![\"blog-fruits-P1010629\"](\"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/blogfruitsP1010629.jpg\" "\\"blog-fruits-P1010629\\"")
<\/p>\nThe main reason behind introducing veggies before fruits for infants is to avoid the rejection of the greens later in life. Since fruits tends to be sweeter than veggies, the assumption is that babies will accept them easily. Right? Nah…<\/p>\n
From my experience with Hannah, it wasn’t smooth sailing when I started her on fruits. She ate all her veggies, including plain spinach puree. But I had no success with fruits. I started on apples with her – she didn’t like the home-made apple sauce nor scraped raw apple. Bleh. Okay, banana should be a winner…fed her with mashed banana…*Eeeee* was Hannah’s reaction. That was really discouraging. I went on to learn that some babies were like Hannah too. My guess was that she was not used to the acidity in sweet apples or probably the latex taste in bananas.<\/p>\n
I was not about to give up even though the first few attempts were so dampening. Fruits are good stuff and Hannah should love them! I fed her banana again after 1-day break. But this time, instead of mashing the whole fruit up (and actually it oxidises pretty bad), I broke the fruit into halves, used my clean index finger and thumb to mash up a bit of the flesh, and fed her by placing some on her tongue with my index finger. I’d say ‘Ah’ and Hannah would open her mouth for food. She did her usual ‘dab dab’ around the new food with her tongue and swallowed it. Yay! And she took the second serving, and the third….can check banana on our baby’s food list liao! My hunch to the solution was to serve the fruit in its freshest form on my finger. No more mashing, pureeing or cooking (in the case of apples).<\/p>\n
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Apples are not exactly soft fruits and so a little preparation work before actual feeding is required. Firstly, I’d cut out a portion of its white flesh and slice it thinly. Secondly, when feeding Hannah the thin slices, I would soften them by pressing using my index finger and thumb before placing a small slice on her tongue. She’s still not big on apples but she eats them now. I find organic Red Delicious best in terms of sweetness and fragrance. Will be trying out the organic braeburn apples next. Hannah started with Royal Gala and USA Fuji but these were not accepted readily. Will revisit them on her again.<\/p>\n
Mango was welcomed readily after my successful attempts with apples and bananas. May be it was also due to its sweetness and aroma. I used honey mangoes. I also mixed it into plain yoghurt to ease the acceptance of the latter. :)<\/p>\n
I had been wanting to introduce pears but organic ones are hard to come by at the nearby supermarkets. See first lah. I might try out other new veggies such as eggplant and capsicum next. :P<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The main reason behind introducing veggies before fruits for infants is to avoid the rejection of the greens later in life. Since fruits tends to be sweeter than veggies, the assumption is that babies will accept them easily. Right? Nah…<\/p>\n