For the first time since I decided to take health in my own hands three years ago (and bid adieu to doctors in the process, for the most part) I’ve hit a little bit of a road block.

I took him to the doctor the other day for his shots, and the doctor asked me what I was feeding him. I told him I have just started introducing him to fruits and veggies.My little bundle of chubbiness turns 6 months tomorrow. So far he has been 100% breastfed and I’ve just started giving him bits of food here and there. So far it’s been a few bites of avocado, banana, carrot and apple over the course of the last couple of weeks. It’s an exciting new world for him. A world where he can try new foods and experience different textures and flavours, without any biases.

But how boring! Said he. You should be giving him daal rice and moong daal ki khichdi. He said I should be feeding him three solid meals a day to start the weaning process and he also said that N maybe hungry.

Start the weaning process? My baby is 6 months old and shows no signs of being ready to wean any of his feeds yet. Hungry? He is bouncy and happy (not to mention poopy and pee-ee) and is hungry 3 hours after his last feed like a clock.I must say I was rather taken aback, though I don’t know why I should be. When I was pregnant and the doctor told me to eat this and that I paid no heed. When well meaning people at dinner asked me why I’m not eating the whole grains bread and why I’m attacking the butter instead I politely pointed them to my blog without thinking twice about how I may appear.

This time though for the first time I was slightly worried.

N’s pediatrician is clearly a regular conventional wisdom guy and he will say regular conventional wisdom things. I’ve always taken doctor’s advise with a pinch of salt (for the past three years). So why am I letting it bother me?

I suppose as a parent, especially the one who is wholly and solely in control of the nutrition of one that cannot speak, it feels different than when I experiment on myself. So far I have read tons of primal / paleo blogs by parents who were feeding primal babies. I plan to give him veggies, fruits, eggs, meats, yoghurt, cheese, butter, ghee, and breastfeed for 15 months at least. I know this cannot be wrong. I know that by giving him completely unprocessed real food, and not filling up his tummy with grains like rice and oats, I am doing the right thing.

But am I setting him up to have problems later on with digesting grains? Am I setting him up to be a picky eater? All my actions in the next few months have an impact on how he views food later on. I do so want him to love food as much as his dad and I do. I want him to put down his cutlery and gnaw on pork ribs with his hands and his heart. Is it such a bad thing if he cannot stomach grains and sugar later on? Given that most of us can’t and we just don’t know it? Am I feeding him enough?

These are just a few of the questions running through my head.

I expect I will continue with my plans and keep him away from processed food, grains and sugar for as long as I can manage. (I do plan to give him a little brown rice though in the near future.)

In 6 months I have called the doctor only a couple of times for some harmless queries and I only visited him when his vaccinations were due. (I didn’t call my doctor even once during my pregnancy). I’m anything but a worrywart. But after my last visit it’s plain that I’m completely on my own. I cannot consult my doctor any more when I have questions except during illness and vaccinations.

I’ve relied on the primal community and blogosphere more than anything these last three years, and if he is to be a completely primal baby I will have to rely on moms and dads who have been there done that now more than ever.

Until I become a mom who is an expert parent of a primal child that is.

What do you think? Have you tried inculcating healthy eating habits in your child from the very beginning? Does it work?