Eating

In preparation for the inevitable day when Adelaida would expand her diet beyond breastmilk, we have made a special place at our table for Adelaida. For the past few weeks, while Dale and I ate our meals, Adelaida would sit in her BebePod chair, situated on our kitchen table, and watch us eat. I got out a few plastic-coated baby spoons and let her play with them, and she was very skilled at getting the spoon in her mouth -- sometimes the spoon bowl end and sometimes the handle end.

She seems equally happy using her left hand and her right hand and even chews and sucks on the spoon while it is in her mouth. Despite her apparent readiness to begin eating, I was hesitant to introduce Adelaida to solid foods, preferring instead to remain her only source of nourishment, for at least another eight or ten years!

Last weekend, however, Dale and I were preparing butternut squash for ourselves and Dale convinced me to set aside a small portion for Adelaida, just to see how she liked it. So, we steamed up some butternut squash, mashed it with a fork, and prepared to begin feeding our baby adult food. My heart sank when she took the first bite, moved it around in her mouth, swallowed, and opened her mouth for more. She liked it, and so we set about on a whole new phase of life with a baby.

In the past week and a half, we've fed Adelaida real food every day, beginning with the butternut squash and adding avocado last weekend. She still enjoys eating, but does require her food smashed up quite a bit -- she spits out the large chunks of avocado if they aren't pureed enough.

Each feeding time is a combination of us feeding Adelaida and her feeding herself with the spoon. In fact, she's much more likely to open her mouth if she "helps" by holding onto the spoon while I guide it into her mouth.



Our plans right now are to skip the small jars of pureed baby food and the rice cereal (I've tried both and wasn't very impressed with the taste!) and feed Adelaida pure foods that we would otherwise eat ourselves. We steam the foods that need it (butternut squash, and in the future apples, sweet potatoes, broccoli, carrots, rice) and simply mash foods that don't need to be steamed (avocado, and in the future bananas, yogurt). We're going to try to add one new food to her diet each week while continuing to feed her the foods she has already eaten, so are feeding her both butternut squash and avocado this week.

The pictures here are from Adelaida's first attempt at food. On the second day we fed her, we added a bib!