Introducing...Solids!

Now that Amelia is rounding on the 6 month mark, we've decided she (and us) is ready to start working on solid foods. We've come to this decision as a result of many factors, none of which are probably interesting to you. So, I'll go ahead and tell you. Feel free to skip ahead to the messy baby eating food at the end of this post.

1) She is so interested. Everything goes into her mouth. Everything. Grass. Fuzz. Paper. Socks. If you want to get picky, she's already had her first, second, third, and fourth helping of solids.

2) Our goal was to wait for the 6 month mark. We started introducing solids at 5 month, two weeks of age. Goal achieved in my book.

3)The time between feedings was decreasing and Amelia was consistently waking up earlier in the morning. Instead of going 4 hours between feeding, we were going 2 - 2.5 hours.

4) I am loosing my hair, in part due to the demand nursing is placing on my body. I am proud to provide the sole nutrition for my daughter (since she is stubborn and refuses a bottle, I have nothing against formula) and I will continue to feed her for a long while to come. But, the almost bald patches at the front of my hair are getting hard to ignore as is the horrifying amount of hair I loose on a daily basis in the shower.*

The first day: just milk on a spoon. I wanted to know how well she would do with eating something she was already familiar with: milk.

The answer? She was wonderful. She opened her mouth and made a beeline for the spoon. She was HUNGRY and she wanted MORE. And, would you take a look at the cheeks on my baby. I love, love, love those fat cheeks.

T
I was going to go ahead and keep working on just the milk, but Amelia was WAY ahead of my expectations. So, the next day we went ahead and started with the cereal (first official solid food fed by ME on purpose: 9/14/2009). As you would guess, this cereal was about 5 tablespoons of milk and 1 of cereal. Although you can't tell by this picture, Amelia really, really liked it. She laughed and giggled. She opened her mouth for more. She insisted on holding a spoon and chewing on it between bites.Baby taste tester: tastes like chicken?

Mmmmmmm.....

She was so focused on the spoon and getting that food into her mouth! Look at her opening her mouth like such a smart girl! Also: look at the mosquito bite on my hand. I have 3498736428769124 bites from this weekend. Everyone else total: 3 bites.

Mmmmmmmm...yummy carbs...also, if you don't find messy baby faces fun and amusing, you might want to check back here in another year. I am a HUGE fan of messy baby faces.

And, she cleans up after herself! Yay Amelia! Also note: if you want to build something indestructible, use baby cereal mixed with milk. The stuff is like cement.

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Things are going so well, Daddy stepped in to take a turn feeding the baby girl during her first week of cereal!

Getting ready...Amelia requires her own spoon to use. Or, you spend to whole time trying to get your spoon back from her.

So excited! Eating up the cereal. Also, the cereal is brown because I put her vitamins in it.

The daddy and his baby girl

*This happened with William also, but not to this extent. The hair also grew back after William. It was almost the same length as the rest of my hair when Amelia was born. Just in time to fall out again.