solids

Started solids, night weaned, sleeps through the night (!!!), moved into her crib, shares a room with her brother and sister, personality is much more relaxed, smiles readily, laughs easily,

It only just occurred to me that I forgot to include her piggie in her 7-month photoshoot. Alas, I guess forgetting things is par for the course with being a mom to three.

Reese has really blossomed this month but it was a rocky start. We started off the month with a lot of stress, Reese was just getting over her second of back to back ear infections, which meant she was all around quite grumpy. At one point I was becoming increasingly worried that she may have a chronic illness (mainly, cystic fibrosis) or a mental disorder. But then seemingly overnight, the clouds parted and my little girl brightened up. She became so much more personable and social. She started laughing much more readily and smiled easily. It was like we were finally connecting. It was a HUGE weight off my shoulders, to say the least.

Reese started solids this month and let me tell you, it has been quite the struggle. She so clearly wants to take part in meals, and she loves gumming food, but she doesn’t actually want to swallow any of it. Just another way that she is markedly different from her brother and sister. Her first food was avocado and she seemed to like it but didn’t want to swallow it. In fact, it’s been near impossible to get her to swallow anything. Either, she spits it out the second it goes in or she’s so mad that it’s in her mouth that she throws it all up anyway. The. Struggle. Is. Real. We took a break from solids for a couple weeks and when we tried again, we had similar results. She wants it, but she doesn’t want it. I’m hoping we’ve finally turned a corner. This past week she actually started swallowing a little bit! I’m actually able to get some food into her! Her poop still isn’t transitioning from breastmilk poop, but it’s a start!

Mid-month, I night weaned her. I knew going into it that it wouldn’t be as simple as night weaning Asher and Bennett but I still wasn’t fully prepared for how willful she is. We moved her into the kid’s room and into her own crib. The first night, she woke up 3 times and was awake for over an hour for 2 of those times. Every night after that she would only wake up once but would stay awake for 1-2 hours screaming while I rocked and soothed her. Finally, after about 10 days on a Friday night, I asked Rafaan to get up with her (I was only half serious and was pretty sure I’d be getting up). I awoke the next morning to find Rafaan asleep in the kid’s room and I hadn’t heard Reese at all. Come to find out she did wake up, but Raf picked her up, for a minute, put her back down and then patted her butt for 2 minutes and SHE WENT BACK TO SLEEP!!! At this point, I congratulated him on his promotion to night shift. Since it was a long weekend he got up with her the next few nights all of which he was able to get her back to sleep fairly quickly, with the exception of the one time that she woke up at 5:30 a.m. and fussed until I got up and nursed her at 6:15 a.m. or so. After that, she started sleeping through the night. it’s been kind of amazing. All 3 kids share a room and that’s been going really well also. They’ve only woken her up a couple times and we’re able to get her back to sleep pretty quickly for the most part. Hallelujah!!

Both my grandmother’s are visiting this month and it’s quite special that Reese has been able to spend some time with them. She is starting to scoot and scootch along on the floor on her tummy. I think she’s still a ways off from crawling and no teeth to speak of but she’s definitely starting to widen to roaming radius. Reese is very much a Mommy’s girl, just like her sister Bennett was. She does this funny thing where she’ll be fussing with someone else and I’ll go pick her up and she immediately stops fussing but then rotates her body to look back at the person that was just holding them with this almost smug look on her face. It cracks me up. She’s also taken to holding her arms out and waving her hands about in elegant little circles, almost like she trying to practice a Persian dance. She really is such a delight and I just can’t get enough of her sweet snuggles!

We waited until Asher was 6 months old before feeding him solids. I agonized over what to give him first. I wanted it to be something flavorful and with a high nutrient content and the standard rice cereal just wasn’t cutting it. I went back and forth between avocado and egg yolk. Ultimately, egg yolk won out.

So I carefully boiled an egg, removed all the egg white and then blended the yolk with some breast milk. Asher was more than eager for me to feed him this new and exciting concoction. He had been studying us closely whenever we ate anything and was clearly excited to experience this intriguing process for himself.

I scooped out a spoonful of the egg yolk and as the spoon approached his mouth, he leaned forward and opened up as wide as he could. He then closed his mouth on the spoon and a look of sheer befuddlement flashed over his face, to quickly be replaced with one of absolute disgust and indignation as he promptly began gagging in an attempt to expel the vial substance from his mouth.

This was our first introduction into solids. Not to worry though, things steadily improved from there. Although, admittedly, after such a start it could only get better.

As recommended by his pediatrician, we did single introduction, however I didn’t wait 4 days for most foods. If I was giving him something that was more allergenic then I definitely waited longer, but otherwise I’d give him something new every 1-2 days. Since we waited until he was 6 months old to introduce foods to him, his pediatrician assured us that we could give him anything and everything.

I was determined to make my own baby food and since we were gifted with a Baby Bullet by a dear friend it was such a breeze. We used it for a solid 2 months and Asher was sucking food down like he was hollow, so I was using it a lot! Whoever said that a baby will let you know when they are full by pushing food out of their mouth, obviously hadn’t met my son. Asher would eat and eat until he had stuffed himself so much that he vomited all over the place. After this happened once on Raf’s watch and once on mine, we quickly learnt that we couldn’t rely on him to send us any signals and thus adjusted accordingly.

Even though I made the majority of his food, I tended to throw a baby food pouch in my bag for when we were out of the house, because they were SO convenient and easy. I really loved the ones by Plum Organics, but there are lots of different brands and they all come in TONS of flavors. They also made introducing new foods super easy and simple.

When Asher was 7 months old I began tentatively attempting to give him food that was more textured but he flat out refused to eat anything that wasn’t pureed. He even began smelling his food before deciding whether or not to open his mouth, in fact he would only eat certain vegetables if they had been roasted and seasoned (frankly I don’t blame him). Shortly after he turned 8 months old I just decided one day that he was perfectly capable of finger feeding himself (since he was rather adept with the puffs), so I stopped blending his food and simply gave him small chunks of stuff that were on the softer side and lo and behold he happily fed himself!

Some of his first foods: egg, avocado, banana, sweet potato, yam, multi-grain cereal, rice cereal, peas, squash, zucchini, cauliflower, broccoli, blueberry, pear, peach, pasta, chicken, beef, cheese, greek yogurt, hummus, black beans, watermelon, plum, quinoa, spinach, kale, asparagus, nectarine, carrot, bread.

He now eats whatever we are eating and pretty much loves it all. We’re so lucky and I can only hope he continues to be such an easy going eater, especially considering that we have adopted a plant based diet, but more on that later.

Reese’s Monthly Growth Series // 7

An Adventure in Solids