I thought it was about time that I posted an update on how Evan’s eating’s been going. It has definitely been a difficult road. It is starting to get better though. When I posted last time we were unsuccessfully trying to get Evan to eat a few purees. We failed miserably.
After doing a lot of reading, I decided to skip purees and do baby-led weaning. Basically, the philosophy is that instead of pureeing food, you just give babies the same food you are eating. You put a few options in front of them and they pick up things, put it in their mouth, spit it out, gag a bit, and hopefully swallow it eventually. It was a bit nerve-wracking at the beginning because I was really afraid he’d choke. He’d put a bunch of stuff in his mouth and start gagging, but he never choked (as of yet). This wasn’t a 100% turn-around though. It’s not that Evan started chomping down and eating like a pro.
Not at all.
He played more often than ate and spit out way more than he actually swallowed.
Evan eating (aka playing) with his dinner of tomato and broccoli.
If he swallowed anything at all. The books and internet all said that baby-led weaning babies tend not to really eat much until about 8 months and before then they are just learning about food and practicing chewing (but not swallowing). Since he consistently refused purees, I was thrilled that he actually put food in his mouth from his tray or my plate, even if he wasn’t swallowing it. Food close to his mouth = progress.
For the most part, he wasn’t eating too much but I cleared it with the pediatrician and she said that babies don’t need too much nutrition-wise, aside from breast milk, until they are 1 year old. So we persevered and kept putting food on his tray and hoping he’d one day start shoving food into his mouth.
Chomping on some chicken.
To tell you the truth, it is HARD feeding him. I didn’t realize that I ate so erratically. During the week I eat breakfast at work because I leave the house at 6:10am and there is no time for breakfast in the morning. Even when I work from home on Wednesday, Ivan still takes Evan to my sister’s at 6:15am, so there is no breakfast time. Evan’s lunch is always done at my sister’s house (except Friday), so dinner is pretty much the only meal time I have with him. And I used to eat dinner after Evan went to bed, but now that he’s suppose to be eating solids, I try to eat with him before bed. This is hard. I get home at 6:30pm and I usually like to play with him for a while, walk the dog maybe, and give him a bath between 7pm and 7:30pm. Well, cooking dinner can take up to an hour. So, I try to find quick things that we can enjoy together or we munch on left-overs. But then I also need to try and find something for him to eat for lunch.
Eating asparagus and strawberries.
These are some of the things I’ve given him:
- Broccoli (roasted if I’m organized or just frozen – thawed of course)
- Asparagus (he loved this for a while)
- Tomatoes
- Romaine lettuce
- Pasta with olive oil (an easy kind to grab, like penne)
- Rice and beans (his new favorite)
- Fruit (oranges, bananas, strawberries)
- Soup (I’ve tried tomato and lentil)
- Bread (his absolute favorite thing – French baguettes, tortillas, bagels)
- Couscous
- Sweet potatoes (roasted)
- Chicken tamales
- Pancakes
- Scrambled eggs
- Salmon
- Picadillo (Cuban ground beef dish)
I’m sure I’ve given him other things, but I can’t think of anything else right now. He’s also eaten some “processed” foods like Ella’s Yum Yummy bars (loves these), Happy Puffs, Little Duck Tiny Fruits, and Happy Yogis Yogurt Drops. He likes all of those but has a hard time picking up the dried fruits. The hardest thing is trying to make sure he doesn’t get a lot of salt – the pediatrician said too much salt in babies can harm their kidneys. Well, food has a lot of salt in it (soups, bread, tamales) and even though I’m not a big salt person (I never add salt to food), a lot of the food I eat does have salt in it…and sometimes a significant amount. So, although I feel like I eat fairly healthy, it’s not quite healthy enough for Evan.
Eating some salmon.
That’s pretty much the food update. Now that he is 8 months old he is starting to eat more and more and that makes me a bit relieved. The other night he shoved some rice and beans in his mouth and actually swallows the tortillas. This morning he ate a bunch of tortilla and eggs. I’m hoping that now that he’s gotten a bit more used to moving food around his mouth, he’ll start eating a bit more. Baby-led weaning has really worked for us and I’m glad we went that route. Although it would have been a lot easier to puree a bunch of foods and be done, it’s been a lot more fun seeing him eat “adult” foods. And supposedly baby-led weaning babies turn into less picky eaters – so we’ll see about that!
Someone in the house LOVES the fact that Evan is starting to eat…
Dolce cleaning the high chair and making sure no food goes to waste!
If you have kids, what foods did you feed them when they were little?
Do you eat a lot of salt?
Do you feed your dog “human” food?
Dolce doesn’t usually get any human food, but I do let him clean up some of Evan’s food, if it’s healthy…like broccoli, eggs, tomatoes, oranges, etc. No grapes, onions, or garlic though – all poison for doggies!
