Solid Food....

Ethan started solid food Sunday. I am excited to start feeding him and see his reaction to new foods, but I am not happy that he has reached this milestone. It makes me sad because he is growing up and he is my last baby. Of course, I want him to reach his milestones. It is just hard to know I'll never have a newborn again, but on the flipside I am SO happy to never have to be pregnant again! That last pregnancy was long and more painful, and the first three months of E's little life were painful, too. I had a lot more pain after he was born and a tremendous loss of sleep. Nothing, not even comparable to P as a baby. Crazy how different the two were and are.

I felt the need to be extremely careful when choosing the rice cereal to feed him. Technically he is old enough for me to feed him homeade rice cereal, but the commercial stuff is so fine that it makes sense to just buy it for a first feeding. But, I was obsessed with concern over an allergic reaction. After much deliberation and research I decided to buy HappyBellies brand of rice cereal - a Dr. Sears recommendation. Organic, no fillers, all natural, added DHA and probiotics to help support a healthy digestive system, which aids in warding off food allergies. I had to go to Whole Foods to buy it because it seems Gerber owns the babyfood corner in most grocery stores. And, Gerber is full of CRAP! Seriously, total fillers.

Then the time had come. I decided to use only water to mix in the cereal - just in case I had something weird to eat that day. I felt I'd be able to determine it was the rice cereal if he had a reaction because I was feeding the cereal to him in its purest form. When I fed him his first spoonful it felt like running into traffic. My mind and heart were racing - will he get sick, will I be making another trip to the emergency room with him due to food, will I be able to handle this? The only thing that happened was that he hated it. His face contorted into the funniest face I had ever seen one of my babies make. Like he just ate a bug and didn't mean to. It was hysterical! He was fine. I fed him in the early afternoon and then I fed him again in the evening. The second feeding I added just a smidge of apple juice to sweeten it up. Breastfed babies love sweet foods like fruit because breastmilk is ...well, like Heather's little girl put it, honeymilk.

Today he was so interested when P was eating her lunch that I decided to let him try a little applesauce. Apples are on the list as a good first food for babies 4 - 6 months old. I would have preferred bananas, but we weren't eating bananas, so it was applesauce (unsweetened and organic). He loved it. I decided to sit him in his highchair and feed him the babyfood version of the organic applesauce I bought. He ate almost half of the container before becoming disinterested. He was kind of slurping it off of his bib and when he ate from the spoon he would lean his head down and then sit up to swallow. Getting used to the whole thing of eating food I suppose. I want to get it on video. And, he was SO messy. P was and is a pretty "clean" eater. Even in the beginning she did great with swallowing food and eating off the spoon - and she wasn't quite 5 months when I started her on solids.

Well - it is pretty exciting. I have bananas and an avocado to try him on next. My pedi says it isn't necessary to wait four days between foods - that if babies are going to have an allergic reaction they will have signs after the first feeding. But, I want to wait just because of E's history thus far. So, applesauce and rice cereal is on the menu this week.