SOLIDS!!!

Olivia turned 6 months on Friday and we decided to start "solids" just a few days before.  Like most things, solids aren't done the same way these days as they once were.  Back in the day it was always "start with rice cereal, then do all the vegetables before doing fruit".  The thought process was that fruit is sweet and if you give sweet stuff first, then they won't eat the veggies.  That has sort of been proven wrong in the recent years.  Besides, breast milk is SUPER sweet, so that thinking doesn't even really make sense. Plus, I figure with formula that smells (and probably tastes) like dog food, all food has to taste better than that. Also, you no longer have to start with the cereals.  Since I am making my own baby food, I've been using a few different resources.  One website that I use is found here if you are interested.

Going off the advice of that website and my pediatrician, we started with avocado.  

(Apparently this is shocking to some most people!? :) )

I'm not sure how much she actually ate.  She was trying to figure out what to do with it.  She kept gagging too.  I don't think it was because she didn't like the taste.  It might have been a texture thing.  The next night I added more water to the smashed avocado to make it even thinner.  She still gagged. She got into it a little more, but was still trying to figure out what this whole thing was all about.  We also broke out the high chair.

 (As you can see, we played a little before eating.)

By the third day she was all about the solids.  She was opening her mouth for the spoon, leaning her head forward, and looking for more.  She also was done with the gagging.  I guess she got use to swallowing.  She might have eaten a little more than she needed to that night.  She ended up puking some of it out later. :(

So far we've been doing it at night.  Since she's still learning what it's all about (and pretty much has a constant fountain of drool coming out of her mouth), it's sort of messy.  We go right from there to the bath.  We aren't being super strict about it.  Babies main source of nutrition is suppose to come from formula/breast milk the first year.  Solids are "just for fun" at this point.  There have been two nights where we weren't home, so we skipped solids those days.  If she was underweight or a preemie then I may be more anal about it.  At this point I'm just going with the flow.  We went from avocados to sweet potatoes.  She seems to like them.  I'm still trying to decide what we are going to do next.  She has a few more days of sweet potato (following the 4 times rule).  I'm thinking peas...or maybe bananas.

Here is the video of her trying the avocados for the first time.