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    Practicing eating… the big boy way

    After 5 months of eating off the mom G is ready for some variety in his diet. That’s right folks, solids are right around the corner and since I want to ease him into the experience we began “practicing”.

    What does practicing for solids entail? Essentially me feeding plain breast milk to G out of a spoon and his little dish while he’s sitting in his high-chair. I wanted him to start associating his chair, the spoon and the colorful dishes we got him with food time, and I also wanted him to start food-time with something I guaranteed he’d eat. I really didn’t want to start the process with a food he might dislike and then associate our setup with something yucky coming.

    It went well.

    He got the hang of the spoon pretty quickly, although he needed to learn the hard way that a spoon won’t fit in the mouth if a hand is already in there (and vise-versa). He’s really into putting his fingers in his mouth right now, and couldn’t wait to follow each spoonful of milk with a little thumb chaser.

    I had to learn (also the hard way) that feeding a baby is a little like racing a car through an obstacle course. You see, a colorful spoon is very interesting to a kid that likes to wave his arms about. You have to duck the spoon and get it back on track while arms are moving all about. Food flinging is not a sport I want to participate in right now (and to be honest, probably never).

    Here are some pics of our eventful day:

    Adorable, right? The little drool down his chin, just cracked me up. I was very impressed with how little spilled. We only did an ounce of milk and almost all of it went in his tummy.

    We’ll keep at this milk-only routine for the next few weeks. President’s Day week-end will be our first experience with rice cerial. Ooooh! It will be so thin, it will flow like milk, but we’ll see how he takes to it.

    I had hoped that we could wait to do solids as close to 6 months as possible, but the 3 day week-end feels like a convenient time to start and the kid is really starting to devour more than I can produce. I  send about 22oz of milk per day to day care with him and he’s apparently asking for more. Those 22oz require me to pump 6 times during the day, and wakeup at 2am on top of it, so I’m maxing out my capability here. We tried giving him formula to supplement anything over that and although it was acceptable to him on a few occasions in the past, he turns it down now. So… I’m trying not to rush to solids too much, but I’m starting to reach my limit of what I can provide to him personally.

    Our plan of attack is that he’ll still do all of his meals at day care from a bottle. After school he’ll get his ‘momma-direct’ meal and then follow up with a solid. “New” solids we’ll introduce only week-end mornings. This way all his bowl & spoon eats will be with us until he starts having more than one meal a day be a solid one.

    He’s growing up fast, huh?

    9 responses to “Practicing eating… the big boy way”

    1. libby08 says:

      What a freaking smart idea to start with breastmilk…Can you remind me of that trick when we start with #2…and #3?!?

    2. Kirsten says:

      I have never heard of starting the spoon feeding with breast milk. What a great, simple idea! Did you come up with that yourself?

      • avalikelava says:

        Yep, I did. It just made sense to me.
        That and I really wanted to play with little dishes (I mean come on — it’s a kindergartner’s dream come true with a live doll) and this gave me an excuse 🙂

    3. Sally says:

      Aww, he’s getting to be such a big boy! Glad the spoon feeding went well!

    4. alison! says:

      Everything G does is cute. He’s a cute factory!

    5. Rebecca says:

      That does seem like a good idea, and it looks fun too =)
      I’ll have to try to remember this in a couple months through the brain fog.

    6. Grammie says:

      It sounds like he is ready to really “eat”. This is another milestone because he will begin to be a little boy not a “baby” when he gets solid foods. But if he is hungry feed him whenever, he will be happy.I can’t wait to hold him!!!

    7. grand ma says:

      He is so cute.He is looking like a big Baby now…
      about the food….The old school’s doctor(1979 -1985) had recommended to not mix formula with breast milk.He should be able to separate them by the taste.
      We hope for the best result.

    8. Old Christine says:

      Hi there. I found you on the nest. I love your blog. One thing I want to point out, though. I hope I don’t come across as being mean.

      If he’s eating 22oz per day and wanting for more, then it’s probably wiser to work on your supply instead of giving him rice cereal. While it’s true that rice cereal is a great practice food for after 6 months, it is almost completely void of any nutritional value and is really JUST THAT, a practice food b/c it has such a low risk of allergens for babies learning to eat solids.

      It’s cute how much you think of everything, though. However, I think maybe you are over-thinking…hey, I’m guilty of that as well.

      Maybe look into increasing your supply and feed him straight from the tap at all feedings when possible. Otherwise, you may see even more of a dip in your supply, which would mean formula. There is nothing that you can give him at this age that is going to have the amount of good fat and calories as your breastmilk (or formula). I think you would be wise to wait until after 6 months and introduce something a little more nutritional like, avocado or banana. Rice cereal is just empty calories, which is fine when they’re getting enough of the good calories, but I think you mentioned he is still hungry… this may have the opposite effect of what you’re wanting, if what you’re wanting is weight gain and his ability sustain for longer.

      Good luck. He’s sooooooo cute!!

      What do I know, I’m just in Arizona with 4 kids and a husband. haha. I mean, take it with a grain of salt.

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