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Holding my bundle of joy, my first born boy in my arms, the one thing I didn’t foresee was the battles ahead. With the second one, I was in a lightly better situation but she threw entirely different challenges at me. But I lived to tell my story.
Oh!! If you are wondering, what battle I am talking about, it’s the ‘Great Food Battle’ ……me vs my kids….my Katum Kutum. Quite challenging, but I won in the end. So thought of sharing some pearls of wisdom with you all.
Katum was a happy go lucky baby who survived purely on my feed for the first six months of his life. Boy. Having settled him in his night time routine, within a month of bringing him home, I felt motherhood was a breeze. But then the weaning process started and hell broke loose. I won’t bore you with all the details, but can only say that his reinforcement arrived within 2 years and together they tried everything to bring me down.
Baby foods always disgusted me. Sticky gooey mess….I myself wouldn’t eat it to save my life. But babies can’t chew so it is necessary. A 6 month old is quite aware of his surroundings. Make his mealtime a family affair. At least the dinner. The most important furniture for your little one in the home is his high chair. Once he can sit without support, get him to sit on his high chair for the meals. At this age he needs to be fed, but he’ll try to mimic you and feed himself. Let him do it. It will be almost an year before he’ll be successful and you need to clean up a lot. But he’ll build up a habit of a lifetime. Never try to feed a tired sleepy baby. It’ll be better if you then give him some milk and let him sleep. Upon waking up, he’ll be in a much better condition to eat.
Taste buds develop in the first two years. Don’t add sugar unnecessarily to make him eat or drink something. You are only spoiling his tastebuds for life. Milk has it’s own sweetness and curd it’s sourness. There is absolutely no need to sweeten them. Make salads mandatory for each meal. Serve it attractively and enjoy having it. Children learn by observation not lecture. A fruit salad is way healthier than an ice cream. Small frequent meals are better than big ones at longer gaps. Make meal times a relaxed fun time not a punishment time. Never feed your baby when you are yourself irritated and hungry. In the initial days, babies take a long time to eat. So it’s better you yourself eat something before starting the process.
I myself used to eat my lunch and then bathe and feed my kids. Never ever have the TV on at meal times. It’s the worst habit you are inculcating. Remember this, humans need food to survive and your baby won’t starve just because he hasn’t eaten one meal. Just ensure whatever is available in the house is healthy. You’ll have a tough time later keeping him away from junk foods, so take advantage now and mould his preferences. A kid who loves his juices will prefer it over colas.
Parenting isn’t easy, but it can be fun. Everything is just a passing phase, so just enjoy it. I will be back soon with some interesting recipes.
Image via Pixabay
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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