In Need of a Plan - Please Advise

We are supposed to be making the transition from breastfeeding to so-called solid foods. So far, we've fed Pearl assorted gruels--rice cereal, oatmeal, and a few of the phase 1 vegetables, such as yams, squash, and peas.

At first she thought eating was fun. Now she seems less interested. Or I should say she is less interested in eating the food, more interested in painting herself and others with it. Our dog Jake is the member of our family most enthusiastic about Pearl's future as a food artist.

We've been feeding her every evening. At the six month check (which went very well, by the way), our pediatrician Dr. Alex said she should now be eating three meals a day. Herein lies the problem. We have no plan! We read that you introduce new foods for 3-5 days to make sure she's not allergic to each one. We've done that. No allergies, thus far. But 3 meals a day is serious business!

First thing this morning I got a newsletter from the Gerber company. I was reading along thinking, "This is very helpful," but then reality struck. These days the sales pitch is disguised as helpful information. When you find yourself fooled by the advertisement, you have to consult the pros. So here are my questions for you.

1) Do you make homemade baby food or use the bottled kind? Please explain.

2) Do you use organic foods?

3) How should we proceed in the introduction of new foods?

On the consumer front, the good news is that last week I purchased a new blender and a big bib that's made of 100% raincoat.

Comments

[Robyn]

ok...first of all...it's not really 3 meals a day.

more like...

3 times a day to play with food.

seriously..no need to worry about the amount she is consuming at this age. from here on out...it's really about experimenting with texture...and if she actually eats some...GREAT!

she could live on breastmilk til 10 months or so...not that y'all would really love that. so..don't sweat it if she doesn't really consume much right now.

what i remember...from 18 months ago...is that we'd do a bit of cereal and a bit of fruit in the morning. Harris refused rice cereal..so, we went right for oats or barley. for lunch and dinner...we'd try a bit of a veggie and a bit of a fruit.

we did orance veggies first...then green veggies..and then fruit. with the thought in mind that he'd grow to like those things which were less sweet first. well...sure..that worked...but when we introduced real food (not pureed)...he became a pastatarian anyway. at 26 months..he's finally liking fruit again. and he eats spinach...with a bit of broccoli on odd numbered days only in months beginning and ending on a Sunday. (rarely!).

we did not make our own food. but i've heard it's extremely easy.

we did not use organics much. mostly we used gerber and we used HEB brand.

we never gave him the stage 2 food with meats. they stunk. and we never did stage 3 foods at all. just did real food by that time.

and please do remind me of this a year from now..when we've got a 6 month old..and we can't remember what to feed him/her.

as for bibs...we got one good bib that had a pocket to catch things...and used it for a bit. but mostly...we just took off his clothes. and wiped him down.

good thing you've got a dog. not sure how families without dogs keep their floors clean.

[shannon]

I am no expert, so I have no answers to your questions. However, I do have a charming habit about worrying about problems well before they arise. So I have this great book, which I love, which you may already have, but just in case you don't:

Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron

It is my "plan" to feed our baby all organic and make most of it from the food the grownups are eating as soon as possible.

[Mieke]

I both buy and make Gabo's food. Making food is a breeze, I get broc., zucckini, etc... steam it, cuisinart it with a bit of water, and some Italian herbs, and vwalah. Then you pour the goop into icecube trays and freeze it. Once they are frozen dump the cubes in a ziplock bag for easy access. For a long time, she'll probably only eat one cube (Jonas loved it mixed in with oatmeal made with breastmilk-gag). You take the cube and nuke it for 10 -15 seconds, it will be half melted and half frozen, you mix it up and the hot part melts the cold part which in turn cools the hot part which makes it perfect temp. for eating (got it?).

Freshly mashed bananas are favorites in this house. Watermelon, cantalope, apples, grapes, etc were first introdced through that mesh thing you put food in so they can chew and suck to their hearts content without a risk of choking.

