopt the 5 day rules to check for allergens which is very conservative since the recommendation called for 3-4 days.

 

We had to delay the introduction of new grains and purees as the poor little gal had a bout of diarrhoea which lasted almost close to a month. I was definitely more than worried sick and we had to make 2 trips to the PD before it finally tailed off. PD suspected that she had twice of the infection which explained why it took such a long time to recovery despite medication. It was certainly very heart pain to see her LS for up to 6 times a day and concerned about dehydration. Amazingly she gained weight during this sage instead of losing thus PD isn't very worried about the whole situation.

8 Jan - Butternut squash puree. As planned, she is fed about 40ml as teabreak but quite unfortunately she had indigestion the whole night, rejecting milk feeds badly. So the next day, we reduced her cereal from 3 scoops to 2 scoops with the puree mixed in. It was tough to gauge if she is full from the feed thus we adopt the trial and error approach. Fed her about 100ml of BM post cereal and her next feed was somewhere around 5-6 hrs later. Tried feeding her after 4hrs but apparently she is not hungry thus rejecting the milk feed.

 

14 Jan - Introduced Happy Bellies brown rice cereal. It was mixed with white rice cereal as I have read that it taste much better than on its own thus higher acceptance by babies. However we noticed subsequently she did not take to brown rice very well and had constipation despite feeding some water in between feeds and the high water content being fully breastfed.

 

22 Jan - Apple Puree. Bought organic apples, steamed for a few minutes before blending. Since the apple puree is mixed in cereal, she did not showed any signs of rejection.

 

01 Feb - Chinese spinach puree (yim choy). I steamed only the leaves till it turn dark green and blend it. The whole packet of veg only yield 4 miserable cubes of puree (estimated of 40ml per cube). The end product did not have an appealing appearance but she take it anyhow, again no rejection.

 

18 Feb - Carrot. We halted the introduction of new food since it's the LNY period which explained the 2 weeks gap. Over the 2 weeks, she continued to have apples and butternut squash on alternate days. We had to make sure that she has apples puree for a few days before having carrot puree so as not to have continuous yellow food to prevent building up of carotene. Now carrot is the only food so far she is showing disinterest in. For most of the other cereal-puree meals, she simply can't wait for the next spoonful to be served. With the exception of carrot, she took a longer time to finish her meal, not looking forward for the next spoonful to be fed.

 

25 Feb - HIPP Buckwheat cereal. Introduced together with carrot, she did not fancy it. However taken on its own, she showed no sign of rejection.

 

At this point of time we are feeding her only 1 meal of cereal at lunchtime (4 scoops of cereal, 40ml of puree, 120ml of BM). Toying with the idea of introducing 2nd meal at dinnertime but have been shelving off till later date since her daily intake of milk totalled up to merely 700ml which is considered very little. We have discussed with her PD and she agreed that her milk intake is a little on the low side and if we introduced 2 meals, it will reduced it further.

 

Typically this is her feeding pattern daily.

8am - 180ml BM

11am - 4 scoops cereal + 50ml puree + 120ml BM

5pm - 170ml BM

8pm - 170ml BM

11pm - 150ml BM

 

Since she is 8 months old now, I do have the intention to feed her cereal at dinnertime perhaps with a smaller portion to see how well she can take it and how badly affected her milk feeds might be.

 

Introduction of porridge will most likely be carried out when she is 9mths old or even later. More vegetable and fruits puree in the pipeline.