Manni / Porridge-Initial Baby Food:

Regarding baby food lots and lots of notions are there. What to feed, when to start solids, which age is ideal etc. According to me, each situation or each baby is different than the other. In my condition, it was twin babies and almost 20 days pre-mature too.

With two babies, breast feeding was not sufficient, and I started this porridge in a very diluted form (For 200 ml of water, I used to use 1 tsp of powder) as early as 40 days of their birth. Yes, my father who is a doctor himself, advised me to start this instead of any packaged milk powder or cow’s milk. I used to feed them this a couple of times in a day (100ml at a time) as a top food to suffice their needs.

Jaggery is very good for infants and this is the only way they get their iron supplement, if they are on top food. This is what our paediatrician told me. According to her suggestion, I used to add tiny jaggery piece while preparing porridge.

When days passed by I did increased the quantity of porridge powder and when they became 4 to 5 months old, I started feeding them one small bowl of porridge by using spoon.

If you are raising your brows while reading this, Yes!!! My daughters are healthy grown up teenagers now. I personally never ever recommend readymade food over natural food.

How to Prepare Porridge Powder:

Ingredients:

Finger millet / Ragi – 500 gms

Whole wheat – 500 gms

Almonds- 100 gms

Method:

• Clean Ragi and whole wheat by rinsing couple of times with water.
• Drain water completely.
• Spread this on a clean cloth and dry in the shade.
• When it is dry, take little by little and dry roast for a couple of minutes to remove any remaining moisture.
• You can use almond by roasting or without as well.
• Cool this by spreading it again.
• Take a mixer jar and powder it, sieve it and collect the fine powder and proceed.
• Cool this and store this powder in an air tight container.
• If you want to store this for too long, keep it in a fridge.

How to prepare porridge:

• Take water according to your requirement, add powder and mix thoroughly.

• If you are feeding for two to three-month-old, by using feeding bottle, take ½ to 1 tsp of powder,100 ml of water and boil. (adjust according to the requirement)
• If you want a little thicker consistency, take 2 tsp of powder and 100 ml of water and boil.

• Add jaggery or rock candy (kallu sakkare)
• Boil this by stirring in a low flame, when it is cooked, it becomes a little shiny and transparent (top becomes glossy).
• Remove from the fire. If you are okay with addition of milk, add couple of spoons of milk and adjust the consistency, or adjust with water and feed the baby either by feeding bottle or spoon.