Spot is just one week shy of 7 months, and finally sitting up for 10 seconds at a time! At her 4- and 6- month checkups, the nurses quizzed me, as usual, on her eating, sleeping, pooping, motor skills, hearing, responsiveness, eye-tracking, and also on my baby-proofing, growth-stimulating (“and you read and sing to her every day?”) and nutritional efforts.
At the 4-month visit I said that I’d be breastfeeding, exclusively, until 6 months. This was ignored: “Well, when you do start solids, remember that it’s a 1/4 jar at a time at first.” A quarter jar of what? Jet-Puff marshmallow creme? They did have a pamphlet, produced by the baby food makers, of what jar foods were recommended when. At Spot’s 6-month checkup, the information that, so far, I had introduced her to … Cheerios, was not well-received.
That same week my sister-in-law and her daughter spent the day with us. The plan was for me to watch Cousin Rachel while Liz got some work done on her laptop. At our house. Right next to her daughter. Guess who baby would rather play with: Mommy and the shiny machine, or Aunt Jane who has a baby attached at the breast and a 2-year-old dragging her potty behind her?
Liz has embraced motherhood with all of her usual enthusiasm and high-achieving-ness. Soy is bad; co-sleeping and babywearing are good (don’t care about the first, don’t get me started on the second; enjoy the last on occasion, but, do you know how much Spot weighs?). Liz was telling me about the great organic baby food that is available nowadays — “Even Wal-Mart is selling organic stuff now, Jane.” At least she knows her audience.
I pulled some sweet potatoes out of the fridge to show her what I planned to feed Spot, someday (I think those sweet potatoes are still in my fridge. Hmmm, what’s for dinner?). Liz said, “I don’t have time to make my own baby food.” Neither do I, Liz, neither do I.
Susan’s pediatrician was an old Jewish guy; he retired when she was 1. His baby-feeding strategy was this: “At 6 months, give the baby Cheerios for a week. Then give her Ritz crackers (bad carbs, eh?) for another week. Then feed her table scraps. Use common sense and avoid obvious allergy and choking risks.”
We did buy a lot of “baby food” for Sally; I went back to work and Dick, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, is awesome but (and?) clueless. We followed Susan’s doctor’s advice about her feeding. Now we’re on round three, and I’m happy to report that Spot loves bananas, but she gives me that look when I try applesauce. That look that says, “Who are you kidding, Mom? This stuff is YUCK!” Sally used to give me that look about ice cream; she grew out of that pretty quick-like, and I think Spot will too.
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Well, I am only on my first time around, but lucky for me Callie loves everything I feed her. She doesn’t seem to think there is any difference between peas and applesauce. She attacks both with vigor. I did start feeding her rice cereal at about 5 1/2 months. I hope you don’t think I am a criminal for not waiting for the full 6 months, but there are no allergies that we know of in our famlies and she seemed ready to move on. My problem is that I have six foods that I can feed her easily so I am lazy about introducing new ones, so her diet is still somewhat limited.
far be it from me to point fingers. i was stuffing Lucy’s mouth with cheerios and puffs (have you ever read the ingredient list for those things? they’re like twinkies for toddlers; Lucy loves them!) at 5-ish months. but that was purely a noise control thing, not a nutritional one.
oh, and i did cook the sweet potatoes (finally). we loved them!
I thought at 4 months you could start introducing rice cereal–right? Zachy rolled over today and of course I had my back turned! I love when they grow up enough to give them Cheerios!
Marcy,
yes, you can introduce solids at 4 months (you can do whatever you want), but the AAP says “Exclusive breastfeeding is ideal nutrition and sufficient to support optimal growth and development for approximately the first 6 months after birth.”
The AAP also says that “Obstacles to the initiation and continuation of breastfeeding include physician apathy and misinformation …”, which is why I got a bit angry that the nurse at our pediatric practice reacted snippily when I informed her that I would be breastfeeding exclusively ’til 6 months (well, except for those Cheerios!) and that I don’t buy jar food. i think i’m probably in their “radical alternative-mother” file now, which is funny, because the alternative parenting gurus won’t have me either!
Hmmm. I usually introduce rice cereal at least by 5 months. I’ll have to rethink this. We don’t get to the Cheerios until 7 months or so.
oh the other hand, Grampa Dave sent me an article recently about a breastfeeding-in in the Philippines that was trying to combat predatory advertising in that country by the formula companies. these formula companies obviously provide a needed last-resort source of nourishment for some babies who would otherwise starve, but really, in many respects they’re just downright evil, preying on the uneducated and the poor.
(Some companies are trying to add hormones found in breastmilk to formula because they’ve been found to reduce obesity, etc. As Rebekka pointed out on her blog, why don’t they spend all that research money on encouraging milk banks (like blood banks) and milk share programs that would be way more beneficial to babies — obviously because that wouldn’t make them money.)
but the point i was going to make is that it’s not helpful (strategically-speaking), in my opinion, to go all fanatical about breastfeeding either. In the Philippines, a UNICEF spokesman said, “We need every possible way to get the message out that Filipino mothers should breast-feed exclusively for six months and then continue to breast-feed for two years and beyond with household foods.”
if i thought i had to breastfeed (each child!) for over two years in order for my baby to benefit, i might feel completely overwhelmed and intimidated and turn in relief to a formula company who offered relief from being the human milk cow for the rest of my natural life!
