Finger Foods

Last Monday, we took Nora in for her nine-month well-baby doctor's visit. I always look forward to these appointments (especially now that they're three months apart, which seems like forever!) because it gives me the opportunity to ask 10 million questions. It also reassures us that we're not total screw-ups as parents, so that's nice.

Oh, but before I say more--Nora is now 16 lbs., 4 oz. and 26.75 inches long. That's approximately the 7th percentile for weight, and 18th percentile for height. Still technically a peanut, although she certainly seems huge to us!

Anyway, at the appointment, we spent a lot of time talking about eating habits and what the next three months will look like. Nora's a great eater. She gobbles everything up like a champ, and does not seem to be a picky eater--at least not at this stage of her life. She pretty much eats whatever we give her.

Lately, though, she's been grabbing the spoon when we try to shovel in her purees. It's like she'd rather take the puree off the spoon and feed it to herself. You can imagine how well THAT goes (HUGE MESS). Our pediatrician said that this is a sign that she's done with purees and ready to strictly feed herself now.

Whoa.

We had been giving her teeny pieces of some real foods--banana, watermelon, peas, green beans, cheese shreds, breads, and of course, puffs. She'd been doing well, but I wasn't expecting to be completely done with purees just yet. And, well, to be fair, we're not. I still have a bunch of frozen puree cubes left in the freezer, so we're at least going to continue until those are gone. Plus, sometimes it's still EASIER to feed her purees because we've become quite efficient at it over the last three months. Letting her feed herself is a whole different ballgame!

But now that Nora has been "cleared" to eat anything, it's been fun to do a little experimenting the last week or so. We've started giving her pieces of whatever we're having. I still cut everything up into miniscule pieces because I'm paranoid like that (the girl still doesn't have any teeth!), but she's handled it all well. She didn't seem to be TOO big a fan of our slow-cooked mexican chicken dish (too spicy?) but she DEVOURED dinner tonight.

Peas, green beans, leftover pasta with meat sauce, chicken french, a little sausage... girlfriend was eating it up faster than I could lay it down. This was her first meal during which we didn't give her ANY purees.

My baby is growing up so fast!

Now, we are officially entering the wonderful world of finger foods. We'll continue to give her things that we're eating, but I wouldn't mind having some other things in the rotation for her. Anyone out there have any advice/suggestions for good (nutritious!) things for her to eat?

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Yogurt

Nora tried yogurt for the first time on Friday. I mixed it up with some pear puree and dished it out.

Success. Good stuff.

Next up on the "I'll be surprised if she likes it" list: Cranberry puree. I tasted it and it is BITTER. I don't know if any amount of pureed apples, pears, or yogurt is going to be able to mask that. We shall see.

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Solidarity

When Nora was born, my intention was to exclusively breastfeed her until she is six months old, as that is the current recommendation from the World Health Organization (WHO), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), etc. I knew that realistically, we might not make it all the way to six months, but I figured it was a good goal to have.

Then, when we were at Nora's four-month pediatrician appointment in January, our doctor told us that she was very happy that Nora was doing so well with the breastfeeding. She asked how long I intended to nurse her, and I told her six months, which she was very pleased with. However, she recommended starting some solid foods before I originally planned. Her reasoning is that apparently, the "very few" babies who do make it all of the way to six months without starting solids tend to have problems accepting solids. So, our doctor encouraged us to start rice or oatmeal cereal once a day between five and six months old, just to get her used to the idea of eating solids prior to six months of age.

Alrighty, simple enough.

Despite her recommendations, we weren't in a huge hurry to start solids. For one, breastfeeding has been really EASY, and to add another activity (like preparing and feeding Nora solids) into our daily routine is OK, but not something I was dying to do. Secondly, THE POOP. I was not looking forward to changes in Nora's poop--especially since we cloth diaper. Breastfed baby poo is no big deal, easy to handle, easy to clean... *sigh* Change is hard, y'all.

Anyway, on Thursday, when Nora was about 5 months and 1 week old, we figured we better bite the bullet and start working on solids with Nora. And frankly, we had reason to suspect she was ready. For weeks, she has been OBSESSED with watching us eat, trying to grab our food, putting anything and everything into her mouth, etc.

When we got home from work and daycare, she seemed to be in a good mood, so I mixed up some baby oatmeal cereal with some breast milk. (We are skipping rice cereal... at least the white rice variety. Interested in knowing why? We are following the philosophy of the "WhiteOut" campaign.) As I approached her with it, she seemed pretty interested, and even opened her mouth as I moved the spoon toward her lips.

As you can see, she had a perplexed look on her face, but she didn't react negatively. She swallowed most of it, so I repeated with another spoonful. Then another.

And then she even smiled! I thought... SUCCESS.

As we got further into the feeding, she was spitting out more and more of it, until ultimately she was refusing it altogether. But she had consumed several spoonfuls (tiny spoonfuls, but still), so we were happy. We figured that for her first time, she had done fantastically! We were feeling pretty good about the situation.

Then came Friday night. I mixed up the oatmeal exactly as I had on Thursday, except she WOULD.NOT.EAT.IT. I placed the first spoonful in her mouth, she spit it out, made a face, and cried. Then refused to take anymore. We figured maybe she was not feeling it that night, but I was surprised because it just seemed like she suddenly HATED it.

After asking for some advice on Facebook, several friends told us that maybe she just doesn't care for the taste of the oatmeal. "Have you tried it? It tastes like cardboard," one of my friends said. A few people suggested mixing some fruit (banana or applesauce) in with the oatmeal to see if she would take it that way. So, tonight, we tried a little banana in with the oatmeal.

FAIL. Complete fail.

Nora started crying as soon as the spoon came toward her lips, and refused to even really taste it. She pursed her little lips together and would not even let me get the spoon in there! I'm not really sure where to go from here...

We're toying around with trying some other "beginner" foods, like sweet potato or pears.
I picked up some whole grain rice cereal; maybe she'll prefer that over oatmeal.
Maybe she's just not ready.

Whatever the case, this is certainly not as easy as I thought it would be!

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