This is the eighth and final installment in my Introduction to Solids series.  I am journaling about our experience with baby feeding since we have the unique opportunity to share this with our students and readers as we start the process of weaning our youngest child.  This is not medical advice, nor is it a schedule to be followed.  It is simply our choice for our baby and the first time we have done what is gaining popularity as “baby-led weaning”.

Click on these links for Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Week 6 and Week 7.   

 

Click here for a link to the stain fighting tips shared by my facebook friends.  Can you add more the list?  Please do so in the comments and I will move them into the body of the post as time allows.  

This past week we introduced our first “official” protein – pinto beans.  We started out by giving the baby the broth from the cooked beans.  She gobbled it up!  The very first day I gave her one bean to see how she would eat it – it went straight into the mouth and she ate it without choking.   

The next day, I tried to give her some broth and baby shook her head with an emphatic no!  I gave her some beans from my plate and that is exactly what she wanted.  Now we have another pinto bean fan in the house!  We are going to stick with pinto beans for another week, and then we will introduce black beans.   

Another new food: I gave the baby lightly toasted bread.  Up to now, I would give her the hard crust on Italian bread or a hard dinner roll to gnaw on.  Since she has done so well with eating and not choking, I decided to experiment with a piece of toast.  After toasting, I sliced it up into finger-width slices.  All four pieces got eaten – rice bread was a yes this week!   

I also had another baking day.  I used farmer’s market zucchini and replaced the eggs in the recipe with flax seed.  Baby continues to devour this bread!  Interestingly, she doesn’t like the crust on this and sucks out the soft center.  She spits out the crust when she has eaten out the center.   

We also confirmed that baby likes riper bananas.  If the skin is still yellow, she will suck on the pieces and then spit them out.  When the skin is starting to get brown spots on it, she will actually consume (read: devour) the banana.  There are no pieces left on the tray or on the chair when the banana is ripe.   

One adjustment we made was feeding her slices or pieces of fruit again, instead of whole fruit.  She seemed to lose interest in eating a half an apple, or the whole peaches and plums she was eating with supervision.  Since I couldn’t imagine that she lost her sweet tooth, I started cutting the fruit up into small pieces again – that did the trick!  She enjoyed the fruit again.  I wish we could understand what was going on in their little minds that affect their preferences!   

Our surprise this week was that the baby grabbed a piece of chicken off of one of our other kiddo’s plate.  We took it away, and she reached for it again!  I let her keep it to see what she would do with it.  I don’t know that she ate it, because there were lots of little chicken pieces to pick up.  Her interest seemed to be ripping the food apart with her two little teeth!    

I will close out this series of posts with the following thoughts: 

Lastly, sometimes a child will reject foods that they used to like.  This can be normal.  Consider a look at these factors to decide if your baby needs to be seen by their care provider:  Are they running a fever?  How is their energy level?  How are they sleeping?  Are there any other signs that they are “off”?  If you decide that something is amiss, then maybe that warrants a little more exploration.   

In our experience, we found that the foods our son Bruss was rejecting were the foods that he ended up being allergic to.  I was so grateful for trusting my instincts that he was eating other things so he was okay and we did not need to “force feed” him.  I continue to trust his instincts about what he can and cannot eat, and he continues to grow and thrive so he is definitely eating the foods that are right for him.  This does not mean that we are permissive - we have healthy food choices available for them to pick from.  Treats are a separate issue and they know they can have them after they have eaten a good meal.  

I will be continuing our food journal for my own records since we have a history of interesting food allergies in our family.  We will keep introducing other fruits and vegetables until October since I like to keep our children vegetarian until they are a year old.  After that, we will start introducing some fish and meats, as well as eggs and dairy.  If you are curious about when other foods are introduced, we can correspond via email: [email protected]   

 Tuesday, July 10 

 Breakfast: Banana 

 Snack: Apple slices 

 Lunch: Plum, sweet potato, yams 

 Dinner: Patty Pan (squash)   

 Wednesday, July 11 

 Breakfast: ½ Banana, 1 strawberry 

 Snack: Veggie straws 

 Lunch: Patty Pan (squash), Pinto Bean broth 

 Dinner: Plum, peas   

 Thursday, July 12 

 Breakfast: Banana 

 Snack: Veggie straws 

 Lunch: Steamed carrots, ½ plum 

 Dinner: Peas, bread crust   

 Friday, July 13 

 Breakfast: Peach & plum pieces 

 Lunch: Peas, patty pan slices 

 Dinner: Zucchini bread   

 Saturday, July 14 

 Breakfast: Banana, Peach pieces 

 Lunch: Peas 

 Dinner: nursed only   

 Sunday, July 15 

 Breakfast: Pancake, Banana, 3 bites of oatmeal 

 Lunch: Zucchini bread 

 Dinner: nursed only   

 Monday, July 16 

 Breakfast: Banana, Rice bread 

 Lunch: Veggie straws, waffle potato fries, 1 grilled chicken nugget(!!) 

 Dinner: Avocado   

Link List: 

 Appetite regulation: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3170240/  

This blog contains information about our classes available in Chandler, AZ and Payson, AZ and is not the official website of The Bradley Method®. The views contained on this blog do not necessarily reflect those of The Bradley Method® or the American Academy of Husband-Coached Childbirth®. 