Me either! For some issues, I am in, and for others- way, way, way out.
Around the time we were getting ready for Conner’s birth, those r.a.m.s were friendly with me. We had him circumcised at 3 weeks old, and they dropped off the face of the earth.
“i think i?m probably in their ‘radical alternative-mother’ file now, which is funny, because the alternative parenting gurus won?t have me either!”
ok, so i’m little behind on my blog reading- computer broke- but i have so many questions about this infant feeding business. melinda said she’s not worried about feeding her daughter anything because there are no known allergies in her family. well, i’m allergic to shellfish and that’s about it as far as actual allergies go in both jason and my families. (there are food sensitivities and such but whatever, not actual allergies) my almost 11 month old son is highly allergic to milk, soy and wheat- which means i’m also not going to let him eat eggs, nuts, strawberries, fish, and shellfish until he is at least 3 years old in hopes that his body will outgrow this allergies. i only breastfed until he was 5 months, then he was spitting up so dang much that his doctor had me start him on rice cereal in hopes that it would solitify things and help the problem (it doesn’t work, in case you were wondering, he still spits up at least 5 times a day and he’s almost one) where did the allergies come from? who knows. they have taken everyone by surprise. he loves “jar food” which i started him on at 6 months because i could read the labels and no what is in it. though he hates the organic brand that wal-mart sells- he’s a gerber baby. i make sure to feed him solid food at the start of every meal and he will eat it for about 10 minutes- and then i have to feed him baby food or he’s still hungry. he chews well and can eat, he just likes it mushy. it that so bad? anyway, i could go on and on and not matter how many books i read, there isn’t one good answer. i have no idea how to do it differently for my next child.
FYI – I didn’t say that I wasn’t worried about feeding my daughter anything, I just meant that I wasn’t too worried about allergies so I started her on rice cereal a few weeks before the 6 month mark. Suzie – I am sorry to hear that your son has so many allergies, it must be difficult to feed him.
Hi Suzie,
i wish i had some advice to offer. it sounds like you are trying all the right things — doctors and books, etc. i know how it is with a reflux baby (although not as serious as in your son’s case). Callie threw up all the time, but her growth was so good that our “solution” was to feed her less. it got so that i was timing her at 2 minutes per side for each feeding session. her weight was always in the 90th+ %ile, so we never medicated her or anything. my dad said she was an involuntary bulimic.
the vomiting was bad enough that there were times i didn’t want to pick up my own baby because i had already changed my clothes 5 times that day. she was gross! church was awful. she threw up on me all during sac mtg, and then i stunk and was wet for the next two hours. (i don’t know why i never took an extra change of clothes or something; i’m just not that coordinated, i guess).
with the allergies, i just know that i would want (time and money permitting, of course) a second and third opinion. food allergies seem to be the really “in” thing right now, even though their natural occurrence is thought to be under 8% in kids under 3, and around 1% in the gen’l population. of course, you are the expert on your kid, and it sounds like you know what is going on.
since it doesn’t sound like your son inherited his allergies from you or your husband, i would have high hopes that your next kid is allergy-free or allergy-less at least. i’d operate on the theory that he/she won’t be, and follow a feeding plan in one of those books that makes sense to you, or do you have a doctor you really trust who you can ask? the cheerios then ritz (or gerber crackers) and then table scraps (starting with completely mashed fruits, then starches (like mashed potatoes), then cooked and mashed vegetables, then, finally, ground up meat, etc, works for me.
what i do for “table scraps” in the beginning is that as i’m cooking the family meals, i think of what ingredients would be good for the baby (bland fresh stufff), and i take them out after cooking them, but before adding the fat and spices and salt that completes the dish. this doesn’t work for every dish, but it does for a lot of them.
this is why i think everyone should have an “easy” baby the first time (sorry to those of you who had colicky babies and difficult nursers and “bad” sleepers and awful deliveries and asthma and everything else). i just know that, even when everything goes pretty darn well and things seem to fall in place, having a baby is still SO HARD. so i can’t even imagine how much more difficult (esp. the first time) when any one thing goes wrong.
hope some of that helps! good luck! Shannon
I went to the doctor for Zac’s 4-month checkup today and he said the same things that my old doctor said. Start on rice cereal now or wait until 6 months–different moms do different things–and then start doing the stage I baby food.
As for me, it is much easier to nurse than sit patiently while trying to get a baby to accept food from a spoon, so I’m happy to wait until around 6 months to start rice cereal.
I’ve been worried Zac is constipated, though, and asked Dad’s advice. He suggested half water/half juice when he seems to be having trouble. As I gave it to Zac for the first time yesterday–he only drank 1/2 an ounce–I wondered if I was setting my baby up to have a terrible sweet tooth. Today he had the worst blowout ever! Don’t know if that outfit will ever come clean. Seems like the last diaper he really dirtied was 3 days ago.
Don’t know if anyone cares about our diaper issues….
p.s. don’t you hate it when people say they won’t give you advice and then they tell you exactly how things should be?
oh, and Marcy, obviously your doctors (all of them, dang it!) are part of that vast “apathy and misinformation” conspiracy. just kidding–but i still refuse to buy rice cereal and jar food. no, you can’t make me do it. NOOOOOOOOOO.