Weaning.. Moving along from purees to porridge

I kept BabyS on her cereal and puree diet for about 2 months b4 I decided to move her onto porridge and meats (So she could get her iron intake from meats)

I had alot of questions as to how to make porridge for babies..

 "cook rice grains as per normal, stirring occasionally to get smoother consistency?"

"soak the night b4 and then cook as normal, and stir occasionally to get smoother consistency?"

"grind the rice grains into smaller pieces then cook?"

"mash the porridge after its cooked?"

In the end we decided to make it more water and after that mash it with those mashers meant for mashing potatoes and it worked pretty well. Less time consuming than soaking the night b4, stirring constantly etc..

We used a slow cooker to cook the porridge. THe amount of water you add to the pot also depends on the size of your cooker too.

We bought a small slow cooker from Cornell with a High, Low and Auto function. This cooker was a good investment. If you are like me and dont have an extra pair of hands to take care of the baby while you stay at the stove to watch over the porridge, invest in a slow cooker.

Amt of rice and length of cooking time:
One chinese soup spoon of rice will give you one rice bowl of porridge.

I cannot remember the size of my cooker, but it was the smallest one. And my mum and I would usually add in water till its 1 inch about the rice.

For my slow cooker, to achieve mushy enough porridge, it will either take 3 hours on low or 1.5hours on high (although 1hr is sometimes more than enough)

More on how to cook porridge in the next post!