I've been reading lately about a typical 7-8 month old eating schedule and then started worrying because Henry definitely does not get a food pyramid in his belly everyday. In fact, sometimes I FORGET to feed him solid foods. You can bring my mother of the year award right on over!
The boy likes nursing. Eight or nine times a day. We introduced solids (pears and applesauce) at six months. Never did cereals because the doctor says no good. Now, he eats breakfast (waffles, banana, muffins) and lunch (cheese, crackers, etc) at daycare. If we are eating at the table he'll get some version of fruit. We've successfully introduced steamed carrots, diced peaches and Ritz crackers (definitely it's own food group) all of which he feeds himself.
But other than that, he's a milk boy all the way.
My goal is for breastmilk to be his primary food source for 12 months. I am winning the battle - barely.
According to this chart, he's doing OK. And since he's eating meals at daycare, he probably doesn't even need dinner. But then this article tells me he's probably malnourished.
As for suddenly nursing again at 1 a.m., 3 a.m., 5 a.m. and 7 a.m.? I don't need a chart to tell me that I need some help. And caffeine.
So, we're losing too, apparently. We decided to do Whole-grain rice cereal, but switched to oatmeal (Earth's Best organic). We were only feeding it to him once a day and then maybe an ounce of whatever veggie/fruit puree was whipped up at the time. Then I read in a book that I "should" be feeding him 1/4 cup cereal + all these fruits and veggies in addition to it. Kinda like what that chart says. Christian recently started waking up again and nursing at all hours of the night too. Then I read it could be from lack of calorie intake from the day. I told my husband I thought our baby was starving. We've slightly increased what we're feeding him (and I'm with you on the breastfeeding!) and it actually does seem to help with the night wakings. Just started with the finger foods though - avocado.
ReplyDeleteEvery baby is different and every mama is different. You've obviously done your research and weighed the pros and cons. I've never heard a ped say no go to cereal, so that's an interesting one, but again - every ped is different, too! I find that there is research all over the board but you just have to figure out what's best for your family and your household schedule. I personally loved the baby food making stage and concocting flavor combos. With Mackie, we started cereal at about 5 months and then by 5.5-6 months we were slowly introducing sweet potatoes, squash, applesauce, bananas, avacado. We just kept going from there. (she didn't eat pieces of food until later since she didn't cut her first tooth until 11.5 months)
ReplyDeleteMeat threw us for a loop, but after some unsuccessful attempts of making my own meat puree (the texture is tricky to get down!), I simply waited until she had a few teeth and finely shredded chicken or pieces of ground beef to start her on those (it wasn't until a year or so).
I love, love, love www.wholesomebabyfood.com - it's an excellent resource and gives you good ideas on menu planning with a baby!