{Baby Food Diaries} Oatmeal

I broke down and decided to start Maylin on solids last week. I began with oatmeal because my pediatrician recommended it over rice cereal. She said oats have greater nutritional value than rice cereal, which the body processes as sugar, and they are heart healthy. Seems like a win-win to me. 

To make the oatmeal, I ground the oats in my food processor until they were a powder, then cooked them in simmering water. They turned out a little lumpier than I expected. I thought by grinding them into powder the oats would be fine and smooth after they'd been cooked. Uh. Not really so. The oats ended up plumping back up during the simmer. I went ahead and tried feed them to Maylin, but you can tell by her reaction to the first bite that she wasn't a fan of the lumpy texture!!

While our first attempt at eating oatmeal was good for a laugh for Michael and me, it was a fail at getting any of the food down Maylin's throat. She absolutely refused to swallow any of it!

So, attempt number two consisted of adding breast milk to the oats to make them soupier. Also, the added milk brought a familiar taste to them. These went down better, but still not ideal.

After a week of trial and error, I finally landed on a method that works for us. The goal is to get the oatmeal as texturally fine as possible, so that it looks like the picture below. Oatmeal and breast milk soup, if you will.

Baby Oats

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup old fashioned rolled oats
• 1 cup water
• 2-3 oz breast milk

Get Cookin'

1. Put water in a small sauce pan and let come to a simmer.
2. Grind the oats in a food processor until they are a fine powder.
3. Once water is simmering, add powdered oats to water. Stir continuously so they don't stick to the pan.
4. Remove oats from heat once oats are plump.ed and desired consistency is reached. I usually let mine simmer until they have absorbed a lot of the water, but still have a runny consistency rather than a thick, lumpy consistency.
5. Place oats in food processor with breast milk. Puree until the oats are thin and runny, with no lumps.
6. Serve at room temp.

This recipe makes oats that lasts us approximately 3-4 days eating 1-2 oz servings each morning.

Maylin now eats oats every morning as a solid breakfast after her wake feeding. She loves them this way!