Gabo's FAVORITE these days is a melange of berries. I get a bunch of frozen blue berries, blackberries, strawberries, thaw them out put a hint of water and give them a whirl in the cuisinart (ice cube tray process follows). He LOVES the berries in his oatmeal (see my web site for a photo of a recent berry eating experience).

Gabo was very cool to food for a long time, we kept trying, he played and played, then one day he started wolfing the food down and he's been into it every since.

We do buy babyfood from a jar (only organic-so is the oatmeal).

Now at 10 months old (and how did THAT happen) he'll eat sharp chedder cheese, spicy thai noodles, taco meat and all that other yummy stuff. If Marcia ate a lot of flavor foods while she was preggo, Pearl will already have a taste for the more exotic flavors. Kids LOVE to experience all kinds of foods, don't be put off if she HATES something, try again in a week, and again in another week and one day Pearl will surprise you by chowing down on the previously offending item.

I must confess I'd pick changing a poopy diaper over doing mealtime ANYTIME. I have never enjoyed the process, the mess, and the time it takes. It is my least favorite part of child-rearing.

[Mieke]

Hear! HEAR! To the bonus of having a dog. I really do not know how dogless families (and they are suspect anyway) do it without one.

[Fi]

One of the kids I look after has organic bottled mush, which seems to go down well. I'm no expert, but when I have kids I plan to use as much organic and homemade (homegrown even!) as possible. Call me idealistic...

Love your blogs too :)

[Moxie]

Robyn's right about the 3 "meals" thing. Although I'd heard that they could live on breastmilk alone for 14 months or so. Oh, and Robyn, we don't have a dog, which must explain why our floors are always dirty!

I found that El Chico and his friends almost uniformaly went through a phase of loving trying new foods (around 6 months), not really wanting to eat much (around 8 months), only wanting to eat things they could pick up and shove in themselves (around 10 months), and then being completely uninterested in food again (around 12 months). Then at about 14 months they all started eating like chowhounds.

It's all really just practice at this point. You can make it hard on yourself by thinking about it too much, or you can just figure if you offer bananas and avocado and some applesauce, squash, and Cheerios every day, she'll eat what she needs to eat.

[Jenny]

1) Do you make homemade baby food or use the bottled kind? Please explain.
I made a butt-load of homemade food. I got Super Foods, which someone else here recommended, but it was a bit too much for me. I got DK's First Meals and found that to be much simpler for me. It really spelled out what to make and what to combine with what. Doodles adored it--until he stopped eating, that is. I ended up throwing out a ton and that's that for now!

2) Do you use organic foods?
Ha ha ha ha ha! Oh, this question cracks me up! Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, I had these wonderful grandiose notions that all of Doodles's food would be natural, organic, and homemade. No jars for my child! No sugar, no preservatives, nothing evil! And then he hit a stage (that he's still in) where he'll only eat crunchy carbs (Veggie Booty, Gerber crackers, graham crackers, Goldfish, etc.). That's it. I'm so desperate to expand his repetoire with food that I actually fed him Ritz Bits Cheese Sandwiches and was extremely grateful that he choked down the cheese, even if it was fake cheese. When there is a choice, I serve Doodles organic (and now that he's on milk, he gets only organic milk). But I don't sweat it and I let him eat just about anything he's willing to eat.

3) How should we proceed in the introduction of new foods?
Stick with the new food every three days. Chances are Pearl will be fine, but if she does have an allergic reaction, you'll be so relieved that you can quickly identify what the problem is. Once you hit stage 2 foods, you may need to introduce more than one food at a time when you start the mixed foods (such as the Tender Harvest Tropical Fruit). But as long as it's just the one new type your introducing, you'll still be able to isolate any issues.