Photo: The last of our peaches...so happy our baby got our home-grown produce!

 

This is the third installment in my Introduction to Solids series.  I am journaling about our experience with baby feeding since we have the unique opportunity to share this with our students and readers as we start the process of weaning our youngest child. 

 

Click on these links for Week 1 and Week 2.

 

There are two benefits I have already noticed from our choice to feed Angelika whole food pieces instead of starting her with cereals and purees.

 

No choking yet:  Babies that learn to eat whole food pieces learn to chew, as opposed to children who start with soft, mushy foods that learn to swallow.  I cannot find the source where I originally read this – it makes so much sense! (When I find it, I will post the link.) 

 

Knowing that I wanted to start her with “true” solids, I waited for some developmental markers to start feeding.  She did not start getting table food until she could get into and stay in a seated position on her own, and I watched for the pincer grip.  As it turns out, she practiced that on me – my bruised breasts and my arms were proof that our baby could probably pinch to grasp food, among other things.

We had scary choking experiences with our other three children – mostly involving things like tortilla chips, which we have a lot of in the southwest!  She grabbed a tortilla chip out of my hand last Wednesday, and managed to eat it without choking.

 

If your child does choke – click here for some visuals with instructions.

 

Less time in the kitchen:  I would spend two days per month preparing vegetable purees when we started feeding our boys.  Baking, steaming, pureeing, freezing, storing…it was time consuming!  As a mother to four kiddos, that is just not a reality right now.  Now I can bake or steam a few things as we make our own food and use it as we need it and have a couple of days of food that can be reheated.

 

I may revisit pureeing as our lifestyle allows for more kitchen time again.  It was well worth it to know that the food for them was whole and preservative free, and there was the side benefit of having purees to use in other foods.  The rest of us benefited from vegetables in baked goods and sauces; I even mixed them into the cheese and “melted” veggies into quesadillas.

 

Weekly update:

This week we introduced two new vegetables – carrots and peas.  Although Angelika has been handling a whole, peeled carrot as a teether, she had not eaten carrot before.  She loved them – pretty much attacked the food as it was making its way to her plate!  She also ate the peas with enthusiasm.

 

Angelika is doing much better getting the food into her mouth, instead of wearing it or tossing it.  Her diapers are showing us how much she is able to digest – there are still some pieces coming out whole, so to me it looks like her body is still learning to process the food.

 

Her bowel movements have been on and off again – some days they come in the morning as expected, other days none at all.  I am still backing off on solids until I see confirmation that her body is processing; then I go back to offering food at least twice a day.

 

She also had a diaper rash last week that made me nervous (she rarely gets rashes).  After a KST check by our chiropractor, he shared that it doesn’t seem to be food related.  Since she is still teething, he said that the increase in fluid production has changed the ph in her body.  I am going to follow his recommendation to add a dash of baking soda to her drink cup and see if that will clear up the rash.

 

That is it for our update this week.  I plan on introducing bananas and continuing with peas and carrots this week.  We will also revisit avocados.  If all goes well, we may try some baked apple.  I’ll wait and see how hot it gets in Arizona this week and decide if it’s worth it to turn on the oven.

 

 

 

Monday, June 4

Little solid poop – about the size of a U.S. half-dollar

Veggie straws

Sweet potatoes and yams for lunch

 

Tuesday, June 5

U.S. nickel-sized poop at wake up

Lunch – some sweet potato and yam pieces – played more than ate

Epic diaper after lunch

Dinner – Avocado

 

Wednesday, June 6

BM in the am

Breakfast: peaches

Lunch:  yam/sweet potato

Dinner: - 1 tortilla chip

 

Thursday, June 7

No BM yet

Breakfast: Apple (teether), peaches

Lunch: Carrot teether

Dinner: 15 pieces of yams/sweet potatoes

 

Friday, June 8

No BM today!

Breakfast – peaches

Lunch – 4 veggie straws

 

Saturday, June 9

AM – 4 veggie straws

Lunch – GF graham cracker pieces

Dinner – steamed peas and carrots

BM – big one at night

 

Sunday, June 10

BM in the morning and early afternoon

Lunch – peas and carrots

Dinner – veggie straws

 

Monday, June 11

No BM

Breakfast – Apple teether

Lunch – 0

Dinner – veggie straws

Choking Link:

http://www.babyledweaning.com/2012/baby-led-weaning-diary-and-its-goodbye-from-siobhan-and-some-stuff-about-choking/

 

Disclaimer: 

The material included on this site is for informational purposes only.
It is not intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice. The reader should always consult her or his healthcare provider to determine the appropriateness of the information for their own situation.  Krystyna and Bruss Bowman and Bowman House, LLC accept no liability for the content of this site, or for the consequences of any actions taken on the basis of the information provided.  This blog contains information about our classes available in Chandler, AZ and Payson, AZ and is not the official website of The Bradley Method®. The views contained on this blog do not necessarily reflect those of The Bradley Method® or the American Academy of Husband-Coached Childbirth®.