A little Steemian's food journal

Hello everyone,
if you follow my blog, you will know that I am an Asian living in Germany, I am married, I live to eat and now, one more thing about me : I am a mother of a 2-year-old boy ^^
Being a mother with a great passion with food, I was very excited when my little son reached his 7th month, since it was time to introduce him new dishes other than mother milk. I have made many food journals for myself and there is no doubt that I will create a food journal for my little son, too. After going through several books and documents about baby weaning period, I came up with a decision that we would start with the Japanese weaning style. In this entry, I will introduce this weaning method to Steemians who are mothers or mothers-to-be. It is great to share experiences and I hope some of you might find these information useful.

The principle
Japanese weaning method emphasizes on natural foods, for example vegetables, fresh fruits, fish, meat, bulbs and so on. Instant foods and canned foods are not so favorable. When your baby begins his weaning time, you should feed him something bland or even tasteless. Let me tell you why, if you let your child eat unseasoned foods, it will be easy to adjust later on. On the other hand, if you give him delicious dishes first, he will get used to them and may refuse bland foods such as vegetables after that, which is NOT good at all. The first thing my son tasted besides mother milk was 1:10 rice porridge (1:10 is the dimension between rice and water- 1 rice and 10 water). And this is what I have made:

Rice porridge

After 2-3 days of eating rice porridge, I introduced him with carrot puree

… and then broccoli puree

Eating separately for the first month
During the first few weeks, it is necessary for you to let your baby eat all the foods separately. By that I mean we should not mix veggie, meat/fish and rice together in this period. The purpose of it is to stimulate the child’s taste, let him know “wow, this is rice, it is bland”, “this is carrot, it is naturally sweet, I like it” or “this is fish, it is a little bit stinking but it is good”. By cooking the foods separately, you will help your baby to realize different flavors, and from that he might show his interest in some particular dishes and unwillingness to consume the other ones. Mothers should know their children’ appetite in order to feed them properly.

One of his meals at the 3rd week of weaning: simply rice porridge, carrot puree and veggie soup

Mother milk + mashed sweet potato

Introducing fish for the first time- week 4 of the weaning: fish (steamed, mashed)- rice porridge- pumpkin puree

More vegetables
One of the reasons why I chose the Japanese weaning style is that I found myself having the same expectations as many Japanese parents. I want my baby to develop normally, I want him to be healthy and get fit instead of being fat or even obese. Looking through the menu of Japanese weaning, it can be seen that there are a lot of vegetables, other factors including protein, vitamin and flour are well- balanced, especially protein tends to be lessened. Sugar is totally not recommended.

His meals 7-8th month: spinach soup and asparagus salad – blueberry and pear oat puree

Sweet pea porridge

... and many more meals with vegetable to be the main ingredient :)

Respect your baby
The first 3 months are the time for babies to LEARN how to eat. It is such a milestone that he needs to try so hard to overcome. Therefore, as parents, you have to be patient and respect your babies. Babies should be considered members of the family and you need to pay attention to their psychology. Each baby has dissimilar characteristics and they will also vary over time. As a result, it is necessary for mothers to understand, direct and even comply with their children. Remember to be flexible as well :)
One more special thing about Japanese weaning method is that it encourages baby to eat roughly on time. Puree, blended and smashed dishes are introduced during the first month, and then the rough level will begin to increase gradually so that after 18th month, babies can eat rough foods with the whole family (parents’ foods are cut into smaller pieces, of course). However, to help babies learning to eat rough foods, mothers need to have patience and determination. Do not compare your baby’s performance with others, adjust a rough level that is suitable for your child and patiently walk with him through this difficult period. I am sure it will be worth it because I gave it a try and was successful. Although for the first period, we had met several difficulties (my baby did not cooperate and as a young mother, I was totally lack of experiences), we still made it to the final goal: My son actually ate rice when he was one and now at 22nd month, he can probably sit and eat with his parents.

A typical lunch of my son at 18 months: fried rice with seafood and vegetable soup
Last but not least, another factor of respecting your children is the way you feed them. It is highly recommended that mothers should pay attention to the decoration of the meals and other surrounding elements such as background, color and air. They will surprisingly make impact on babies’ eating. It is up to you to create different unique ways to encourage babies to eat. To me, eating is not obligatory, it is fun, it is a great experience and this is how I have made my little son to feel the same way: not only tasty foods, but also lovely decoration ^^

Mother’s style gnocchi

Grilled egg with cheese and spinach

Pumpkin and yogurt pancake

Mama’s style wonton noodle soup

A colorful lovely lunch <3

I have just given an overview of Japanese weaning method. There is a lot of helpful information that I have not gone through, but my post is pretty long already, so see you guys in another post. Our Steemian mothers, which weaning method did you choose to apply ? How do you think about this method? I am more than happy to read your comments.
Thank you for reading ^^