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But he loves it! He'll eat a whole (little) bowl full if you give it to him! But we don't, because he wouldn't eat anything else after that, and solids (or the mushyfied version of them) shouldn't be the main part of a babies meal until they are close to 1 year old. There's a little bit of edumacation for those of you who don't have kids.
Soooooo, after about 3 weeks of feeding him only cereal, I broke out my blender and started making big batches of baby food! It's so much fun, I love it! So far I've cooked and pureed* (and he's tried) green beans, carrots, bananas, apples, and sweet potatoes. He loves his carrots and sweet potatoes. Green beans not so much, but we're going to keep trying them and eventually I'm hoping that he'll like them just as much as his mommy does! He's likes his bananas and apples too, but I think that they apples might be too strong of a taste for him because he always makes a funny face when he eats them (and yes, they taste fine, I tried them, yum!). I love getting to feed him some real food, it's exciting, and fun! And I love letting him try new things and seeing what his reactions to them are!
Here he is after trying carrots for the first time (he got very carried away, and kept grabbing at the bowl, the spoon, his mouth, trying to get more of the carrots past his little lips!)
On top of the pureed food, we are trying a form of solid feeding called "Baby Led Weaning." This is where you give your baby larger chunks of solid food to let them chew on (or gum rather). This is supposed to teach them how to chew before swallowing, whereas normal spoon feeding the mush teaches a baby how to swallow and then learn how to chew later. It's confusing. Anyways, BLW is a lot of fun, and Blake is a huge fan. He likes to put whatever is in his hands (or near them that he can grab fast) in his mouth to knaw on, so BLW is working for us! He's tried banana chunks and french fries to far, but it's so much easier than spoon feeding (and surprisingly less messy) so once he's a little bit better at getting the food into his mouth, we might just graduate to all BLW (even though I do enjoy mixing up all those purees to feed him!).
I've been going to this website for all of my baby food recipes and questions:
It has a wealth of information on there about what foods to feed at what age, which nutrients are in which fruits and veggies, what you shouldn't give your child until a certain age, what high allergy foods you should avoid at young ages, ect... It's amazing how much information on a certain topic you can find on one site! I love how I can go on there, and normally find an article on whatever my question about baby food is within minutes! It's very organized (which my OCD little self needs), and it's got pretty much everything there, even the BLW strategies!
I also love this site:
It's all about purely BLW. There are a bunch of adorable pictures of babies (even as young as Blake!) stuffing their faces with all sorts of real foods! We first started BLw because Blake now reaches for whatever I happen to be eating, whether it's a spoonful of cereal, a chicken nugget, or a cheesburger, he thinks he HAS to have it! So one night I got sick of fighting my french friends away from him and caved. I figured that they are just potatoes, so it can't really hurt him. So far, I haven't given him anything that I wouldn't give him in a puree, just to be safe. I'm still learning about this whole BLW thing, so I want to take my time and experiment a little bit with it. However, I think it will be nice, especially as he gets older, to transition fully to BLW. The main reason being that I can just make food for Pat and I, and just portion out a little bit especially for Blake. That will be such a timesaver! I've excited to keep trying it!
So there's my little low down on feeding babies real food (just in case you really wanted to know all that random stuff). It's totally fun, but at the same time it's just another reminder that my little wittle baby is growing up =[ Did you know that in about 3 weeks he's going to be a whole half of a year old?! Time is passing too fast! I try to take advantage of being able to pick him up when I want to, put him down and be sure that the most he'll move is just to roll onto his belly. I'm enjoying being able to cuddle him to death, and knowing that he's loving it instead of pushing me away going "oh moooommmmm." Even when he's driving me nuts and is so stuck up my butt that I can't get anything else done because he wants to be held the whole day, I try to remember that he's only going to be this little for so long (and it's not going to be much longer =[ ) so I need to enjoy this whole time while he's my little baby, because before I know it, he's going to be grown, graduated, and off raising a family of his own. Sniff.. Ok, there's my sentimental moment for the day, so with that thought, I'm going to say goodbye. Goodbye ;)
glossary: mashed so much that you can't really tell what it is, and there aren't any chunks in it that your baby can choke on
