Solid Foods

We started solid foods!

John's first food (besides milk) was oatmeal. I was debating weather to do rice cereal or oatmeal cereal. Our doctor recommended some kind of cereal with vegetables. I decided to go with oatmeal because I had some steel cut oats around that we weren't going to eat them. And because I found a recipe (it's not very complicated) for homemade oatmeal cereal.

I really like the Wholesomebabyfood.com website for recipes/ideas for making food for John. They have baby cereal ideas, how to store your purees, when to give your baby what, homemade teething biscuit, and so much more on their website. Now, I don't follow there website exactly. In their opinion we are starting early, but my pediatrician thinks it's a good idea and John has been interested for about a month now.

I like the idea of making food for John, but I'm not planning on making everything that goes in his mouth from scratch. I think we will kinda fall where we are on cloth diapers. If it's saving us money and it's not a terrible inconvenience than I'm going to go for it. I'm just trying to keep our bank account full and our stress levels low... what Mom out there isn't trying to do that?

So far so good in the convenience department with the homemade oatmeal cereal. I make about a cup at a time and keep it in the fridge (it lasted us about 4 days). Then when it's time to eat I reconstitute it with a little formula/water... it takes like 30 seconds. In the future I plan on making and storing the oatmeal cereal in frozen cubes, but right now we are making sure he doesn't have some kinda of crazy reaction to it, so there is no point in filling my freezer just yet. As long as I'm near a stove/microwave I don't think making baby food will be a problem. When John starts eating three (or more) times a day then I will just use a box of rice cereal (or jar of veggies or fruits) when we are out.

He seems to really want to use his hands, but I think it will be another 3 months or so before he can really pick up food and feed himself. I feel so bad for him, he's so uncoordinated and he makes the biggest messes. He often lunges/reaches for the spoon or bowl. We are getting better as we practice, but I still find oatmeal cereal in strange places.

We started last Wednesday and so we could technically introduce another food by now, but I haven't decided what will be next. I'm leaning towards rice cereal because we have the supplies on hand and because it would be good to make sure he's not going to have some kind of crazy reaction to it while we are home and near our doctor. There are a lot of different number thrown around when it comes to how long you are suppose to wait in between new foods, but our doctor said 3 days so we are going to stick to that. Some of the next foods I'm thinking about are sweet potatoes, green beans, avocado, maybe banana... oh and prunes! Can't forget our friend the prune. (Don't worry I won't give him a huge feeding of prunes at one time... just to flavor the cereal and keep the digestive system happy)

Okay, here is a video of all the excitement. Don't judge, we've gotten a lot better since this video... but it's kinda fun to see John's faces and him trying to figure out what to do with the new stuff Mom is putting in his mouth. Enjoy!