Nick started solid foods last Tuesday (June 21st) about 1.5 weeks shy of his 5 month birthday (holy hell-o where does the time go?!). According to our pediatricians office, we should wait until he's 6 months to feed him solids. But he seemed ready, and I was anxious to try - considering he was eating us out of house and home in formula alone (32oz of formula per day, and probably could have eaten more if we'd let him!).
So Nick has officially tried three solid foods: rice cereal, pureed bananas, and strained carrots.
He seems sort of indifferent to eating solids.
The rice cereal makes him cry, but he stops crying as soon as the spoon goes back in his mouth. I think it's because the rice cereal has little to no taste (I can't vouch for this as I refuse to taste it) but is mixed with so much formula that he just gets pissed that he has to eat his formula from a spoon as opposed to the bottle he is so used to.
The bananas are sweet, so naturally he seems to enjoy those. Opens his mouth and swallows them just as fast as they get in there. But again, cries between bites.
The carrots mostly just make an orange mess. And he opens his mouth for them, but then makes a face and sometimes shudders a little as he squeezes most of the carrots back out of his mouth.
Looks like he won't be taking after mommy and enjoying the vegetables over the fruits. He must have daddy's sweet tooth.
Regardless, the poops have been fun. He seems to push for a long time, only to produce one little solid turd. It's certainly an interesting change from the stinky play-doh mess that used to fill his diapers.
And now I'm talking poop...so I'll just end there.
I'm still getting the hang of feeding him solids, and trying to figure out a useful schedule so that I don't overload him too fast. So far we've been giving him a solid at breakfast (bananas mixed with a little rice cereal and formula) along with a bottle. Then his regular lunch bottle around 11:30ish. Then a solid (carrots this past weekend) with a regular bottle around 3:30ish. And we end the day with his regular night time bottle around 7:30ish. Everyone keeps telling me "you can't do it wrong" but I consistently doubt myself. I wonder if we should give him a bottle first, and then the solid, or if the solid should be first, or if we should give him a few bites of solid, then a little bottle, followed by more solids? And should he eat solids for breakfast and dinner, or breakfast and lunch, or lunch and dinner, or all three meals?? It's all so maddening and I don't want to fail him. I think I need a support group for new mommies feeding their babies solid foods.
Regardless I'm still enjoying making his food (it's SO incredibly easy). I think tonight we're going to try another new food...possibly apples! Unless of course I panic as per usual.
2 comments:
The fun part about Carrots is when you feed them to babies a lot is that thier skin actually changes to orange. I can look back and see light orange Carly pictures and it's so funny!
You're doing really well - don't be hard on youself. =)
I always put both cereal and whatever food she's eating (breakfast = fruit, lunch = veggie) so that she doesn't get the cereal alone - it's nasty!
To be honest, our babysitter sort of set the routine and we just try to keep up with it on the weekends. Generally she wakes up and has a bottle, then a couple hours later she eats real food. Followed by another bottle and then more real food. She gets a bottle right after her afternoon nap and then I feed her real food for dinner followed by a bottle just before bed. Looking at what I just wrote, I realize that we do feed her quite frequently, but it doesn't feel that way on the weekends... I like to give her a bottle right before bed or nap time because it helps her soothe into sleep, thought she is definitely able to go to sleep without one.
So I feel like this makes it more confusing, but just know that you seriously can't get it wrong. I found when she was first starting solids we didn't want to give her real food on a totally empty stomach because she'd be hungry that she didn't have the patience to try something new. We'd either give her solids when she was just starting to get hungry or give a few ounces of formula to take the edge off so she'd be able to try foods without being so hungry that she'd get pissed off that we were sticking goopy stuff in her mouth.
And the rambling continues.... =)
I think this new mommy group needs to meet more frequently!
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