First Foods

My suggestion: Start with apple/ banana/ rice kanji/ragi kanji after 5 months at one feed a day. Any one first; slowly increase the quantity over 2-3 weeks to where LO can eat a couple of tablespoonsful. Then start another food and then another (at weekly intervals). By this time LO will be 6 months +. At this point you can probably add the veggies - carrot/beetroot pureed. Around 7 months most babies should be able to manage regular rice/dal mashed well along with veggies. At this point you can probably start the second solid feed too. Homemade rice kanji is definitely better than nestum or Cerelac. This is approximately what I did.
V.

 

Ramya, My plan too is close to what Vanathi has mentioned.
I started sweet potato last week(5months), just 1tsp, 1day.
Today, (5months, 1week+), started apples. Next week, Monday/Tue, would start ragi kanji/rice kanji.
After a week of kanjis, I would give Nestum/cerelac just for the sake of trying, for 1-2days. This is to check whether LO does well or not. All readymade cereals come handy when we travel/when we are too sick to cook. So trying one of the readymades would help. But for regular use, homemade kanji is better than Nestum/Cerelac

 

this is wat i am doing for ds. started home made rice kanji (that is least allergic so started with it first - just a tiny spoon full for a whole week), next week small piece of potato, next week boiled apples, then carrot, then beetroot, then idli, then bananas, am here as of today. like pon said, its good to start with some readymade tinned food, but i haven't done that - any day not preferred over other natural food.

 

hi i tried this for my LO
ragi, green gram, pottukadalai, idly rice and wheat equal quantities.
dry roast them and grind to a fine powder.
soak this powder in water for 5 mins and cook it. keep stirring it and add milk to desired consistency.
add sugar.

 

This is how I make the semi solids:-

Rice Kanji - Rice and water - Pressure cook - I use polished rice, I find red matta rice bit difficult to digest for LO's. JMO.
Ragi Kanji - Take 1/2 tsp ragi flour (grind it at home) and 1 tsp wheat flour, you can fry wheat flour for sometime. Cook with water and add little bit jaggery and serve.
I add wheat because ragi gives rise to colds, but in the hot weather like chennai, I think it should be manageable.

 

Ramya,
Rice kanji - fry rice till a nice aroma comes, powder it with little jeera (500g rice+1tsp Jeera). Add water, cook for sometimes, serve warm. To adjust consistency, you can add BM or formula. DD didnt like the plain rice kanji, but when we did rice+Jeera, she liked. After 7+ months, we started adding ghee to it.
Ragi kanji - initial 1month, we did this long process. Soak for 4hrs, grind it, extract milk from it, boil this milk on low heat, it wud become pasty, serve warm. Again adjust consistency with BM/FM as needed. After 1month, we used to sprout ragi, roast it, powder it with 1tsp ajwain (500g ragi+1tsp ajwain). Add water, cook and then serve warm. Later, after 7+ months, we added jaggery syrup, cardomom powder and ghee.

 

Ramya agree with Pon on the sprouting of ragi. My paed too told to give it but we have very little sunlight and it has to be sun dried well.

Here's a note on Amylase Rich Food

Another good way of reducing the bulk and increasing the energy density of food is by adding Amylase-Rich-Food (ARF). To make ARF, about 100 gms. of any locally available cereal or grain (wheat, ragi or bajra) is steeped overnight in 2 to 3 times its volume of water, the excess water is drained, and the moist, swollen seeds are germinated in a moist, dark environment for 24 to 48 hours till they sprout. The grains are then sun-dried for 5 to 8 hours and lightly toasted on a flat skillet to remove any surface moisture. The sprouts are removed by hand abrasion and the grains are milled or powdered. This flour (ARF) is stored in an airtight bottle or plastic container.

For Rice Khichdi - I make a rice khichdi not kanji, with moong dal and rice in ratio 1:3 glasses and take two spoons and mix veggies like beans, carrot, yellow pumpkin, white pumpkin and pressure cook mash and serve.