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Friday, April 17, 2015

What I can't wait for.

I am so unnaturally excited to start my baby on solid food.

My family and friends are sick of hearing me talk about it. I just really, really can't wait.

My baby is just barely four months old now and I've already bought spoons, bowls, and rice cereal. The second my doctor okays her to start solid food, I'm going to come home and start the Great Solid Food Crusade.

(If my doctor tells me to wait until she's six months old, I think I'm going to cry.)

I'm not sure why I'm so enthusiastic about this. We've already established that I don't really care for breastfeeding, so I guess I see it as one more step toward weaning.

("Wean" is a weird, gross word and it gives me the willies. Does anyone else feel that way? It's kind of like those people who hate the word "moist." Except those people are weirdos.)

(I'm not a weirdo.)

(In case you were wondering.)

But I mean, it's not like I don't live in reality. I know that it will be a few months before solid food actually replaces any breast milk, and I still have eight months before I'm planning on even thinking about stopping breastfeeding altogether. (245 days...only 245 days...)

Yet still I go around shouting hallelujahs in everyone's faces because The Day Approacheth.

I think it comes down to another fact that we've already established, that I don't have enough to obsess over. I want something new to add to my day. Clearly, it is not enough for me that my daughter is 100% sleep-trained, that she finally tolerates tummy time, and that my life is practically crying-free. (In other words, it's not enough for me that I'm the luckiest mother that exists.) I need a new challenge. I need to start pureeing my own baby food and trying to coax carrots into my baby's mouth. I just need to, gosh-darn-it. 

It's possible that staying home with an infant all day can make a person crazy. But what else is new?

3 comments:

  1. Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor. This might be bad advice. If you don't follow my suggestions, I will not be offended in the least.

    I gave Summer solid food when she was barely 5 months old. I felt guilty about it, because I thought I was supposed to wait until she was at least 6 months, and she seemed to have chronic digestive issues as it was. But it was Christmas and Mom and Dad gave her baby food and they were going to be leaving and I wanted them to get to feed Summer the food they bought! So Mom fed Summer her baby food. (I guess I should correct my earlier statement. MOM gave Summer solid food at 5 months, not me!) Summer gobbled the food right up, and we got some cute pictures. Then I waited until 6 months to give more solid food.

    It was really fun to start solids (and kind of funny that we call that liquidy mush "solid food")! But after a few days, it wasn't all that fun anymore. I don't remember exactly how long it took for the excitement to wear off, but it makes sense. Once it's not new anymore, it's just another kind of boring and messy baby-care job. (At least it smells better than changing diapers - but it will make the diapers smell worse!) Summer quickly tired of baby food, which I think helped me lose my enthusiasm. Once she was allowed to eat actual solid food, like Cheerios, she started refusing purees. It was kind of fun planning what new food I'd introduce next, but if you follow the recommended pace for food introductions, you'll spend 99% of your time planning and only about 1% actually introducing!

    So my suggestion is to go ahead and start your baby on solid food! At 4 months, if you want to! (Maybe run this by the doctor first.) I say, have the fun of the initial introduction now if you're eager. If your baby seems to handle it with no problems, keep giving her occasional baby food (not every day). Then you can do the slow introduction of new foods, one a week or whatever your doctor recommends, without getting bored silly giving the same few things you've already introduced over and over. By the time your daughter can start eating solid food more often, she'll have been exposed to plenty of food, and you probably won't be tired of the whole thing yet. Maybe with the increased variety you'll never get very tired of it.

    I'm sure there are good reasons why we're supposed to wait to start babies on solid food. But it seems really unlikely that it would cause any long-term problems. And if your baby turns out not to be ready, you can wait a couple of weeks and try again.

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    1. I was too impatient and I tried solids yesterday. :P She loved it! She was totally ready. I'll talk to the doctor, too, but I don't think she has any trouble. I'm sure the novelty will wear off soon enough, but I think feeding her with a spoon is more fun than giving her a bottle in general because I can actually interact with her. It's going to be tough to take it slow!

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  2. I would make big batches of purees and freeze them. That's something you can do now and then pull them out gradually.

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