I had the same experience where I had to suddenly go from a meal almost once a day (more like a meal every two to three days because it was such torture to feed him) to three meals every day. Once we started with the vegetables, meal time because a lot better, because frankly, that cereal is a little gross. What I've heard over and over is that right now, eating is just practice. Pearl's getting most of her nutrition from breastmilk/formula. Even though Doodles is 13 months, our doctor told us not to sweat his unusual eating habits until he hits about 18 months (I sure hope he kicks in with the food like others here have mentioned). And the best thing my doc told me, when Doodles was on a serious food strike, was, "No neurologically sound child is going to let himself starve." So go with the flow. Every child seems to go through so many food stages. I still think longingly of the days when Doodles would happily go through 3 jars of food at a single sitting... and now? Now I buy Veggie Booty by the case.

[Robin P]

I used regular jar baby food for Lillianna. Sometimes she ate. Sometimes she didn't. She will be 7 in 2 weeks and she is alive and healthy and believe me she did NOT eat 3 meals a day....lol.
I didn't use organic food but that's up to you. Some swear by it.
As for introducing food I would keep doing a new food every 3 days and see how it goes. Remember to try foods even if YOU don't like them because maybe Pearl will. (I had this problem and it was hard to overcome it but I did.)
When I lived on a kibbutz in Israel we made our own baby food all the time. Whatever we were eating for dinner we threw in the food processor and fed to the babies. They loved it.
On another note, Lillianna and my niece Ann are 4 months apart.(Lil is older). When Lil was 8 months old and Ann was 4 months old we were together at a cookout. Ann ate one huge jar of chicken and broccoli baby food, 1 small jar of carrots, 1 small jar of applesauce and 1 large dessert jar of something. Lillianna ate 1/2 of a small jar of something and she was done.Everyone is different. A large jar of chicken and broccoli lasted for 4 meals for us where it was just part of Ann's meal.
Hope this helps.

[Rachel]

Hi there -- just stumbled across your blog and I'm enjoying reading about Pearl :).

I have two young boys (2 and 5) and another baby on the way (due in May). With my oldest, I intended to do the "proper" method of food introduction.... I dutifully bought some (expensive) organic baby food in cute little jars. I studied flaked baby cereal and chose the "best one." I even mixed the cereal with breast milk!

But did Seth buy any of this? Not a bit. He didn't want any food, especially that nasty mush stuff. He lacked interest of any kind in "solid food" until well past 7 months, at which point he began scarfing down cheese and Cheerios like that was no tomorrow. Seth prefered two kinds of food: things he could grab and feed himself, and things that were being eaten by mom and dad. I never did get him to eat any baby food or cereal.

Fortunately, because I was nursing, I could feel 100% confidant that he was getting all the nutrients and calories he needed, and if all he ate one day was curried salmon and Cheez-its, it was ok.

With my second, I didn't even bother to buy any baby food. Like his older brother, he ate of my plate until he was eating more of my food that I was -- and then he got his own plate.

My honest-to-god opinion is that baby food is a huge marketing scam. Stage 1,2,3, etc. -- they even make the equivalent of "toddler kibble" now! Like dog food for children. I think it's ludicrous! What is so odd about babies that they need specially-processed food that is different from what their parents are eating? (Ok, rant done.)

The allergies thing does have *some* merit, but I do think it's a tad overblown. For kids with a family history of allergies, it probably makes sense to be careful... but for most kids, I think the "scheduled introduction" is more than is really necessary.

#1 -- Neither, we just mash up whatever is on our plates and give the kid some. (This makes "3 meals a day" much less of a strain.)

#2 -- If I happen to be eating organic foods, so do the kids.

#3 -- I would encourage you to feed your daughter mashed-up whatever-you're-eating. My personal theory is that this is the best way to ensure that your kids will eat your cooking later on :).

I'm not sure why your pediatrician is so adament about three meals a day.... Pearl is still quite young, and many bf babies don't really take to food until they are closer to a year old. If it's a pain to get food out, I wouldn't worry about it if I were you. If she's hungry and interested in food, you'll know. With both kids I didn't do much "spooning it in"--I just waited until they were interested enough to feed themselves.

Rachel

ps. I'll add my own "yup dogs are great!" to the chorus! Don't know what I would do without my living mop. :) If only I could get some other animal that consumes dog fur....