Baby Eating part 2: what to feed the kiddo

If you missed part 1, when to start solids, go check it out.

Eagle enjoying a peach in his baby-safe feeder

The advice is varied on what (and how) babies should eat for their first solid foods.

Some people insist that sweet things (like fruits) should not be first, otherwise the baby will develop a sweet tooth and refuse non-sweet foods. This is silliness. Have you ever tasted breastmilk? It's a lot sweeter than cow's milk. It's a lot sweeter than applesauce. Trust me, it doesn't matter what food you give your baby first, anything shy of actual candy is probably going to be less sweet than the breastmilk. And fruits are soft and juicy and make excellent early foods.

Another common idea is that babies need to begin their exploration with bland foods because they cannot tolerate intense flavors or spices. Um, maybe somebody should tell the Thai mommies? Or the Cuban mommies? Because last I heard they are feeding their babies the same foods that they eat, and I'm pretty sure it's not bland. I'm also pretty sure that none of the little Thai or Cuban babies have suffered from simply eating the foods that their family normally eats. After all, they're going to eat it later, why wouldn't they just eat it now?

The third myth is that babies need to start out with pureed foods. Many people buy these foods, many more make their own... Personally, I don't bother with the expense and trouble. I currently get some free baby food via WIC, so I am using it a bit this time because it is easy, but it is not at all necessary, (I didn't get it with Bear) and I don't bother hauling it with me when I'm away from home.

Finally, they say to only introduce one food at a time. In my understanding this mostly has to do with allergies--if you just introduce one thing at a time then it's easier to identify an allergic reaction. I think this definitely applies to potential allergens, but otherwise I don't stress over this too much.

Some foods, such as common allergens, should definitely be avoided in the early months. Advise varies on how long to avoid these foods--usually they say wait until the baby is a year old. It is my understanding though that the earlier a child is exposed to an allergen, the more likely he is to develop a severe reaction to it. Just as many people outgrow allergies, many allergic reactions are milder in older children than they are in infants. Therefore, particularly if anyone else in the family has food allergies, it is advisable to avoid these things for longer. The foods to avoid are honey (because of botulism) and the top 8 allergens of peanuts, tree nuts, soy, eggs, wheat, shellfish, fish, and cow's milk in all forms. You should also avoid any specific foods that family members are allergic to.

So what DO I feed my babies? Well, after waiting for their readiness signs (rather than for a calendar date), I just feed them off my plate--occasionally with a baby spoon, but usually just with my finger or my spoon/fork. Some foods are very easy to feed--applesauce, grains of rice, mashed up banana or avocado. Some babies dislike the texture of potato but mine seem to like it fine.
When feeding "big people food" rather than pureed baby foods, it is important to be aware of choking hazards of course, and for that I often utilize a baby safe feeder (as in the photo above). For non-mooshy non-juicy foods, I break them into tiny pieces--I figure my food is not pureed when I swallow it, it is just chewed into very small pieces...so I give my baby "post-chewing" sized pieces of beans, breads, and meats.
And yes, I feed my babies things like meat, and I often don't feed them things like carrots or corn... I make these decisions based on two things: 1--how long does it take before baby seems hungry again? If he's starving within an hour, then I think he needs some 'heavier' foods to keep him filled for a little longer (by 6 months old a child should be good for several hours before needing another meal). 2--look in the diapers and notice which things are going through undigested. If the chunks of carrot or bean look the same coming out as they did when they went in, then obviously he's not getting any benefit from ingesting them. For the record, the meat has never come through that way.

Baby-Led Eating part 1: when to start solids

The standard advice I've heard is that babies can start eating solid foods (or, anything aside from breastmilk) at around 4-6 months.
In my experience, babies all learn to crawl on their own schedule. They all get teeth on their own schedule. They all start talking on their own schedule. Therefore, I think it's more than a little silly to presume that they are all ready to start eating solid foods at the same time.
So I throw any and all age recommendations out the window, and watch for readiness signs instead. What do I watch for?

