Lucy is going to start solids in about a month, and that means two things: 1) Mama’s getting out the blender to puree some sweet potatoes, and 2) Lucy’s poops are going to get more human.
Jon has been looking forward to this day since we received Lucy’s high chair back in February as a gift (thanks Grandma and Grandpa!). And in those first few (painful) weeks of learning to nurse, feeding Lucy solids seemed like a far-off oasis. I began reading “_Super Baby Food_”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0965260313/octothorppres-20 with great anticipation, imagining spooning up soupy avocado for my robust six-month-old. And now, the day is nearly upon us when I will try my hand at whipping up some Super Porridge and scooping it into our baby’s mouth. (Has anyone actually tried making Super Porridge?)
p{color:gray}. Photo: Here’s Lucy wearing one of “Ann’s handmade strawberry hats”:http://knittingcircle.org/hats.php. Soon we imagine she’ll be wearing her food more literally!
One of the things I am most looking forward to is cooking for Lucy. I am quite a good cook, if I do say so myself. I think it will be great fun to figure out her likes and dislikes and invent pureed concoctions to suit her taste. (It will require some serious restraint on my part to not add garlic to her veggies, though. Who doesn’t like garlic in their spinach?) But I’m trying not to get my hopes up too high, as I know kids are notoriously picky eaters. Just look at Lucy — so far, she really only eats one thing!
I must say I’m going to miss those mild-smelling, breastfed-baby poops, but I think it will be worth it to see sweet potatoes smeared all over Lucy’s face. We think she looks good in orange already!
p{color:gray}. (Props to Keri M. for suggesting this topic.)
I made super porridge for Benjamin. It was really very easy to make. I opted to make it from whole grain oats. However, Benjamin was very resistant to eating anything off a spoon – even at 6 months of age, he wanted to do it himself. So, around 7 months we started feeding him chopped up things like bananas or avocado and he would feed himself. He’s been doing it ever since and never really ate any baby food at all. The nice thing about it was that there was never an issue transitioning from pureed food to more solid food and I never had to buy or make baby food.
He’s now attempting to master utensils which is really cute to watch – he’ll spear one piece of macaroni with the fork, work really hard to get it into his mouth and then put the fork down and grab a fistful to shove in his mouth – I guess the fork’s just too slow!
Well, I was all set to make the Super Porridge from millet when Abi started refusing anything off a spoon, around 8 or 9 months of age, so I never gave it a try. We also went quickly to soft finger foods, sometimes rolling the chunks in dry cereal flakes for the iron and the texture. Abi really has been a good eater from the start, at least trying anything we put in front of her. She’s a great cook companion too, sampling most ingredients as I prepare dinner. For a while her favorite snack was garbanzos straight from the can! Her little sister is harder to read, probably because we’ve only started solids a few weeks ago. But I have learned that when Josi starts doing the raspberries with a mouth full of food, the meal is over! It’s fun to share the joy of food with our children. It’s also a good forum for talking about manners, thankfulness, and the general happenings of the day. We like mealtimes alot at our house!
Well my nine month old (next week on the 3rd) would rather nurse than eat “people food”. We did super baby food for about one week and it went to pots. So now I offer food when we eat and if she takes it, that is great, otherwise it is just nursing…I think she will still be nursing when she is 40. Lucky for us I have VERY fatty milk that seems to keep up with her demands. Unlucky for us, she demands during the night. ARG. And Unlucky for her she has rolls. :-) Off mom on Maddy.
About the poop…Brian barp yesterday during a diapering…it seems the black beans and rice made a very stinky diaper that he couldn’t handle!!! Rather funny.
Naomi has had a regular amount of rice cereal since 6 months but she really wants to eat by herself. Unfortunately her pincer grasp is not as accomplished yet so she is not getting much food in the month when I offer finger foods.
Thanks to all of you here,I have read portions of the Super Baby Food book. I feel I am a bit limited with Naomi, however, i have several family members with food related allergies so we have decided to hold off on dairy and wheat until one. She is now 8 months old and when I tried egg yolks within two hours her nose was running. She is so independent and wont take much from a spoon….yet all the finger foods the book reccommends she cant “eat” really well yet and the others are ones that we are waiting on …I do wonder if any food is being digested. I have to keep telling my self that her primary source of nutrition is breastmilk until one….i did finally find some rice crackers which give Naomi food and independence.
