The primary reason I haven't started B on solids in any real way is because it was all just too complicated. And I've had too many second time mothers lately tell me how they cooked for their first baby and not for the second, and how happy they are about this decision. Also I have cross-continental travel coming up in two weeks and don't want to start a routine only to have it interrupted. But mostly I'm just lazy and can't deal with the weirdness of trying to cook and preserve baby food. And I need to get this baby eating food if I ever want to enlist part time care (I refuse to pump that much - I refuse!). So as one who prefers to deal with reality rather than fantasy, I figure if buying jars of food makes it easier for now, then so be it. There's no reason I can't make food for him later.
Today's effort didn't go so well, though. I gave him a little baby applesauce - he made a face like I fed him lemons and wouldn't eat it. I thought it might be a little too tart, so I gave him some peas, which also made him make a face. I gave him some rice rusks but I'm sure he played with it more than ate it. And all of this made a MESS. Isn't it ironic that the minute babies stop profusely spitting up and peeing and pooping out of their diapers they need to eat solids and then that gets all over everything? Oh well, thank goodness for dishwashers and washing machines!
I know the trick is to just keep trying the food - and maybe I do need to mix a little milk in, or start with cereals, so it's less jarring (no pun intended). Or maybe skip all these nasty purées and have him eat my food (I smelled the pea purée. It was pretty gross).
I went straight to "real" food with Annelise. I'm really glad I did, it makes meal time so much easier to just have her it what I'm eating. I do supplement with jarred food so that she can sample things that I'm never go to fix (like squash). Now at 9 almost 10 months she's eating just about everything. She had steak the other night.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't quite brave enough to give Finn real food at first - I gave him rice cereal, then we moved on to soft foods in the mesh strainer. He didn't much care for any of it. It was at least 3 months before he seemed like he really liked food consistenly, and that was after I started giving him real food. He still eats lots of baby food - the kinds in the pouches. They're super easy when you're in a hurry (he feeds himself by sucking the food right out of the pouch) and I can easily give him foods that we haven't had recently, or ever, to make sure his diet is well balanced.
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Felix hates peas! I read that the green veggies are hardest to get used to. He does like sweet potatoes and carrots.
ReplyDeleteI was enjoying the simplicity of his bottle feeds, but he was reaching for my food and chewing the formula out of his bottle at 5 1/2 months, so we started solids once a day. No rice cereal though. Blech.
I made the same decision! Why spend all that time mqaking food when especially at first just getting one or two spoonfuls in them is a battle!
ReplyDeleteElsie wouldn't eat the jarred food. Hated the consistency! And in reality, she hated all purees. I ended up just mashing up bananas, avacados and roasted butternut squash (not together). She really started eating when she was able to pick the food up and feed herself.