The girls have been experimenting with real food for a few weeks now so I thought that it was about time for an update!
I've decided to give each new food 4 days. This gives the girls time to adjust to the new food, texture, flavour etc. It also gives us enough time to make sure that they do not have an allergic reaction to the food. So far they've tried butternut squash, avocado, banana, peas, pears and broccoli.
Quinn: She seems to love everything that goes in her mouth. We can't feed her fast enough. She gets extremely impatient and whines at us to give her more.
Teagan: While she eats everything, she isn't too thrilled about it. She will open her mouth willingly but usually has a grossed out look on her face. This isn't surprising though. She was born to nurse.
I've been trying to vary the texture of the foods. I pureed the butternut squash and peas. With the avocado and banana, I mashed it up with a fork, so it was still a bit chunky. With the pears, I blended them slightly. They started on broccoli today. I steamed it and then gave them each a stem to gnaw on.
I like the idea of baby-led weaning as well. The gist is that you let your baby feed themselves from the get-go. They can chose what they'd like to eat and the amount. That was the idea with today's broccoli experiment. While I like this idea, I do worry about the girls choking on pieces of food, hence the giant pieces of broccoli. Babies should always be supervised when doing BLW.
For the first year of life, breast milk or formula provides babies with most of their nutrients. My plan is to give them one real food "meal" per day for a few more weeks and then move onto two meals. At around 8-9 months, I'll move them onto three meals.
I'm going to stick with fruits and veggies for a little while longer. As I mentioned in my previous food post, fruits and veggies are really easy to digest.
If your baby(ies) is on solids, what do they like/dislike? What did you decide to start with?
My boys love to EAT!!! Anything really, except spinach, it led to tears & I didn't push the issue. I just figured we would revisit spinach in a couple months :) I started with organic oatmeal, then veggies, then fruit. Our pediatrician suggested a timeline, basically a month on cereal one meal a day, then adding veggies to a second meal for a month, then adding fruit to their cereal meal (breakfast). Once our boys started eating they loved it, so we progressed a little more quickly than she recommended but, it has worked for us. I also make all their food myself. Fruit has been a little tricky, except for banana which I also just mash with a fork & apple sauce that I buy organic. I have pureed peaches & blueberries but they come out really runny :( Fine for adding to cereal but I like them to eat it on it's own too & runny fruit just flows right back out of their mouths, so I'm trying to figure that out. I may need to get a food processor & just pulse it until it's broke down enough but not pureed???
ReplyDeleteSorry about the LONG comment
@Tilyou Triplets - I received 3 Baby Bullets as presents! It has been great so far for pureeing or just breaking the fruit/veggie down a bit.
ReplyDeleteI'm doing a combo of a schedule and winging it. My plan was one meal at 6 months, 2 at 7 months and then 3 at 8 months. I just want to see how they do. Just like your boys, if the girls want to move a little quicker/slower, we can modify things.
They look like they are really handling that broccoli well! Hannah starts today, sweet potato first - will let you know how it goes :)
ReplyDelete- Kate
Our son is an eater too. What worked great was the Annabelle Karmel food masher. It's basically a potato masher like thing with a bowl that has grooves in the bottom. You can mash up anything, including tough things like meat. It works great for all kinds of fruit that doesn't blend well, doesn't require any power, and travels great. That phase only lasted about 6 weeks in our house though and we were on to finger foods.
ReplyDeleteOur two were so different. Riley was really picky and still is. She loved fruits but hated all veggies, even sweet potato. This is true of her tastes today as the only veggie type thing she'll eat is cucumber but she loves every type of fruit. She is a picky plain eater and has very few things she will eat.
ReplyDeleteJackson tries everything and he was like this from day one. He likes veggies.
I gave the kids finger stuff too. I liked those mesh feeders too for things that could be sucked on but not allow chunks to get in their mouth. I find Jackson hard to move forward to the later stages of noodles at first because he'd choke a lot. So taking it slow is good.
The earlier they feed themselves the easier it is for you. You can set them up with their food while you cook or eat and enjoy time together without having to dish out the food to them for every bite.
I think for our second kid we moved forward with yogurt and things like that much earlier.
My memory fails me as I recall what I fed my two kids around ten and seven years ago. I think I did not often give them vegetables back then so I am struggling to make them eat anything green at the moment. With a two-month old baby now, I guess also have to give him fruits and vegetables so he will start eating healthy early.
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