Solids

At 13 months, Gavin only has 2 lower teeth and barely two of his upper teeth.  It has been very hard for him to eat real food, except for tinola and nilaga plus fresh fruits.  London was great for feeding babies because of their extensive selection of baby food.

They had a lot of chunky food selection - real food in disposable containers.  You don't need to ou these in a bowl, just squeeze into a spoon and directly feed to your baby.

It also inexpensive at Php50-60 per pack of you buy it Tesco or Sainsbury.

Some are locally available at a healthy options at Php115.

There were also a good selection of breakfast porridge in different flavors and dinner mix like broccoli and cheese rice cereal.  

The local grocery also had different kinds of baby yoghurt and baby pudding.

My son developed his love for these things when we were in London,

He used to not like the regular bitter taste of the yoghurt in Manila, bit the baby yoghurt had less of the taste and it was in smaller servings.

I was also happy hat they had a lot of selection for baby juice.

In Manila, only he SM Aura Supermarket had different kinds of juice for tots, bit all were out of stock during summer time.  Nakakasawa din ang walang kamatayang apple juice.

We also happened to find different kinds of organic crisps for kids.

They were mainly made from carrots or tomatoes and some flavored with cheese.

I know that making food for your tots from scratch is really healthier, but I was happy to be able to find different selection of ready baby meals.  It increased the taste pallet of Gavin and it also helped increase his appetite more.  I do hope that groceries in Manila can import these baby food items soon to improve the local selection.  I do hope that they can also maintain the value for money prices, in case these products are imported. 

Just an update that our pedia, Dra. Carmela De Lara gave us a moratorium on no watching television or Ipad while eating.  The little one was used to eat only if he is watching Mickey Mouse or Hi5.  She warned us that the baby should learn to concentrate on eating in order to know that he needs to eat when hungry plus to practice him to eat by himself with the finger food presented.  It has been a tough couple of days, but we are slowly getting there - no tears while eating.  God help us, hehe!