I woke up at the fourth watch and couldn't fall back to sleep after feeding her the night milk. He stared at the little guy in his arms, seven months and three days old, with two teeth as white as grains of rice. He suddenly bit me, and the pain made me gasp, but he grinned. It turns out that teething babies look like this. They use their mouths to explore the world, and maybe they are beginning to get tired of being confused.
Don’t be kidnapped by “other people’s babies”: seven months, what’s the rush?
Those supplementary food lists on the Internet are accurate to the gram and what time to eat at what time. Just looking at them makes me anxious.
My baby spit pumpkin puree in my face yesterday, but today he can eat less than half a bowl. What's the rush?
The doctor said that seven months is the "chewing sensitive period". When he wants to bite something, he is not deliberately causing trouble. When you put your fingers into his mouth, you can feel that the gums are showing a special itchiness when exerting force. Giving some grainy food at this time does not constitute torture, but it is tickling.
What is "graininess"? Don’t interpret it as uncooked rice!
Yesterday I made carrot and cabbage puree. I didn't puree it, leaving some grated bits.
Just now, his mouth was stunned, and his tongue was moving in disorder, not knowing what to do. I ignored it at the time and continued to feed him the second bite. Then he swallowed it. Although half of it flows down the chin into the bib, how can that change the situation? He relied on himself to complete a "chewing-swallowing" cycle.
What is the sign that something is wrong? It is not vomiting, but retching. If the baby stretches his neck, his face becomes red from holding back, and he coughs violently, it means that the particles are too big and must be reduced to mud. Try again after a week.
The “pits” and “variations” in recipes
The recipes I searched for on the Internet were all perfect. Egg custard made from lean meat, pumpkin puree made from chicken, and mashed fish made people feel tired just looking at it.
Lean meat egg custard
Chop the lean meat into fine pieces, beat the eggs, stir them together and steam them? No, never use whole eggs! Egg yolks are added first at seven months, and it is not too late to wait until August to try high-allergenic foods such as egg whites. When I make it, I steam the egg yolk soup first, and then sprinkle the pre-cooked and minced meat on top. The minced meat is made over the weekend and frozen, which can come in handy during the week.
Chicken Pumpkin Puree
The pumpkin is steamed and pressed into a puree, and the chicken is cooked and minced. The recipe actually says to add dried shrimps, right? Are you crazy? Look at how high the salt content of dried shrimps is. I didn’t hear anyone tell me, so I changed it to A few shiitake mushrooms were cooked together with chicken. The shiitake mushrooms are rich in vitamin D and also have a natural umami flavor. The baby refused to eat them, perhaps because the so-called "nutritional combination" tasted too unpleasant and difficult to swallow.
fish paste
Choose cod or salmon with few spines, steam it, and twist it by hand (note that it is hand twisting, not chopping with a knife). If you can touch the tiny spines, pick them out and mix them into the rice paste. If the baby refuses, there may be a fishy smell. Add two drops of lemon juice, not for seasoning, but to remove the fishy smell.
Don’t stick to “two meals a day”, milk is the staple food
A friend who is a doctor said something very heart-wrenching: The stomach of a seven-month-old baby is still in a state of "dairy products first", and complementary feeding is just a practice, not a formal meal.
There were a few days when I felt like I was crazy and had to force him to eat twice. As a result, the amount of milk dropped sharply to over 500, and I would wake up hungry three or four times at night. Then it returned to like this: During the day, there were no more than two meals during the day, each meal was about the size of a baby's fist, and the milk volume was maintained between 800 and 1,000 milliliters. At night, I was able to sleep peacefully.
The "dirty" truths that no one tells you
The so-called "self-eating training" is a disaster.
He stretched out his hand to grab the chicken and pumpkin puree, but the puree got all over his hair. I resisted not wiping it off and let him play with it. Within five minutes, he started patting the table, and the mud on the plate splashed onto my glasses. My husband laughed beside me and made a sound similar to that of a goose. I suddenly felt that this is exactly what complementary food should look like. It is not the precise nutritional intake. It turns out that he is using his own unique way to understand food, which should be soft texture food, sticky food, warm food and food that can be easily crushed.
About constipation
After adding the minced meat, there was no bowel movement for three days, and the whole family was as anxious as ants on a hot pot, constantly circling around. The child care director said: It’s prune puree, not banana. If bananas are eaten raw, they will make constipation worse. The laxative effect of prune mud is comparable to that of kaiselu, and it is natural. I tried it and it tasted really good.
If I lived seven months over again
I don’t make three or four kinds of purees at once, portion them out and freeze them. I don’t want to go through that day of washing the food pot while extracting milk late at night.
I will do it:
Monday : Rice noodles + pumpkin puree (the adults ate pumpkin yesterday and left a piece of it to be steamed without salt)
Tuesday : rice noodles + minced pork (leave a few slices of pure lean meat for the weekend stew and freeze it)
Wednesday : Mix together the leftovers from the previous two days and add a spoonful of walnut oil
Children don’t need the novelty of something different every day. What they need is routine and adaptation.
Also, don’t dwell on the false scientific content of so-called “food complementarity”. How much iron can a seven-month-old baby absorb from a spoonful of pureed meat and a spoonful of pureed vegetables? Its main sources are still iron-fortified rice flour and breast milk. Stop adding unnecessary plot points to yourself.
Finally, let me tell you something sad.
That push-out movement that causes you to collapse, called the tongue thrust reflex, usually disappears between four and six months, but some babies remain until seven months. It's not that he's a picky eater, it's just that his body isn't ready yet.
You chase the little guy to feed him, and the little guy closes his mouth tightly. The little guy may be stating "I am full", or the little guy may be saying "I don't like the taste." Every spoonful you force-feed is destroying the little one's interest in food.
Today, my son ate cabbage puree and when he took the first bite, he frowned. Immediately after taking the second bite, he curled his lips to show off. Then after taking the third bite, he actually opened his mouth and wanted more. I really don't understand at all whether he likes it or not. However, I won't speculate anymore.
For seven months, complementary feeding is not an assessment, but an invitation. The purpose is to persuade him to come and have a look. What he is looking at is to see us adults sitting around every day, engaged in the warm thing of "eating".
The sky outside the window was about to reach dawn, and he made a grunting sound again. It was time to start breastfeeding. Regarding matters related to complementary feeding, we should wait until the sun appears to discuss and resolve them.
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