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Friday, January 29, 2010

bananas....yummmmmm

giving piper food had been a big topic among family and friends here lately so i thought that i would tell everyone what we have decided to do :) we obviously wanted to do the best thing for her...we want her to grow up loving yummy healthy foods and not grow up pron to processed foods and we were obviously not ready for her to wean...not even close. i have done a lot of Internet reading, book reading and i have even been to a class on starting solids and we plan on mostly just reading Pipers cues. The best information i have gotten is from a book called "the womanly art of breastfeeding" and the La Leche League. Basically they say that the starting of solids is something that happens in the second half of the baby's first year of life...but once the baby turns 6 months old, not to watch the clock...but watch for "readiness signs" which would be....
-the ability to sit up without support
-absence of the tongue-thrust reflex(meaning baby does not automatically push solids out of her mouth with her tongue)
-mastered the pincer-grasp
-increased nursing
Babies usually hit these milestones between 6 to 8 months. In breast-feed baby's there is no need for the tasteless-processed rice cereal...they can go right to the good stuff :) some of the best first foods to try are ripe mashed banana, ripe mashed avocado and cooked mashed sweet potato. There is also no need for jarred foods (or if your baby is old enough there is even no need to mash or puree!). And of course to always try to nurse before feeding foods as your breast milk is your baby's main source of nuturion the first year...nothing can replace the amazing food that God designed!! :)
All that being said.....we gave piper a taste of banana last Saturday night!!!!!!! I'm not sure if she is completely ready, and she didn't seem to like it too much. But i have been giving her little tastes each day of my morning banana...she will take 2 or 3 bites before she gets completely un-interested and starts to push it away.Last night we even gave her a few (baby)spoon fulls of sweet potato that i had frozen is ice cubes...it all came right back out of her mouth and all over her bumbo and clothes...so to me that means either a)she still has the tongue-thrust and is not quite ready or b)she does not like it :) for now will will continue to just give her banana every once in a while and continue to follow her cues :)
WOW that was a lot of info most people probably don't care about...but that is what we are doing...and of course the video....

8 comments:

Casey said...

YEA!! Finally some one else that waited on solids! Jameson got the first solids a week before his 6 month birthday. Everyday I gave him a few bites of food, and he loved everything from the first bite. Accept for avocados, he still hates them.
Everyone gave me such a hard time for waiting- the worse person: Jameson's ped!!! At his 4 month check up the dr ask me what all Jameson ate. I responded breast milk and he ask what else. He was appalled that I hadn't started solids. Silly doc.

Happy 1/2 Birthday Piper! And sorry you had to learn the hard way to carry extra clothes. =) But it made for a cute story.

~Christy said...

ohh casey im sorry about your dr. Pipers Doctor has been great! at her 4 month appointment all she said was that there was no need to start foods yet...then at her six month appoinment when she gave us the OK...i asked her about a)possible waiting till 9months or so to REALLY start foods...and b) if it was ok to skip rice cereal and go right for bananas...and she was completly supportive!!

Laura said...

Christy, I skipped the plain rice cereal. It looked nasty to me and I had also read that it wasn't really necessary so we moved on. I mix it in with green beans now, though. They are so watery on their own. And then we pretend that he'd having casserole, too! :D I'm trying to make it as fun as possible because a few of my mom friends view this such a drudgery and I don't want him to catch a bad attitude from me!

Except about bananas. He HATES them. Oh, and sweet potatoes, too. I even tried disgusing them and he totally called me out on it. Stinker!

Casey said...

It's okay I'm looking for a new doc, but didn't want to trade several times so I'm waiting until I find one I like. Besides, I kinda like to argue with people.
Rice cereal is worthless. We skipped it too. When you are ready to start grains, Whole Foods has a some "quick oats" in the bulk food section. At first I magic bullet-ed the dry oats to make them smaller.
Do you have a mesh feeder bag yet? If not they are lots of fun.

lizcannon said...

seriously, the best video ever!!!
hopefully she will start liking bananas!

Foster said...

Too cute! Looks like she isn't sure whether she wants to eat them yet! Stella just finished her first week of bananas too. She really liked them - but probably because they tasted a lot better than the rice cereal we tried to give her one night - whoops! We linked your blog to one of our upcoming posts since you did such a good job of summing up our starting solids class. Hope you don't mind : )

~Christy said...

of course you guys can link the blog!! cant wait to see stellas experince with naners :)

Emma Krueger said...

What a great video! We waited until Kennedy was about 5 1/2 months old to start her on solids. I was in no rush, even though her ped gave us a list of foods and told us to start them at 4 months. She was no where near ready. At her six month check up he told us we could start giving her meat and finger foods. Again with the rushing. Not ready to start that. She is loving her mashed up foods and that is fine with me. She has liked everything I have made her so far. Whole foods has a been a blessing in finding organic, and various foods. No farmers market in Vegas. Piper is adorable.