Starting Solid Food With My Twins

Published on makchic.com March 2014

To be perfectly honest with you, I’ve not really stressed out about parenting till the day came to start feeding my babies solid food. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing; I used Google so much that I ended up being more confused and I almost had an anxiety attack. The problem was that I found information in bits and pieces. Nothing really tells you exactly what to do, plus I had two mouths to feed for the first time!

So here are some notes from my experience of starting my babies on solid food, which I hope other mums of multiples would find helpful:

What You’ll Need

• Utensils: I feed my babies using one bowl, one colour changing spoon (lets you know when food is too hot), and a couple of bibs. A sippy cup was introduced later when their had better grip.
• Highchair: My babies aren’t able to sit on their own so we haven’t bought them high chairs yet. At the moment they are fed in netted bouncers, which are easy to clean.
• Baby food maker: Like most women, I love pretty things and I was very tempted to purchase the Beaba Babycook but I didn’t because already had a steamer and a food puree apparatus at home. Sure, I have to wash up a few more things but it does the job, which is all that matters.
• Baby recipe book: It helps to invest in a good baby recipe book for healthy recipes and to get an idea what babies can eat at what stage. A friend of mine gave me Renee Elliott’s The Top 100 Healthy Recipes For Babies & Toddlers and so far my babies have lapped up everything I’ve made for them.

Preparing

• To retain nutrients, I steam the vegetables, add in a bit of the steam water and blitz everything in a food puree apparatus. Fruits like apples, mangoes and pears are blitzed raw.
• My paediatrician’s advice was to prepare food roughly the size of my babies’ fist and gradually increasing their portions as they get used to eating solids. My babies’ first food was sweet potato and then only brown rice cereal two weeks later. Now, they have 3oz of fruit in the morning and 2oz of veggies mixed with a tablespoon of cereal (brown rice, millet, quinoa, etc) for dinner.

 Storing

• I’ve been preparing the baby food in advance and freezing it because it works for me. I’ve been storing them in baby cubes and reheating it when necessary.

Feeding

• My son initially didn’t like the idea of solid food. I used to smear food on his mouth so that he could taste and hang of it. After observing his sister having so much fun eating, he finally loves it too.
• To make sure they are eating the same amount of food, I’d feed them a spoonful each.
• I started off with one meal first at 11am because it was when they weren’t too fussy and they had time to digest before night time in case they didn’t agree with certain foods. At six months, they now have breakfast at 9.30am and dinner at 6pm alongside their usual formula feeds. This may decrease slightly since solids fill them up a little more.
• Solids tend to constipate your little one so make sure you give them a couple of spoons of plain water after a few spoons of solids. I stress on plain water and not a sweetened drink because you don’t want to start them on the bad habit of only drinking sweetened beverages.

 Meals on Wheels

• Feeding the babies when we’re out and about is usually a stress-free affair. We prop them up in their stroller and fed them as per usual.
• If I’m organised, I’ll pack their food from home. Otherwise, I bring along bottles of jarred organic baby food from my pantry.
• I also pack my own water because you never know how clean the water is wherever you are going.
• Just remember to bring zip lock bags for dirty bibs and cutlery.

As with everything, just have fun with it because this is your babies first experience with food and you want them to enjoy it and not shun away every time they see a spoon. Also, just because you don’t like a certain vegetable doesn’t mean that they will hate it too. Try to expose your babies to as many flavours and colours now to develop their palate for later on.