• Grabbing at other people's food--seriously, why would you force a baby to eat food if he wasn't interested in it yet? (Watching other people eat--as in watching the fork go back and forth from plate to mouth and back--is a prequel to grabbing, and certainly shows interest, but I wait for the actual grabbing)
• Eruption of teeth (or obvious signs that teeth are very close to coming in)
• Sitting up independently (or fairly independently--the ability to support his own weight and balance himself is the point, so that he doesn't collapse on himself and choke)
• Picking things up and putting them in his own mouth (it doesn't have to be the "pincer grasp" per se, just the eye-hand-coordination of picking something up and getting it where he wants it)
  

If a baby is doing these things, then he's physically ready to eat solid foods. Bear first grabbed something from my hand at 5 1/2 months, but then after a couple of (summertime) months of nibbling on fruits, he went back to almost exclusively breastfeeding until he was 8 or 9 months. Even then, he typically consumed just a few bites a day of solids until after his first birthday. He loved nursing, and wasn't fond of solids. I frequently finger-fed him, but almost never spoon-fed him because by the time he was interested in foods he was old enough that he fed himself quite efficiently. Eagle, on the other hand, was showing all the signs (even the eye-hand coordination) before 5 months, so I started giving him little nibbles, and by the time he reached the 6 month mark he was eating lots of food. By 7 months he is snarfing down several ounces of baby food at a sitting. He only has two teeth and so I am relying on a lot of the mashed foods--meaning that I'm spoon-feeding as well as finger-feeding him. I'm just following his lead (if I stop spooning the food in--to get a bite of my own for example--he will grab the bowl if he can reach it and pull it to his face and start gnawing on it!) he really loves his solids.

Eagle, with remnants of dinner on his face...mmmmm

I stand by my feeling that "food is for fun until they are one," meaning that they can eat as little (or as much) solid food as they want, but this is an age for exploration of solids, rather than seeking full nourishment from them. I will continue to breastfeed on demand and rely on that as the primary source of nutrition.


Stay tuned for part 2, what to feed the kiddo!

Breastfeeding among Great Apes

Mother chimpanzee with baby
Originally uploaded by Frenzy McKenzie

I just read a fascinating post about great apes and when they wean.

Of course there is variation between the species, but they all nurse until at least 3 years, and some routinely nurse until 5 or 6 or even 7. Their biological development is similar to ours (how and how long it takes the brain to develop for example), so then logically humans' "natural" weaning time is probably in a similar time frame.
I'm not saying that we all need to nurse our kids until they start kindergarten, but I do think the oft-preached practice of weaning at 12 months does a great disservice to the average child (and mother). My plan was always for 2 years. I nursed Bear several months longer than that because he wanted it, but weaned him at about 2 1/2. At 12 months old he was actually still consuming more breastmilk than solid foods--it would have been hard on both of us to make him give up his primary source of nutrition. Besides which, the older a child is when he is introduced to a new food, the less likely it is that he will have an allergic reaction to it.
Eagle I will nurse until we reach some mutually agreeable age--it will probably be around 2 as well. There is a huge difference in the maturity of a child between age 1 and age 2, both physically and emotionally. So that is why I continue to believe in extended breastfeeding.

Consider This...

Here are a few quotes I collected from this site. (I recommend the site for anyone not convinced on the circumcision issue--although I say this with the disclaimer that it has actual photos...) I believe these quotes can apply to a lot more than routine infant circumcision though...the cesarian epidemic, early weaning, separating babies from their parents, CIO (crying it out)...the list goes on and on.


"Tradition will accustom people to any atrocity." --George Bernard Shaw

"Habit and routine have an unbelievable power to waste and destroy." --Henri de Lubac

"As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities." --Voltaire

"Often the less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it." --Mark Twain

"What's done to children they will do to society." --Karl Menniger

"The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children." --Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect." --Mark Twain

"Whenever a doctor cannot do good, he must be kept from doing harm." --Hippocrates

"We shall have to learn to refrain from doing things merely because we know how to do them." --Theodore Fox, Spech to Royal Physicians

"Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom." --Bertrand Russell

"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies." --Friedrich Nietzsche

"What history teaches us is that men have never learned anything from it." --Georg Wilhelm Hegel

