The looks on Naomi's face while trying solids for the first time were priceless! I decided to start with sweet potatoes before any kind of rice cereal or oatmeal, so I cooked my own organic sweet potato and mashed it up. She hated it, so I added more water to make it runnier...and she still hated it. You can tell from the pictures she was pretty traumatized, ha ha! I wanted to see if it was just the idea of solid food that she hated, so I scraped a banana with a spoon (a little Ukrainian baby-feeding technique ;) ) and gave her that, and she loooved it! Banana was a winner! Since then I've tried giving her rice and oat cereal, and she won't eat either. But...she loves any type of vegetable, and she's even been eating sweet potatoes with other things mixed in. There is not anything she hasn't eaten that I've given her, even though she makes these crazy faces when she first tries it. I love that. I don't mind so much that she won't eat the cereal because the veggies and fruit are so much better for her anyway. She's been waking up a lot at night the past couple weeks, however, so I'm trying to get more solids in her and see if that helps her stay asleep longer. Also, she hates water, but I bet she would feel better if I could get some in her, so I'm working on that too. I just bought an immersion blender so I can make homemade soups with chicken and buckwheat or barley in them and puree them up for her. That thing is amazing, and way better than mashing soup up with a potato masher, that's for sure.
From doing a little research online about feeding your baby, I've adopted the approach that babies should eat what you're eating, and there's no need to keep them on rice cereal and everything bland, bland, bland. Babies get all kinds of flavors in breast milk, which tastes different for them every time they have it. They are actually used to all kinds of flavors from the beginning (even spicy food), but then parents are so afraid their baby won't like this or that that they keep them on a bland diet of cereal, oatmeal, puffs, etc. Most cultures mash up what they're eating for dinner and feed the baby too--what a realistic approach! They're not afraid to feed their babies fish or meat or spicy food or brussel sprouts, and their babies do not go on to grow up on fries and chicken nuggets. It's been working for us so far, and I'm excited to let Naomi try more and more things as she gets older.
xoxo,
Tanya
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