Sunday, June 13, 2010

Adventures in Solid Foods and Teeth!



Now that my Snuggle Puppy is six months old, we have embarked on introducing solids and it has been soooo much fun! I love to watch her try and experience new things! For a variety of reasons, we decided to wait until six months to introduce solids, but that doesn't mean that I wasn't chomping at the bit to get started! I decided to make all of her baby food myself (that's the plan for now anyway), which, if you know me and my experience in the kitchen, is really saying a lot.I decided it would be easier to cook in batches and just freeze individual portions in ice cube trays. It has been super nice this past week to just take a cube out, defrost it, and feed her. No muss, no fuss! Last Sunday, I cooked sweet potato, butternut squash, and carrots. (We decided to use organics for Lucy so I feel really good about what we're giving her. I buy organic as much as possible for us, but sometimes, it just doesn't see, worth the price.)

We gave her sweet potatoes first. She liked them , but I think I made them a little too thick. She was excited to grab the spoon and put it in her mouth and to squish the sweet potato around in her fingers. Every time she went to swallow, though, she would grimace and gag a little. Figuring out how to get that new texture down is hard work! :)

After three days of sweet potato, we moved on to butternut squash. She LOVED this! I made this much, much thinner and I think the consistency was just right. She squealed with delight every time I brought the spoon toward her mouth and would attack it like a bird attacking a worm! It was adorable! I found that giving her a spoon to play with made it much easier for me to make sure the food got in her mouth because she had a spoon to keep her hands busy and wasn't trying to grab (and fling) the one that I was using!

Last night, after three days of squash, we introduced carrots. They were a little thicker but she did a pretty good job with them. It was late and she still ate half a serving. After our three days of carrots, we are going to move on to some green vegetables (I wonder if she will share my love for peas!) and then maybe add in some fruits!

For now, we are just doing one solids meal a day and that works for us. I am not giving her rice cereal because I don't see that it has much nutritional benefit, but I have some on hand that I can use to mix with different foods. I have some oatmeal too, so when we add in a breakfast meal, we might see how she likes that mixed with fruit.

This whole eating real food thing is a messy business :) She dives in with her whole body and we usually both end up covered in some sticky orange goo!

In other news and updates, I am officially finished with school for the year and ready to spend the whole summer soaking in some Lucy! She is at such a fun age and she is non-stop active! She can pull up to stand, stand while holding on to things for super periods of time, scooch all around... she is amazing! She still is not world's best sleeper (read: up every 2 hours), but I am hopeful that getting her on a good routine these next few weeks will help. Otherwise, we will re-visit sleep training of some sort. I know she is capable of sleeping in longer stretches (even though it has never actually happened!) and I definitely know that as active as she is she needs good sleep. So we'll see!

Also - and this is huge people - we have a tooth! I haven't been able to get a good picture of it yet, but there is definitely a pearly white poking through. I first spotted it Memorial Day weekend and it took a good week to cut through the gum (poor baby), but now it is very visible and we are just waiting for it to grow some more! I can't believe my little tiny baby is old enough for a tooth! When we first spotted it, we were in the car on a short 2-hour trip for a cookout. She was asleep in her seat and then woke up SCREAMING! I climbed in the back to see what was up and there it was! I was so shocked that I teared up a little - she is growing so fast!

We have her six month pediatrician appointment tomorrow and I am excited to see her stats! She is so wonderful and amazing and fun - I love this girl!

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