Hey Tanya,
Here's a thought. If you are going to feed Caroline cereal daily, than what you can do is make up a batch that lasts in the fridge for 2-3 days. Then you can grind up the grain you need only for that batch and you don't have to worry about storing it. Then you just need to find a place to store the whole grains, like an airtight glass jar. You can also grind the grains up in advance and place them in a sterile mayo jar in the fridge, they will keep for up to a month.
As for making the cereal, I'll tell you how to make a small batch of rice, oatmeal or barley cereal. You measure 1/4 cup of whole grains, and grind them up. Spinkle the powder into 1 cup of boiling water, turn heat to lowest setting, cover and cook for 10 minutes. Use a whisk and stir frequently, like every minute or two. Then remove from heat, put the cereal in the fridge if no one's going to eat it. You can use individual containers if you know how much she eats at each sitting. Then you can just take it out, no measuring and heat it up. For millet cereal, you will use 3 TBS instead of 1/4 cup. And that's it. I made brown rice cereal and oatmeal for Rachel. She much prefers the oatmeal.
You don't need to bake the grains in order to store them as a powder, you just have to make sure that they are in a sterile jar in the fridge. Also, when grinding the grains, grind for no less than 2 full minutes for beginning eaters.
Let me know how it turns out.
Chloe
