Thursday, November 26, 2009

Toddler with Gastro - Diet tips

I am not a doctor or an dietician, but a mom with experience in what I think is more than my share of gastro in the past 2 years.
My little girl was home almost until she turned 1 and life was much simpler with cooking, dish washing and baby sitting was taken care of. (Thank God for all the awesome moms in the world)
Then came the day care days – days of back to back infections, fevers, gastro, projectile vomiting, eye infection, throat infection, more fever, more gastro. OH! MY GOD..the time spent seeing the GP, Paediatrician, waiting for hours in hospital emergency rooms and leave alone being a contractor with no sick day or parental care leave and having to pay for the day care even for the missing days.

Anyway coming back to the topic of feeding a kid. It is impossible to feed a kid when they cannot even retain water.
So here is what I have researched and tried and worked well for me
BRAT diet combined with my mom’s expertise.
BRAT – Banana Rice Apple Toast
No milk or any diary product which aggravates the diahorrea / vomiting
No juice – apparently sugar aggravates too.

Our most recent gastro lasted 5 days

1) We lived on – electrolyte – you get this hydrolyte pack from the chemist – freeze the little sachets and give it to toddler like a icy pole treat
2) Water – sips of water every now and then
3) Lunch – Predominantly rice porridge.

Cooking Porridge for toddlers

1 handful of rice
1 or 2 cups of water
A pinch of salt, few cumin seeds and couple of garlic.
Pressure cook all for 7 or 8 whistles
* I would chunk in a couple of full pepper on a normal day – with gastro No No

4) I give the water first. If retained then little bit rice mashed. After 2 or 3 days rice with little bit of yoghurt and a pinch of salt
5) Snacks – dry biscuits, rice crackers
6) Dinner – Toast with some dips. I gave Carrot Soup

Carrot Soup
Carrot - 1
Garlic – 2
Onion – 1 table spoon (unbelievably little)
Fry the onion in a teaspoon oil
Add the garlic, fry it till turns light brown ( gives a nice flavour, but do not burn it)
Add diced carrot, fry for 1 or 2 minutes
Transfer to a stainless steel vessel
Add water till it just covers the carrot
Add a pinch of salt
Pressure cook for 5 or 6 whistles
Let the pressure settle
Blend till it is smooth with no lumps
* I would have added ½ potato and 1 tablespoon diced tomatoes on a normal day. I preferred to avoid them with gastro

7) Introduced little bit Masoor dhal/Moong dhal along with rice after 3 or 4 days.

8) I gave sips of home made Omam water

Omam water
Ajwan/Omam is available in all Indian/Srilankan groceries
Take a teaspoon of omam and crush it with your fingers and fry in a pan for like 5 seconds.
Add a cup of water
Boil till it becomes ½ cup
Filter and give 1 or 2 sips at a time

Caution :

1) Don’t forget to see your GP after 48 hours of gastro, just to be sure if it is not bacterial infection that needs antibiotics
2) Fever, the best bud of gastro or any viral infection visits us for the first 2 days. As long as the reading is less than 40, no visible signs of baby being very drowsy, I guess panadol can be trusted
3) See your doctor if you see blood in the diapers
4) See your doctor if there is no wet nappy in 6-8 hours
5) Make sure there is no dehydration. I use pinching test. If you pinch and the flesh doesn’t go back normal immediately, there is sign of dehydration ( I am no expert, I have seen the midwives do it everytime)

Monday, October 12, 2009

Soups

Easy and healthy dinner for toddlers.

Soups are one of the easiest food for feeding a toddler. It is easy to make, easy to feed and healthy. I use pressure cooker to cook the vegetables, as my little one is fussy about crunchy or lumpy soups. It needs to be absolutely soft, so I can feed her while she is watching some cartoon ( I have been warned not to let kids watch TV while they eat, but without TV it takes me a good 45 minutes for a small bowl of soup includes running around the house. TV makes her sit in a place). Sometimes she is excited about food, that is when I leave the bowl in front of her with a cut up bread in a plate. She will dip them in the soup and have it.

Pumpkin Soup

1/4th butternut pumkin
Onion – ¼
Tomato – ½
Garlic – 1 or 2 cloves

Preparation
1. In a pan add 1 Tbsp oil, fry onions till they are transparent
2. Add garlic and tomatoes and fry for couple of minutes
3. Now add pumpkin fry for few minutes
4. Transfer to a pressure cooker, add half a cup water and salt
5. Cook for 3 whistles (or same time you use to cook rice)
6. Let it cool and blend it in blender/mixie
7. Serve with toasted bread

P.s – if you don’t have a pressure cooker, add water and cook in the pan. Make sure the pumpkin is cooked to really soft.
Do not add too much water – this needs to be thick when served


Broccoli Soup

Broccoli – 1 medium size
Garlic – 1 or 2
Potato – ½ medium size
Onion – ¼

Preparation

1. In a pan add 1 Tbsp oil, fry sliced onions till they are transparent
2. Add garlic and diced potato fry for few minutes
3. Add diced broccoli fry for few minutes
4. Transfer to a pressure cooker, add half a cup water and salt
5. Cook for 3 whistles (or same time you use to cook rice)
6. Let it cool and blend it in blender
7. Serve with buttered bread

Monday, August 24, 2009

Introduction


One of the key things with parenting is ‘cooking’. I am sure all the mothers out there can agree with me, especially if you are on your own without the help of moms, moms in law, granny etc. You have to invent recipes by the day. The favourite dish one day would be untouched the next week.
There are also several stages – cooking for babies, toddlers, preschoolers and school age kids. With in these stages are the subclasses when they have gastro, fever, cold, cough and what not. Also each kid has a preference – some likes finger food, some like mushy food, most spit anything that is lumpy. I have spent a lot of time online, reference millions of web pages, blogs, books that I borrowed from friends, time I spend in book shop looking for books to cook for kids. Most importantly because my little girl goes to day care and likes the food they serve, hence dhal rice and curd rice are out of the picture. Now I need to bake, grill, blend and toss everyday and these are words that did not exist in my dictionary until 2 years ago !!!
Every conversation I have with other mothers will drive to “ so what do you cook for your kids” and trust me when I say “ every mom I speak to asks me the same.
So I thought why not host a blog to share the recipes I have learnt the hard way and also let the readers post their favourite recipe as well.
So here is a blog dedicated to all the moms.