New Food Introduced @ 1 Year

Having passed her first birthday, we started to be more relaxed on the food that she could eat, including feeding her food from our plate which she seemed to enjoy a lot.

New food that she had been eating:

• Egg white
• Baby Spinach
• Brewer's yeast

• Organic kale - this was something that I had read about since Ian was a baby, but never managed to find in the local supermarkets until now.  A super green that boosted many benefits above the other vegetables, such as high in calcium, beta-carotene, and other nutrients such as vitamin C, folic acid, vitamin B6, manganese, and potassium.  Imagine my excitement when I spotted it in the supermarket!

• Organic red lentils - One of the grains that I should have introduced earlier to Isabelle, but had been procrastinating.  

• Baby pasta stars

Not a new food, but one of my 'exotic' finds at the Takashimaya Cold Storage - purple broccoli!  After steaming, it looked just like the normal green broccoli.

She has also been sharing the tamago sushi that we always order for Ian whenever we dine at a sushi restaurant.  She loves eating the same food as us, hence, she normally finishes one whole sushi on her own, plus other food such as soba, and even fries.

New Food Introduced @ 11 Months

As Isabelle approaches the big one year old mark, she is now able to eat a lot more varieties of food.

What she has been trying for the first time this month:

• Chia Seed - A super nutritious seed that I just discovered while reading up the ingredients on a Happy Baby food pouch.  It has benefits such as helping to lose weight and balancing blood sugar level, but there are others more relevant to a baby.  The omega-3s in chia seed is more than salmon (by weight), and these seeds are very high in antioxidants. Unlike flax seeds which I had added into Ian's diet when he was a baby, chia seeds do not turn rancid that easily and can store for much longer!  I do not make chia gel for Isabelle.  Instead, I simply sprinkle some on top of her cereal or porridge.

• Purple Sweet Potato - An "exotic-looking" variation of the normal sweet potatoes that I usually get to see in wet markets.  I stumbled across this in a Sheng Siong supermarket while waiting for Ian's holiday art class to end.  It was a good thing that I bought one of those, as I had not had the luck to see it again elsewhere.  Isabelle appeared to love this, as she always finished the porridge whenever I added a cube in it.
• Cherries
• Kiwi

I have also been adding a breakfast meal to her diet as she neared her birthday (she normally had only milk), since her appetite seemed to have increased.  I would add a food pouch or half of it to cereal, as she had been rejecting the taste of pure cereal.  Otherwise, if I had a ripe avocado on hand, I would blend it with mashed tofu.  She had also rejected blended avocado with only cereal, unless I added mashed tofu.  I wondered if it was because she didn't like a very smooth texture, but preferred to have something to chew on?

Anyway, as she neared her first birthday, we could be a bit more relaxed on her food and let her try more things off our plate.

New Food Introduced @ 10 Months

After the scare last month (rashes all over Isabelle's body), we slowly introduced new things back into her diet. What we had added this month:

• Fish Oil - Left: Nordic Naturals Baby's DHA for Isabelle.  (On the right: Children's DHA for Ian.)

• Wheatgerm - A very nutritious grain filled with fiber, iron, magnesium, manganese, protein, omega-2 fatty acids, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, vitamin E, zinc, B vitamins, and calcium.  I had bought a packet of this about 2-3 months back and kept it in the freezer until I could find a good time to introduce to our girl.

• Beetroot - Another super nutritious food, filled with fiber, antioxidant, iron and vitamins A, B, C, and other minerals.  It was a regret that I did not manage to include this super food into Ian's diet when he was younger.  

Beetroot puree in porridge

 Beetroot stained lips... just like wearing lipstick?

Good thing that she loved the beetroot.  It looked yucky to me!

I had also started to let her share my food (she was always glaring hungrily at my food), such as bread, rice, and the milder tonic soups from my Mom, like si shen soup, wolfberries soup, and sheng di tu fu soup that was meant for detoxifying.

I had also introduced the egg yolk back into her diet.  Thankfully, there had been no adverse reaction this time.

Other supplements that she had been taking: Childlife vitamin C and multivitamins, probiotics with colostrum,  and Eu Yan Sang Si Shen Powder.

New Food For Isabelle @ 9 Months

Progress had been slow this month, as rashes appeared on Isabelle's body for no apparent reason.  We brought her to see our GP, who diagnosed that it was an allergic reaction.  We had to go back to square one, stop introducing new food, and start trying again slowly.

