As if you couldn’t tell from pictures, he relishes meal time, and while his love for the boob still remains, he’s slowly growing accustomed to the joys of solid foods that are not produced by my super calorie burning mammary glands (seriously, I will be in the market for a personal trainer and gym membership when this kid weans, which is almost enough incentive to be one of *those* moms that breastfeeds her 8 year old… almost).
So I’m sure you all can gather that being nearly seven months old for his first Thanksgiving was PERFECT timing. Not only had he been practicing eating solids for a good three weeks, but he also had 4 teeth to help with the gnashing. (As I type this he has 5 and is working on his 6th…Oh Lord, will there ever be a break from this teething nightmare?!) And he can thank his grandparents for feeding him the “good stuff”, like cinnamon rolls and bacon, and convincing me to leave behind my so very thoughtfully planned out all organic and homemade baby food diet for him, at least for the week we were visiting. That’s right folks… I said HOMEMADE baby food! I am SO that mom that I swore I would never be. From a post dated July 21, 2007
Prior to the Rabies, I always associated slings with hippie parents – not that that’s a bad thing. I just always thought you had to be the type of mom who made her own organic baby food from the organic vegetables she grew in her own garden to wear one, and I have no time or desire for that shit. However, I found some adorable Hotslings in very stylish patterns, and I like the idea of baby as accessory (wonder how many people I pissed off with that statement).
Hahahahahahahahahaha!!! I have to admit, though, that the Moby with Kendall’s chubby head and arms peaking out did make quite the fashion statement. And it turns out I do have the time and desire to make my own baby food. It’s ridiculously easy to do and it is so much cheaper than those jars. I’ve found wholesomebabyfood.com to be an excellent resource and I’ve picked up a lot of great tips from the book The Super Baby Food Diet (Although I don’t know that it warrants buying it full price. I found mine for $3 at our consignment store.)
We started out with simple mashed avocado and some breastmilk, or baby guacamole, and then advanced to smashed bananas, pureed sweet potatoes, peas, applesauce, carrots, and pears, and we’ve been adding Earth’s Best oatmeal cereal and plain organic yogurt on occasion. The guac and bananas are the easiest since there is no real prep. involved. Just remove from the peel and smoosh. Now that he’s okay with the thicker consistency I don’t even bother diluting it with breastmilk. I may add just the tiniest bit of water if need be.
My method of making the food is to steam the veggies, then puree in the food processor, fill ice cube trays, freeze over night, then store on freezer bags. I defrost a couple cubes at a time when I need them. Easy peasy.
Why, you may ask, did we wait until six months? Mainly, it boiled down to these reasons:
1. I dealt with a colicky baby for the first 10-12 weeks of his life and was happy with the peace that came with the digestive tract truce thereafter. I wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit to go screwing around with his gut.
2. Breastmilk did the boy good. He was in the 92nd percentile for weight at his 6 month appointment and never had so much as a spoonful of cereal.
3. Breastfeeding was working for him and me. It was easy. Why rush the mess and hassle of purees and spoons and bibs and dishes when you don’t need to? Not to mention the poop!
4. Seriously. The poop. Breastmilk poops are damn near close to pleasant. Nary a smell to them, very easy to clean up, wash right off the old diapers. Now that we are onto solids, I have a lovely transition period known as peanutbutter poop to look forward to. Nothing a little flushable liner won’t fix, but still, not nearly as delightful as curdled breastmilk poops.
(Note for cloth diaper followers – this really hasn’t been that bad to deal with. I mean, okay, it’s a little gross sometimes, but I deal. It’s a short phase. We put a flushable liner in each diaper. He only poops like once every other day, so if it’s not soiled with poop, we just throw it in with the wash. You can reuse a liner a couple times. When he does poop, I can just peel the liner off and flush it and the peanutbutter poop right down the toilet. Supposedly, this gets better once the poop gets more solid. Then it just rolls right off the diaper into the toilet, no liner required. At least, this is what I hear.)
Now, I so wish I could sit here and tell all of you that starting solids was the magical thing that made my baby sleep through the night. I mean, that’s what everyone tells you from the beginning, isn’t it? “Oh, he’s not sleeping through the night yet? He needs cereal. Feed him solids and he’ll sleep for you.” Really? REALLY?!!! LIARS LIARS PANTS. ON. FIRE. Not ONLY is he not sleeping through the night (yeah… that last post… that one where he slept for 7 hours… total, utter, complete fluke, nature’s way of screwing with my head, punishing me for God knows what, never happened again), but he has gone from waking 2 times a night to every 2 to 3 hours! Who knows why. Could be the sixth tooth he’s working on. Could be a growth spurt. Could be some sort of rebellion or clingyness. I don’t freaking know because, once again, I can’t find the damn Baby Manual that SURELY must have shot out of my vagina sometime between the baby and the placenta.
Kendall is 7 months old… and awake… again
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6 comments
I think Nate = Kendall. Our sons are so similar, except that Kendall has more teeth. We’re in teething hell now though, and anyone who can tell me how to get a teething infant to sleep through the night without illegal drugs wins a prize! 🙂
OMG I could have written so much of this. Ella LOVES her food. She bangs her tiny fist if you don’t shovel it in fast enough.
And making your own food is way easy and way cheap.
And yeah, why start messing with food before you have to? It really eats (haha) into our evening time with her, not to mention it’s more work than whipping out the boob. And the poop, as you mentioned. I really don’t get why so many people rush into it.
No teeth for Ella, yet. She’s a big girl, though. Was 18lbs at her 6 month appt so she gained 10 pounds in 6 months. That’s like an entire baby she gained!
So Kendall is taking all the ‘real’ food just fine, huh? I’ve been going slow with Ella, introducing a new food a week. Mainly because Saturday is when we walk up to the co-op to pick a new vegetable and I always seem to have a week’s worth of food out of it, and not much time during the week.
Oh, and Ella is waking up more too. She’s just so dang hungry.
I use fleece for liners. It is wonderful. I went and bought discounted fleece from walmart and used inserst as a pattern for how big to cut them. That way you can dump the poo off or just rinse the diaper and nothing gets on the diapers. And they are completly reusable. Oh, also you can put diaper rash cream on thier little butts without worrying about it messing up your cloth diapers.
*sorry I just went back and re-read and one sentence made no sense.
With the fleece I meant you can either dump the poo right off or rinse off the fleece and nothing ever touches the diaper.
Everything you wrote in this blog, I swear applies to my daughter as well.. Um yeah, hi, definitely not sleeping through the night with solids and just started her at 5 months.. I definitely think I’m going to slow down with it for sure.. Great blog, thanks for sharing. I definitely had a good laugh 🙂