And to close with a funny little story….At about 6 months of age we begin to teach ou kids some basic American sign language….beginning with the sign for complete or finished…We use this when our baby begins to show signs of being done with a meal. Of course the sign is always accompanied with an all done! said in a sing song voice. Well Naomi is beginnig to play hand games like so big and waving goodbye….these motions are very close to the sign for complete (for an 8 month old). Naomi will now sit in her high chair and raise her hands high in the air ….of course her brothers will begin the game ” how big is Naomi?” SOO BIGGG….said in a sing song voice. I have had to translate for the poor girl….who is trying deparately to tell us that she has had enough rice puffs and wants to get out. Well I guess it is all part of the communication nuances she will have to learn.
I found with Benjamin who really wanted to self feed that if I made the effort to chop it up so he could feed himself, when he was having a hard time picking it up and getting it in his mouth, he would let me help him until he perfected the pincer grasp.
Well, I gotta say I never made Super Porridge. My specialty was slurpee stew–basically, I made stew, then pureed it to the point where you can slurp it up. Granted, this was more advanced baby food, but Daniel slurped it up, veggies and all!
Sigh. I miss those days. Now he won’t even touch carrots, or potatoes, or even corn, his favorite last year. Or if he does touch it, it has to have a lot of ketchup. :-(
When Alex and Joseph went through the PICKY stage, I made homemade pizza once a week…..I put a lot of veggies in my sauce and covered anything else with cheese. The boys still like homemade pizza with lots of veggies. They laugh now at how sneaky I was.
Didn’t George Bush SR declare ketchup a vegetable…that way it could be served for school lunches and count as one of the five a day. Hmmmm.
It was Reagan, actually — or maybe not even him: read the whole story at “The Straight Dope”:http://www.straightdope.com/columns/040716.html.
I was too lazy to make the super porridge, I admit. And I like the cereal-in-a-box because it’s iron fortified, where the super porridge isn’t and you have to give them an iron supplement. I do give Ben yogurt every day.
One tip — don’t make a ton of one thing until you have confirmed that Lucy likes it. Ben HATES squash. I pureed 1/2 of a butternut squash and it smelled so good and I was so proud of myself and when I fed it to him he made these awful gagging noises and refused it. So I have a big bag of squash sitting in the freezer…
You could probably make some yummy soup out of that pureed butternut squash! Mmm, maybe I’ll make some too…
Hey Nicole W. – could you post your pizza sauce recipe? I make homemade pizza semi-regularly and would love a good sauce recipe.
Thanks!
One hint I learned – always try your kid’s food before you give it to him. We gave squash to Gabe one time (this is NOT what happened with your squash I am certain!) and he nearly threw right up. He is NOT finicky… so what was the deal? I tried it and it tasted like I had a big spoonful of pesticide… still not sure what that was all about… but I never gave him anything I didn’t try for myself first again!
I really thought I would make Gabe’s food – healthier, more economical, just all around Donna Reed-like… but after a week of not getting the texture right we went to the boxes and jars. He only did that for 3 months and then he was on to more genuinely solid table food… the best laid plans of this mouse certainly do go awry! hahaha
Thanks Jon for keeping me to the facts. Glad to have read what really happened.
As for the pizza sauce recipe….it was birthed out of deparation and the pizzas themselves are definately not Edwardos!! We had a housegroup that met at our house every Thursday and I wanted to make something that the boys would pretty much eat without much fuss. It also always made our apartment smell homey.
For my sauce I used a jar of pasta sauce to start. I like many of the Classico sauces…but use your favorite. I think half a jar is about right….I then added tomato paste to thicken things up a bit. The sky was the limit on the veggies….sometimes I would use broccoli chopped really small, or spinach, grated carrots…..I just wanted to hide as many good things in there as possible. I often used cheddar cheese on top of my pizzas. Now I add fresh basil, garlic or other fresh spices. I guess it is however you feel….but the ready made pasta sauce is a nice way to begin.
I too had Donna Reed moments when preparing food for our kids…but after picking smashed food off the floor after every meal, I began to wish I had a large industrial drain with a shower like thing that came down from the ceiling to hose down both child and floor.