Feeding Beyond Breastmilk/Bottles

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Darcel on May 12, 2009 at 6:20pm

My oldest started solids at 6 months. She would eat small bites of whatever we were eating. She also had stage 3 baby food. She loved noddles, especially spaghetti noodles.

My youngest didn't start solids until she was 9 months. She had homemade sweet potatoes.
I would say to follow your babies lead. Every child is different and you know better then your best friend, your mom and your pediatrician.

I have this link for organic baby food when we lived in MN
http://sweetcheeksbabyfood.com/default.aspx

Permalink Reply by Shanna on May 12, 2009 at 6:53pm

Super Baby Food is a great book. I didn't use a lot of it though haha.

I used jar before I realized how simple it was to make! I will never buy baby food again. My daughter didn't have much interest in solids until after 6 months.. but she started finger foods at 8 months and never wanted baby food again. She was pretty much nursed, with solids for fun, for the first year.. just because she wasn't very interested.

Permalink Reply by Kate Holt on May 14, 2009 at 1:37am

I will answer for my son because I made so many bad mistakes with my girls. lol

What solid foods did you start your little ones on?

Fresh avocado and fresh banana. He mostly smashed it, but did try to nurse some off of the tray. LOL


Did you make your own baby food, or go with a commerical brand or one of the somewhat newly marketed frozen baby foods?

We made it, though it was never "baby food" just soft textured foods to start with.


What age did you start?

I first let him dapple at 6 months (He had all the signs of readiness, including sitting unassisted) but he hardly ate anything until 10 months.


What tips do you have for moms getting ready to start this endeavor?

Don't rush it. Really, don't. Not only does your baby not NEED anything but breastmilk nutritionally in the first year, but it's really just a mess and another hassle. If nursing is going well, keep with it. And when you DO start solids, make sure to nurse before and only use them as learning and supplementation. After all, solids are the first process in weaning.

Permalink Reply by Ami on May 14, 2009 at 9:48am

Kate, even with my best intentions, I made lots of mistakes, too. : ) (at least IMO). Great advice! I wish I would have waited a bit longer, rather than following advise of people telling me he "needed" real food. Ah, live and learn! : )

I gave my son commercial rice cereal at 5 months (wish I would have waited longer and skipped the cereal), but stopped after a week or so once I started reading my SBF book. : ) At 6 months, he had avocado, sweet potato, and bananas. He ate everything I fed him!

I mostly made food purees and used the frozen cube method or mushed up whatever I was eating once he got a little older. I also made his cereal ("porridge") which was one of his favorites. In fact, I wish I still made it! I stopped when he was about 18 months old when things were kind of crazy, and never started again. I still make him oatmeal (slow-cooked), but I miss being able to put in the other whole grains and legumes.

Now that he's 2, I am so glad I introduced so many different foods to him when he was younger. There are definately times where he refuses to eat the majority of what I put on his plate, or when he doesn't want his veggies or he boycotts things that were his favorites the day before, but I suppose that's toddlerhood for you.

Anyone have special tricks they use to get their toddlers to eat?

My younger sister laughs at all of the things I do to get my son to eat. He has a great imagination, so we do things like pretend that there are tiny squirrels on our broccoli "trees", and we fling them off and hurry up to eat the brocolli before the squirrels jump back on it. I like to distract him from the fact that I desperatly want him to eat his meals, lol.

Permalink Reply by Kate Holt on May 14, 2009 at 11:05pm

Very cute!!

One thing I've come to believe is that a child will eat when hungry. If they will not eat what you've set before them, they are not hungry enough. Many times, even we do not feel up to eating, and if you don't feel like eating (or not up to having a particular food) it can be very difficult to do so. Children are even more fickle more often than adults and simply too busy to eat, especially at the young toddler ages. When my kids do not eat and we've been trying XYZ for a certain period of time at the table, they just don't eat. Then, they get no dessert (if there was any planned) and they are not to get anything else until later, if at all. But my kids are 4 and 6 that I'm talking about.

Anyway, long rambling short, the kiddo will eat when he's hungry, he won't starve himself, if he's still nursing then he has the nutrition on his side.

Ami said:

Kate, even with my best intentions, I made lots of mistakes, too. : ) (at least IMO). Great advice! I wish I would have waited a bit longer, rather than following advise of people telling me he "needed" real food. Ah, live and learn! : )
I gave my son commercial rice cereal at 5 months (wish I would have waited longer and skipped the cereal), but stopped after a week or so once I started reading my SBF book. : ) At 6 months, he had avocado, sweet potato, and bananas. He ate everything I fed him!
I mostly made food purees and used the frozen cube method or mushed up whatever I was eating once he got a little older. I also made his cereal ("porridge") which was one of his favorites. In fact, I wish I still made it! I stopped when he was about 18 months old when things were kind of crazy, and never started again. I still make him oatmeal (slow-cooked), but I miss being able to put in the other whole grains and legumes.

Now that he's 2, I am so glad I introduced so many different foods to him when he was younger. There are definately times where he refuses to eat the majority of what I put on his plate, or when he doesn't want his veggies or he boycotts things that were his favorites the day before, but I suppose that's toddlerhood for you.

Anyone have special tricks they use to get their toddlers to eat?

My younger sister laughs at all of the things I do to get my son to eat. He has a great imagination, so we do things like pretend that there are tiny squirrels on our broccoli "trees", and we fling them off and hurry up to eat the brocolli before the squirrels jump back on it. I like to distract him from the fact that I desperatly want him to eat his meals, lol.

Permalink Reply by Genevieve Overy on May 17, 2009 at 2:17pm

My DD was just on boob until 7 1/2 months when she went straight onto lumps of whatever we were eating... roasted carrots, hummous, blueberries (her favourite to this day), raspberries (stick them on the ends of the fingers.. great fun!), banana, pear , peas (one at a time... meals took ages back then lol)etc etc
What we call in UK 'baby-led weaning... I just couldn't be bothered with purees and actually, by letting DD decide when she was full, she is learning to regulate her food intake so hopefully she won't over eat and turn into a chubster as she gets older!
She has days when she will only eat carbs, days when she will only eat protein and some days when she will eat what ever is put in front of her... example.... dinner tonight, she ate 4 meat balls, 10 garlic and parsley olives, a handful of blueberries and a scoop of ice cream and a cup of goat milk....

A friend said to me that if you are breast feeding, food is mostly just for fun in the first instance from 6-12 months and you can use the time to introduce a wide variety of flavours (my DD loves spicy, garlicy flavoursome foods).

Just see what your baby likes really! A good time to start is once they can sit unaided (usually after 6 months - before this, the neck, throat and tongue muscles are not sufficiently developed to cope with lumps of food, which is why younger babies should only be given purees if you choose to wean early- the WHO recommends nothing but breast milk before 6 months) and actively put food items in their mouth when offered, even if they spit it out again!

Permalink Reply by Kaiya on July 3, 2009 at 2:17pm

I did partial "child lead introduction to solids" Meaning I gave him little bits of soft foods to feed himself once he seemed interested at 6 months. His first food was banana and then avocado soon after. Maybe once a day I would spoon feed him a bit of mashed banana or organic apple sauce or sweet potato. Once he got a little older, we did goat's milk yogurt and cooked whole grains. I did cook some things and freeze the diced, steamed veggies/fruit in the fridge to have them on hand. But really, I avoided the typical rice cereal and jarred purees. Closer to a year old, we started with Ezekieal bread and O's type cereals.
So much cheaper to just prepare whole foods your self! Even buying all organic ingredients, it's a significant savings over the prepared baby food.
I also followed the advice on KellyMom.com on introducing high-allergy foods.