Teething rusks

[amalie]

Does anyone have a good recipe for these? :confused:

I have tried frozen banana etc but I would really like something that lasts a little longer...
I'm not very keen on the bought ones - one of the babies in my coffee group got a big rash on his face from one :(

[3monkeys]

I just make a pizza dough, roll it into rusk shapes and then slow bake them for AGES.

[amalie]

How handy... I made pizza yesterday and put the leftover dough in the freezer!

[3monkeys]

That is handy... slow bake them though at about 120degrees for about 1.30hrs. More drying them out than anything. And then they last FOREVER. Well thats a lie, they will last as long as a McDonalds Cheeseburger though.

[Seaweed]

And then they last FOREVER. Well thats a lie, they will last as long as a McDonalds Cheeseburger though. umm I had a mcdeath burger of dh's I kept & it lasted 18 months on the counter ( incl 2 auckland summers ) with no mould. That was on the salad & the bun as well. It just sort of dessicated. I reckon if I had had a microwave, I could have misted it with water & nuked it & it would have been good as new. I got tired of cleaning around it after 18 months & threw it away but it would still be with us now otherwise. I could probably have gotten it buried with me & it would have outlasted me. :giggle:a final reminder to never marry a man who lives off junk food when you don't!

back on topic...the only caution with teething rusks is the gluten in them. We have a family history of gluten issues so I have always avoided wheat. But that could well be the cause of the rash as a pose to being commercial vs home made rusks.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

I agree with Seaweed.

Why do you need teething rusks anyway? What our babies mostly used :rolleyes: was the metal bar with material roll, around the front edge of the Maral back pack. Kept them amused for hours. :giggle: Mind you, that assumes that like me, you carried your babies for a good part of the day when they are awake.... Every day I'd put plastic over the bar, a new piece of cotton wadding and cloth for them to saturate, and every evening, remove the cloth and wadding, toss it into the wash, and remove the plastic... After nappies, those were the most used bits of equipment ever.

Otherwise they'd chew on bits of pear in a huge muslin cloth with an elastic band. They just mushed on the cloth really.

Grains were not introduced until their molars were through, because I'd read that until that point they don't have all the digestive enzymes in their saliva to digest grains properly anyway...

I loved the Maral backpack. And they loved playing Mahout as well. Gave them the best view of the house. The bit I didn't like was using the bar down at my waist as a trampoline launching point.

[3monkeys]

Interesting Seaweed to see someone has tried to leave a McCrap burger out. Its a bit of a standing joke in this house. "but will it last as long as a cheeseburger?"

[Wonder-Full]

LOL at the mccrap burger.

I didn't do teething rusks either, but then for some reason neither of my two seemed to gnaw on things to indicate they needed them (actually ds used to chomp on the top of his water sipper occasionally but that was about it).

[macntia]

I found a couple of recipies on the net you might like to try, especially if you want to avoid wheat.

Recipe 1

-1 CUP OF WELL COOKED POTATO OR WELL COOKED CALROSE RICE WITH OR WITH OUT COOKED GREEN BEANS(DEPENDING ON WHAT YOUR CHILD CAN TOLERATE) Could use USE SWEET POTATO INSTEAD OF BEANS
-1 TEASPOON CANOLA OIL (I would use a different oil)
-1 1/2 CUPS RICE FLOUR
-OIL FOR BAKING TRAY

1-puree potato/rice in a food blender with green beans(if using)
2-add oil and rice flour and process untill you have a thick dough consistancy. shape into fingers
3-place on an oiled tray and bake for 20mins at 200. cool
4-microwave for 2mins. leave to harden before use
5-store in an air tight container

Recipe 2

This one is dairy, wheat, salt and sugar free. Please note wheat free does not mean gluten free! Barley flour is not suitable for celiacs.

1/2 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup barley flour
1/2 teaspoon blackstrap molasses
water

Preheat oven to 250 F. Mix brown rice flour and whole barley flour. Add the blackstrap molasses. Add enough water until mixture forms a dough/thick batter. Drop onto a cookie sheet which has been lined with parchment paper. Shape into 1/4-1/8 inch disks. Bake for 1 hour for rock hard cookies or less for slightly chewy ones. Please note that all ovens are different so baking times may vary!

Teething Rusk alternatives-


BONES: Any large dried-out bone from cooked meat – a chicken thigh or chop bone can be
used as a teething rusk as long as it doesn’t have sharp or loose bits. It really is too big to
slip down their throats and they taste good.

DRIED FRUITS: Any large piece of dried fruit such as mango or banana will be chewy
enough not to break-up. If yours feels a little soft you can dry it out further in a ‘keep warm’
setting on the oven for a couple of hours. I even tried drying out apple cores in the oven – if
the apple is large enough you get a big long hard stable thing. The colour is rather offputting
to adults but babies don’t know that they should expect their dried fruits brightly
coloured.

FROZEN FRUIT AND VEG: For many babies teething is painful and the coldness of frozen
or chilled food is numbing. If you freeze watermelon rind or carrots they become rubbery
instead of hard and so are much less likely to snap off.

FROZEN CEREAL: Spoon some baby cereal or strewed fruit into a clean hanky and tie it
up like a little pudding with string. Once frozen this has a nice handle and the flavour seeps
through as it is lovingly defrosted.

OTHER BISCUITS: Rice or corn cruskits, rice or corn thins – they tend to go soggy and
make a mess but most kids like them.

Hope this helps

[3monkeys]

A dentist once told me that carrots wrapped in muslin were best for teething.

My kids were never the shove something in their mouth to soothe type either and the pizza dough rusks were more of a hit with the bigger ones than the teething child.

Interesting re the digestive enzymes MT. I must find something to read about it. My girls teethed so much later than my son. He had all except his 2 year old molars at about 11 months where as my girls didnt cut teeth their first teeth till 11 months. So techincally I could have introduced grains to T at 11 months but not the girls until closer to 18-24 months.

I wish I knew more about all this 6 years ago, it may have helped Ks incontinence issues. Maybe not as well but I think its diet related.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

macntia that's a brilliant list.

I think... I first read about it in a very old book called "the continuum concept" and followed it up and read it elsewhere as well. I just can't remember. It seemed to me total commonsense. After all, without molars, it's very hard to chew certain foods, and it seemed to me logical that a body wouldn't deal with those foods enzymatically, until it was naturally able to "masticate" them properly.

In indigenous cultures, mothers used to get around that by thoroughly chewing those foods themselves, then doing the baby bird thing, and popping in little balls of pre-enzyme saturated mess.

until society decided that it was much more sanitary to use a metal or plastic "mouli" or a blender.

It seems to me that the further we get away from commonsense, the more chances we have of tossing a monkey wrench into something.

I often wonder if the basis for coeliacs and other problems is the introduction of foods at a time when a baby's body isn't biochemically ready for that food.

[MinorityView]

Wow, what an interesting concept. Plus, wouldn't mommy saliva be another way to pass on healthy bacteria that babies need to acquire?

And I'm sure that early solid food of any sort is setting us up for problems. When my daughter arrived, in 1967, cereal was supposed to be started at 14 days. I started giving her diluted juice at 4 months and that caused digestive problems, I can just imagine what cereal at 14 days would have done. Cripes!

[3monkeys]

I absoluetly totally beleive that the reason I struggle with food and with my weight is because I was bottle fed and had solids introduced WAY WAY to early. (not a dig Mum, just the way it was for most of us back then I guess).

[Wonder-Full]

Yes, I often think that ds's coeliac's was triggered by the early introduction of wheat. Can't turn back the clock, but if only there were a way to turn off the over-active immune system he now has!