What we had introduced this month:

• Organic Baby Spinach
• Organic Amaranth

The first bout of rashes disappeared soon after applying Desowen lotion and taking Chlormine.  However, the rashes returned with a vengeance a week later.  With pimple-like spots on the forehead, moving down and finally hitting the stomach.  We had cut down on certain food like egg yolk and fish, just in case they were the cause of the rashes.  

I had also let her taken a bite of my bread, as she was drooling at my food.

New Food for Isabelle @ 8 Months

New food introduced this month for our little girl:

• Organic Brown Rice
• Fish (salmon, cod, threadfin)
• Broccoli
• Grapes
• Asparagus
• Zucchini

Isabelle has taken well to all these food introduced, thank goodness.

She is still a baby with a small appetite, and hence, she is still having one porridge for lunch, and either cereal or mixed fruit puree for dinner.  Sometimes, she could not even finish the dinner portion.  

New Food Introduced @ 7 Months

Our weaning journey with Isabelle has been a slow one.  She is slow in accepting new tastes and textures, and till now, she still prefers smooth, yoghurt-like consistency, to slightly lumpy food.

Food that had been introduced this month:

• White rice: I introduced this staple first so that I could mix in the vegetables later on.  Somehow, vegetable puree mixed into cereal did not sound very tasty in my opinion.  Isabelle preferred her porridge blended, or cooked into a very, very smooth consistency.

Here is the porridge, mixed with the organic carrots bought earlier.

• Avocado: A wholesome, super baby food.  So glad that she liked her avocado and milk puree.  So far, she had not wasted any drop of it!

• Organic Tofu: Tried to mash it into smaller pieces, but she would not swallow them.  So, I had resorted to blending the steamed tofu and mixing the juice into the porridge.  In this way, she could accept it.

• Green peas: We happened to have a pack of mixed vegetables in our freezer, so I picked out the carrots and green peas from the pack, steamed, blended, and mixed into the porridge. 

• Organic millet: So far, she had not been taking well to the millet porridge.  I had some success when I mixed into plain rice, or when I blended the cooked porridge into a very smooth consistency.

• Organic apples: Hubby first blended the raw apple to feed her directly, and she rejected the new taste.  We tried a few more times later, on different days, by scrapping a little to feed her and she had gradually started to accept it.  Yesterday, we steamed the apple before blending, mixed in a little Frisocream, and she was able to finish all of it.

• Organic bananas: Hubby had been scrapping a little bit of the bananas to feed Isabelle, and so far, she had liked them.

• Mango: We tried blending a little mango with water, and she totally rejected the taste.  Subsequently, we cut off small bits and fed her directly, and she seemed to like it better this way.  But perhaps it could be due to the fact that when I cut the small bits for her, I had made sure that it was sweet and not sour.

• Egg yolk: I added half of a hard-boiled egg yolk into her porridge.  Unfortunately, she did not manage to finish the porridge.

• Organic pumpkin: Just like carrots, she was able to accept the taste.

I have also started to add pork muscle meat into the porridge to enhance the taste.  As she is such a small eater, I cut the pieces into half for each meal.


Feeding Isabelle porridge is now a nightmare for me.  She is spitting out most of the time, unless it was blended to a very smooth texture.  *Sigh*

The Weaning Journey @ 6 Months

New food that Isabelle has tried at 6 months:

• Frisocrem rice-based cereal: At first, Isabelle did not take well to the taste of solids.  She would spit out the cereal.  We perservered for a few days, before she could finally accept the taste. 

• Pear puree pouch by Happy Baby: Almost totally wasted.  Perhaps we had introduced a new food to her too soon, before we had established feeding her solids.  She rejected the new taste, and we only managed to make her eat a little by mixing the puree into cereal.

• Organic carrot: Surprisingly, she took well to carrots.  Just before she turned 7 months old, I purchased baby carrots from NTUC, blended them and mixed into her usual cereal.  She loved it.

I also began to let her drink plain water, as we began to let her eat the cereal.  We recycled the bottle from Ian's era, but had bought a new set of spout for Isabelle.  As expected, she rejected the taste of water during the first few tries.  But as we persisted, she had slowly began to take a few more sips.

It had been much more difficult trying to wean Isabelle into solids, as compared to Ian. 

She has always been a small, fussy milk-drinker.  And now, she is a fussy eater. :(