Tiny bites

Sunday night my father in law was in town. Dinner was a little nerve racking because my husband was at work. I still like to have him when we do dinners with the baby.
Dinner was steak with a steamer bag f potatoes with butter and I sautéed up a bell pepper and garlic.
For baby, I decided to offer the last 1/2 of a cucumber we bought for him and left over sweet potato since the steamer bag had a bit high amount f sodium. I also offered the pepper.
I started by giving him the potato. I had warmed it up and then let it cool. It was warm, but not hot. Big mistake! Simon has never had warm food before. So, his eyes teared up and he spit it out. Then he spit up a bunch of milk. Whoops! As my husband said he will have to learn, but I will have to think of a nicer way to introduce it. I guess it fooled him because it was preloaded onto a spoon. Next time he needs to pick it up.
Then I have him cucumber which he loves! I took the top half of skin off and cut the length to make it good sized to be held in a fist. He sucked and gnawed and ate a chunk without gagging!
But...how do I ensure he doesn't gnaw off a piece too big to swallow? That is the answer I am trying to find right now.
After the chunk of cucumber and some licks of potato he was done eating! He got maybe a tablespoon of food.
We also gave him his new tommy tippee sippee cup. He has frustrated with an open glass because he had to have help with it (obviously) and he likes getting sips of water. I don't think he realized what was in the sippee until he accidentally got a drop of water. Pretty hilarious reaction to that!

Sweet potato and zucchini

Sweet potato is probably the biggest hit so far. I nuked it in the microwave and mashed it up with a fork. Simon and I shared one and there was still some left to freeze. I think it was sweet potato anyway, it was yellow and very sweet. His method was to rub his hands into the pile of potato and then lick his fingers and thumb. The thumb seems to be the most effective food transporter right now.
I also cut a zucchini into wedges with a crinkle cutter and he chowed down on that. I was iffy as to whether or not I should leave the skin on. I did, but was nervous about it. Next time I will skin the top portion and leave some on the bottom to help him grip it. I steamed the zucchini in the microwave for about 45 sec. Enough to soften it, but not make it mushy. He got a piece of by gumming it and gagged. That is the scariest thing. We took off the high chair tray just in case he was choking and went to pick him up. By then he had swallowed the little chunk.

At his 6 month visit today, the doc briefly brought up food. He asked if we were giving him meals twice per day. We aren't yet. He isn't interested enough to justify it. We did decide we will add in breakfast next. I think that will be soon enough.

Cucumber!

The little one and I were out at a friends. She bought me a Subway sandwich loaded with veggies. I shared a cucumber with Simon to see how that went over. He loved it! It was a thin round slice, not ideal for a newbie eater. I was nervous, so I just let him suck on it while I held it. (I am working on trusting him, it will come as we practice more). Now the plan is to buy a whole cucumber so I can cut it into wedges for him to go to town.
Got home too late for dinner for me. I had some extra breast milk expressed, so I gave him about 2 Tbsp of baby rice mixed with BM on a preloaded spoon. We are using the organic Earth's Best whole grain rice cereal. He took about 2 licks and then had a blast spreading the rest around his tray. Happy, messy baby.
I got my Gil Rapley baby led weaning cookbook, so now I need to plan our meals for the week.

Third Dinner

We ended up taking a small hiatus in the solids journey. Dinner #2 was a stressed baby. However, the next day 2 teeth popped through. So, we took a little break.
Between now and then little Sir has started sleeping through the night. He has always slept well, but instead of nursing multiple times he is out from 8/9-5/6. Another lesson in trusting the baby turned out perfect!
Dinner last night consisted of chicken, broccoli, and rice. We did offer him baby rice preloaded on a spoon instead of our rice. He sucked on the chicken and chewed little bits of it off. Then he ate about 2 spoonfuls of rice. I made it a bit too liquidy, but he seemed to like sucking it off the spoon. He tasted the broccoli and red pepper. He was really indifferent to everything still. I love that he wants a little taste of it all.

Carrots!

So last night we introduced carrots. Those suckers were hard to get a hold of! He also had access to some of his dishes. A lick here and there-- ooh what's that?! He knew right away the carrot was something more than a toy.
Almost right away he gagged which freaked us out a ton. But after that, everything went smooth. I mushed up some carrots, but he was only interested in the wedges. I tried to hand it to him once when he was struggling and he wanted to do it himself.
Oh what a mess! I did figure out that out high chair has both a smooth top and a compartmentalized top. The smooth top will be much easier to clean.

Still Waiting

So, for his 6 months, we decided to hold off.  We all had a busy day at the Oakland Eat Real Festival.
After all that, dinner was a rush and we didn't want to push what had already been an eventful day.

I am taking this time to do some more research for feeding Simon and reading about "readiness" skills for babies to have.

Recommended milestones before starting solids:
- 6 months of age (+)
- Sits upright (+)
- Can bring food to mouth (+)
- Acts interested in food (+) ...though to be honest, Simon is interested in everything and brings it all to his mouth.

Tomorrow, we are thinking carrots.? I need to do some research over which foods we should be careful of to get organic.

6 months!

Simon turns 6 months tomorrow! 
I am so excited to start some solids with him, but a little apprehensive because this does mean the (slowly, and not for a long time) beginning of weaning him from our special breastfeeding bond.

He wants to put everything in his mouth, so we have let him have tastes of plum, orange, and apple. I am amazed at how he instinctively knows how to suck the yummy juices out.He gets pretty mad when you take the food away too.

6 months exclusively at the breast.  I think he deserves some variety into his diet.  Let the weaning begin!