28th May 2020

Yusuf has always been an underweight baby up until about 5 months.

I never wanted to believe it at that time because probably in those moments I was exhausted. The breastfeeding exhaustion was real! I felt like I was continuously breastfeeding every 2-3 hours and pumping and at every free time, I had a baby attached to my body. But now when I look back at those charts and pictures, hahahaha he WAS QUITE THIN! In my defence, he wasn’t crying though lolll, so he obviously was not hungry. I guess his metabolism is high eh? Like Mommy like Son. #sorryYusufMommyLovesYou 😛

So Yusuf began eating solids when he turned 5 months under our Paed’s advice as he had signs that he was ready – also in hopes that his weight would gradually increase and normalise. True enough! Today he lovesss food and is so ‘semangat’, Alhamdulillah and as a mom, it gives me so much joy and contentment 🙂

So on the 28th of May, he began eating! Boy were we both nervous and excited! I was so excited to allow him to try solids, and introduce him to the many flavours in this world! Why was I nervous? Because I wasn’t sure what was the right way to start. Honestly, the best advice I’ve ever gotten is “you know your kid best, trust you mother’s instincts and do what feels safe to you and for your baby, no matter what people may say”. There is no right or wrong whether you go with the traditional puree method or the baby-led-weaning type. We chose puree, only because Aiman and I were introducing him to solids during the first EMCO lockdown where we both were also very buried in work calls and virtual meetings from home and needed to choose an option that was least messy and required less cleaning. I wasn’t ready to continuously clean up food off the floor.

Admittedly I was nervous I may give him the wrong type of food, so we actually started off with store-bought-food because that felt safest to me (again different baby, different journey so there is no right or wrong). I just believed that these baby food experts must know what they are selling. So here’s Yusuf’s solids journey:

• We started with Apple (for 3 days), Banana (for 3 days) and then Carrot (3 days). Get it? ABC 😀
• We started off with one meal a day – and the portion we fed was the size of his fist
• For every 2 spoons we fed, we gave him one spoon of water. ratio 2:1
• We offered one-type of fruit/vege at every meal, for 3 consecutive days. This was important to ensure we pick up signs should he be allergic to it. Once we passed the 3 days test we offered a mix. Eg. Day 1-day 3 we offered carrots. Day 4-day 6 if no allergic reaction to carrots we moved on to offer carrots + spinach and see if he has an allergy to spinach
  • You can do this the porridge way too. Doctor advised us to make plain porridge for Yusuf. Test it for a few days and then add on something after he passes 3 days test.
• He moved from one meal to 2 within a few weeks and by 7 months he was eating 3 times a day and quickly transitioned to 5 times a day at 8 months
• At 7 months I started preparing him homemade food and the biggest difference we saw was that firstly, you save a lotttt of money when you choose to prepare meals at home instead of offering store-bought food because his intake will only increase (I can cook him a whole week’s worth of lunch and dinner for RM15, and that’s the price of one if not at most 2 store-bought food. That’s one day’s worth of meal). Secondly, you can go crazy with recipe experiments and I LOVE IT, especially when you are able to learn what are his favourites and you yourself know what goes into the food!!! 🙂

Whatever it is, ENJOY THE PROCESS!!! Capture the memories when he cringes, gags, opens his mouth and asks for more, they’re all so adorableee! Today, cooking for him gives me so much satisfaction and it’s very fulfilling to be able to cook for him and see him finish up a whole bowl of whatever I cooked! He loves spinach, carrots, peanut butter. Hates broccoli, allergic to eggs. But most importantly, the biggest sense of fulfilment was the day the Doctor said that he has grown by a lot and he’s no longer underweight 💗