Grains

I had some mixed feeling about trying a cereal for Piper since I was just diagnosed with Celiacs (more to come after my appointment this week). And Amelia was allergic to rice, so I debated and debated on to what type of grain to try. I also was worried about iron levels as they say that babies use up most of their iron stores at 6 months, and since I am anemic, I was looking for something that had iron (like the iron fortified cereals).

I ended up choosing millet. I had never heard of it until I was diagnosed with Celiac's, but it is a gluten free grain. Turns out it is like a super grain loaded with lots of vitamins and iron too, so great for babies. Piper seemed to like it just fine, and loves it if we put pears in it. She isn't quite as big of a fan with peaches, but that is fine. After the millet, I tried gluten free steel cut oats to and ground them down with a coffee grinder. Again, she was happy to eat those too, with pears.

I think I am going to hold off on other grains for now and stick with these two. I have read some recipes for combining them which is similar to cream of wheat, and so we will see where it takes up. Plus, I want to see if we can try some more fruits and veggies. I am trying to stay clear of the constipating ones since Piper has some serious constipation. We have been giving her some prunes every day and it really hasn't seemed to help. I think we are going to up the prune intake and see how that goes.

I am making most of my baby food, but buying the prunes and apples in the store. Since she loved the sweet potato, butternut squash and pears so much, I mass produced those and have them frozen in ice cubes in the freezer. So far we haven't had any reactions to anything we have tried and she likes everything except she isn't a fan of the peaches but will eat them. Our list is currently: butternut squash, sweet potatoes, bananas, avacado, peaches, pears, millet, oatmeal, prunes, and apples. Next up: acorn squash, peas and mango.