I used to have quite a large stash of frozen milk, but we seem to have eaten into it until there’s just one more left. Remy doesn’t feed longer or more frequently than before, but I think he’s getting more efficient at the whole thing. Unless I’m making less milk, which I highly doubt for reasons I don’t deem necessary to go into here.
I suppose that as Remy grows in size, he would need more calories. Perhaps we should make a more concerted effort with the addition of solid foods, instead of a tiny bit here and there. I gave him a bit of banana smooshed up with some water to make it more liquidy (which he finds more palatable than thick foods). At the risk of being gross, his errrr elimination schedule was off the following day, so I hesitate to do banana again right now. It wasn’t the volume of food, because I’ve read the guidelines are no more than a couple tablespoons worth, and it was nowhere near that much. Maybe the banana wasn’t quite ripe enough. The skin was yellow but not spotted yet.
He does like squash. Rather, he likes the squash soup that Gary makes, but it’s got broth and seasonings in it, so hardly the simple foods we should be starting him with. No negative reactions to the soup though. Just with the banana.
He loves that little green baby spoon we bought him. He’ll open up his mouth when I put whatever food item we’re doing that night on the spoon, but insists of taking control ASAP. Don’t you even think you can get that spoon back out of his tight-fisted baby grasp without a distractionary technique of some kind either. He does a fairly good job of getting the business end of the spoon into his mouth, although his angle of attack is highly variable. On a related note, he hasn’t quite figured out the connection between sticking things in all the way to the back of his throat and the gag reflex. I’m all “Remy don’t put…. <baby gagging noise>..yeah…THAT.” Someday he’ll figure it out. I probably shouldn’t laugh when he does that.
Back to the milk, though. I’ve also noticed that he’s been spitting up a lot less lately. I don’t know that my diet has changed really, so it seems that his digestive system has improved. Which is further evidence that it’s time to get more serious about supplementing his breast feeding diet with other healthy, filling stuff. We’ll get right on that.
I’m so impressed he’s figured out the spoon. Zach likes to hold the spoon but he just prefers to fling it around. We’ve only tried rice cereal and applesauce so far. He doesn’t eat much of it, I’m just trying to get him used to the concept of eating. He has taken to sticking his fingers in his mouth between each spoonful and then leaning over in his bumbo and rubbing his fingers all over the table. It’s a pretty messy situation. And I don’t remember where I read it, maybe in the pumping room at work in a parenting magazine, but that bananas tend to bind babies up and are more of a stage 2 food. Seems like that may be the case with Remy.
Note: Every time my boys have gotten loose stools pediatrician says to give bananas..so you’re on to something there with it affecting his BMs.
Just like Remy, Elena insisted on grabbing the spoon. It drove me nuts. We quickly went to finger foods and I think she was much happier about feeding herself. Also, whenever Elena was having an off elimination day we just gave her pureed prunes and this helped, a lot!
Referred to the Natural Baby and Childcare book by Lauren Feder, M.D. and it said to start with smooshed fruits and veggies. We did pear last night. Went fine. No negative consequences that I’ve seen although he did spit up a little more this morning than he has been. Could be coincidence. Thinking of making some bigger batches by cooking the fruit/veggie item in an iron skillet then blending. Iron skillet would leach trace amounts of iron into the food, which is a good thing.
You may be on to this already, at this stage in my children’s lives, I gave them a spoon to hold for food amusement purposes, and I used another for food delivery purposes – the best of both worlds.
Regards,
Michelle
As of last night, he figured out that when I take the spoon away, it comes back with more yummy pear, which is a desirable outcome. So now he just drops the spoon on his lap when he’s ready for more. Now to figure out how to teach him to hand back the spoon instead of just dropping it…
I know, good luck with that!