"It is never too late to give up your prejudices." --Henry David Thoreau

"All truth goes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Then it is violently opposed. Finally, it is accepted as self-evident." --Arthur Schoepenhauer

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." --Margaret Mead

"Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day." --Thomas Jefferson

"Each time a person stands up for an idea, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance." --Robert F. Kennedy

"[A] long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason." --Thomas Paine, Common Sense

"Whoever has overthrown an existing law of custom has always first been accounted a bad man: but when, as did happen, the law could not afterwards be reinstated and this fact was accepted, the predicate gradually changed; - history treats almost exclusively of these bad men who subsequently became good men!" --Frederich Nietzsche

"It's not the facts which guide the conduct of men, but their opinions about the facts; which may be entirely wrong. We can only make them right by discussion." --Sir Norman Angell

Six Months Old

My baby is 6 months old today. It happens to be his cousin's birthday...it's a fun thing to share half birthdays (Hubby and I do!)
So, 6 months...he's old enough for solids now, right? Ah well, he's been nibbling on things for a couple of weeks. Today it was apricots, but in the last two weeks he's also tried banana, nectarine, apple, and watermelon. He liked them all--especially the nectarine, watermelon, and apricot which I put in a *baby safe feeder for him. He wasn't very excited about the whole spoon idea--he doesn't mind chewing on the spoon but doesn't want to eat off of it. But give him a BSF and he can hold it himself and suck out all the juice...and he's in heaven. I'll have to get a picture. Today he had apricot pulp out to his ears. (Oh, he's also tried plain cracked wheat and rice cereal...the rice cereal he feels is not truly food, and I have decided to agree with him and will probably not try it again...especially since it involves prepareing something separate for him. But the cracked wheat is something I eat, and he always wants whatever I'm eating, so he'll get more tries of that!)

*The baby safe feeder was invented by a father whose baby nearly choked to death on a teething biscuit. It has a little plastic handle which the baby can hold, and a mesh baggie into which I can put fruit or veggies. The baby can suck the juice (and a lot of pulp) out of the food, but without danger of choking. It's also nice because not only do I not need to worry about choking, but I also don't have to worry about peeling or removing seeds...I'm so glad someone thought to invent this!

"Food is for fun...

...until they are one"

http://www.tribalbaby.org/babyLedEating.html

How nice to know that I'm not the only one who feels this way. :-)

Little Moocher

Bear loves food. He doesn't need it for nutrition, as he's still very breastfed (and will continue to get as much nutrition as he needs/wants from that source for at least another year). BUT, he has become obsessed with everything he sees me eat. Two months ago he started watching me eat, and a couple of weeks ago he started reaching for my food, knocking my plate around, and complaining mightily if I did not share. So, last week, I shared.
I was eating a nectarine, it was nice and juicy, so I let Bear suck on it for a moment. He was THRILLED. He grabbed my hand with both of his, held the nectarine to his face, latched on solidly, and sucked and sucked. He was not happy when I pulled it away so that I could have another bite.
The next day I was eating an apple, and shared with him in a similar fashion.
Almost a full week later, I got myself an apple and was about to bite in when S let out a horrible wail. He writhed and shrieked until I let him have a little suck...then he cooed in happiness...until I retrieved the apple for myself again, then the shrieking resumed until I gave back the apple. Have I created a monster?!
Being fully aware of his fascination with 'real' food, and since he is very nearly 6months old now, I decided to go ahead and try giving him a little rice cereal (made with fresh breastmilk). He spat it out and gave me a dirty look as if to say "what is this fake junk you're giving me?" He did enjoy chewing on the spoon though.
It has gotten me thinking: for millenia 'baby food' and 'baby cereal' was nonexistent. Who is to say that we need it now? We feel no need to wean the child by a certain date, so why not let food just be an experiment, an additional part of exploring his world? Of course I'll be conscientious of potential allergens (like peanuts, dairy, soy, and tomato), of botulism (honey), and choking hazards...but otherwise, why not let him eat what he wants to try?
This morning I mashed up a little banana with some breastmilk. He liked that much better than the rice cereal. He still liked the spoon best of all though. Go figure.