Parenting

 Solids, Finger Food, Baby-Led Weaning...

Well the time has come.... Introducing food to Uriah. Where do you begin? I've been reading up on so much the past couple of months. trying to decide what's best for him. I know that if we do the traditional purees that I want to make his food, not get the store bought stuff. One, they're expensive and we can't afford to get the organics if we were to do it, and two, they're just not that healthy (in my opinion, but I could be wrong.) I have also read a lot about "baby-led weaning" which allows the baby to decide what he/she likes by giving them a few options of reasonably sliced pear, banana, avocado, carrots, broccoli etc in the beginning (something they can hold) and letting them explore. I like this idea, but the choking thing makes me nervous. I want him to be able to decide what he likes instead of trying to guess if the face he's making means he doesn't like it or he's just being funny.. This way, if he likes something he'll pick it back up and eat it. So where are we at with all of this? I think we're going to do a little bit of both and see which works for him.. I've tried rice cereal that I've made from organic brown rice, oatmeal, banana, avocado, pumpkin, peas and apple. I fed him the rice cereal ,oatmeal, peas and pumpkin and after one or two bites he would turn his head and had a sour face the whole time. (Mind you, I've been trying these the past few weeks). With the banana I've fed him some and let him hold it as well, he seems to like both. With the avocado, he actually held it and ate some. With the apple I steamed them so they were nice and soft and he liked it a lot, but then I decided to puree it after a few minutes and he didn't like it that way.

So there you have it.. I've tried a little of both and he seems to enjoy feeding himself, but I'm going to keep trying both ways and see what happens! One thing I do know is that I really would like everything that we give him be organic. I know it's kind of a long stretch, and there have already been a couple things that weren't, but it's something I want to do for him even if we all can't have organic fruits and veggies, at least he will.

What have you done with your baby/babies? Any food in particular that they like?

P.S. Gabriel and I were able to buy a MAC (woohoo) because of our tax return, so soon I will have a website and this will be a lot easier to navigate around and hopefully I won't lose a bunch of posts again!

-Lauren

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Challenges and joys we face and how we work through them as parents...

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