Friday, March 15, 2013

Baby's Daily Diet Plan


From the day you find out you’re pregnant, the no 1 priority will ALWAYS be health. Which means nothing is more important than what both the mommy and baby eat! After a lot of over-analytical researching, various permutation & combinations of ingredients, I came with a daily diet plan for my baby.

For the first two months it was basic purees of rice with fruits and vegetables. And slowly as the months passed by I started adding oats, nuts, seeds, chicken and all the other jazz. I added milk only after he turned 13 and sugar/salt only after he turned 15 last month. I still rely heavily on my trusted blender as he chokes on bigger morsels.

Is it really that simple? Well, the part where you cook IS (that’s why I do it myself, hehe). But the part of feeding him is not! It’s a pain! He does finish his food, er, eventually, that’s if we feed him while hes still playing! Yup, run around him and have all that patience in the world to feed him every single spoonful. Yup, that’s the No.1 (& and No.2 and maybe No.3) reason why I have hired help to do it! So if he’s a healthy baby a big amount of credit goes to his nanny!  

Here’s a rough Daily Diet Plan that I followed when he was 14 months old. It’s quite different from other babies I’ve observed. For eg, Manav's Indonesian friends have Beef Rice Bowl for b’fast (Seriously!)

4-5 bottles of breast milk (120 ml each) : only 7 pm- 6 am
+ 1 big cup breakfast (375 ml) at 8 am
+ 1 bottle (120 ml) full fat cows milk at 10.30 am
+ 1 small cup lunch (250ml) at 1 pm
+ 1 bottle (120 ml) full fat cows milk at 3 pm
+ 1 big cup supper (375 ml) at 5 pm
+ mid day mini snacks (1-2)

Breakfast Puree:

1. Fruit of the day (pear/ apple/ cantaloupe/ dragon fruit)
2. Oatmeal - 1/4 cup (rolled old fashioned oats, cooked for 15 mins)
3. Milk, full fat - enough to cook oats and make puree
4. Flax seeds - 2 tsp (freshly ground)
5. Sunflower seeds - 1 tsp (freshly ground) [note: a big pain to weed out the bad seeds so I usually skip adding!]
6. Almond - 2 (freshly ground)
     OR Peanuts, roasted & freshly ground
7. Avocado - 1 slice (from the frozen stash)
8. Blueberries - 4 (from the frozen stash)

Lunch + Supper Puree (cooked together):

1. Veggies- any 2 (broccoli, zucchini, beans, carrot, pumpkin, peas, cauliflower, green & red spinach, green bell pepper etc)
2. Brown rice - 1/4th cup (organic, soaked overnight & cooked)- [have switched to white rice now though]
3. Protein - any 1:
      - Salmon (1"X1" cube)
      - Mung dal/ Rajma (1/8th cup raw= 1/4 cup cooked)
      - Chicken (1 thigh)
      - Boiled egg (1)
4. Spices - any combination (mustard seeds, cumin, cinnamon, cardamom, garlic, ginger, clove, and sometimes I simply add some chicken stock!)
5. Oil- olive oil/ ghee/ veg oil

Midday snack (2-3 in a day)
Cheese/ banana/Kiwi /Mango/ Orange/ Papaya/Yogurt

No comments:

Post a Comment