Porridge for Rayyan

Over the weekend, we had Rayyan's 8-month checkup appointment with his pediatrician.

Upon seeing her, Rayyan who used to be oblivious to the needle jabs for vaccines, now at 8 months, is not that oblivious anymore.

The doctor said to him,

"Hi Rayyan! Wahh you got so big! What did you eat?"

He didn't move a muscle. Stared (as usual) at the nice doctor for good long 5 minutes.

And..finally let out a huge cry.

T.T



It was as if he knew "this won't end good" because he'd get jabs at almost every visit with his pediatrician, that he decided to continue crying even though I was right in front of him. Usually he'd settle as soon as I pick him up (separation anxiety too, I read - he doesn't really like strangers holding him) but this time..nothing helps!

So the doctor rushed to do her thang - asked the nurse to prepare the needle and jabbed him.

Obviously the crying got worse T.T

But after the ordeal, I picked him up and hugged him tight and he finally settled. Got some advices from the doctor on what he's supposed to eat by this time, instead of the usual fruit puree. I learned that Rayyan's at this "second stage" now, where he needs a rougher texture of food to train his chewing and utilizing his teeth.

So rushed home, spent the evening to make him this.

Rice porridge with kurma, ikan bilis and carrot!

Recipe :

1) Fry ikan bills without oil, set aside to cool down. Blend lightly to make the pieces smaller (it's Rayyan's first time for rice porridge so I started small). You can make them in large batch and keep the rest in a container for future use

2) Add the bits of ikan bilis in the cooker with rice. Cook porridge

3) While waiting for the porridge, cut carrots into dice pieces and steam with kurma (without the seed, obviously. I like to put kurma in porridge for Rayyan to sweeten it up)

4) When porridge is done, add the steamed carrots and kurma into the cooker and mash them up. I used the Philips Avent steamer and blender for this purpose as I'd like the texture to be less rough for his first time

5) Serve when it's warm, or store in baby's food container and freeze!

Finally, a legit recipe HAHA.

I read that you have to treat the frozen food for your baby just like how you treat your EBM, so I hope I get this right. (Rayyan is fine so far, so I guess it's OK)

When it comes to baby food, I had to do a lot of research on what can be fed to 6+ months babies (still a noob at these things). Found a lot of recipes for baby at Annabel Karmel's website. Found out she's one of the experts in this field as well - so I've been using her recipes for Rayyan's food these past 2 months, and they're all good! She has a meal planner for babies, too - you can get them here.

For how to treat the frozen baby food, I've bookmark-ed this website as reference. If you have any other reference, let me know!

Never knew I'd have so much fun feeding my kid XD