Lydia's First Solid Food

It's taken me a while to put this post together. I'm not sure why. I guess maybe it's the fact that I can't believe my baby is so grown up. We waited until Lydia's six month birthday to start feeding her solid food, because my pediatrician recommended it. Also, because she was getting plenty to eat (she is a fantastic nurser) and just barely started sitting up, I wasn't worried about waiting. I guess most other babies start sooner - but as for now I am glad that we waited. Exclusively breastfeeding for the first six months was perfect for us. And i'm a little sad to be giving up so much freedom. (I could pretty much go wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted, because Lydia is a great go-er and we could just stop and nurse anytime she got hungry.) But it's definitely time for solids!

Before the feeding frenzy began, we had to take some pictures to document the occasion. (Of course.)

We found a high chair that we absolutely love. We thought a lot about what kind of high chair to get, but decided that we didn't want a plastic fold-up one, because we are going to have babies in a high chair for a long time. Rather, we decided that we would get a statement piece that will look great in our kitchen and will blend in with our decor, as well as being really functional. We found this Eddie Bauer high chair and were getting ready to shell out the $130 for it at Target, but I decided to check KSL first. Luckily for us, this high chair had just been posted the day before! I set up a time to pick it up and we got it for half the price. I'm so happy. It's in great condition and it's super beautiful. Lydia seems to enjoy sitting up in it. (She doesn't like sitting on the ground unless i'm down with her, but she seems to like to be higher where she can see everything that is going on.  

We started her out with a rice cereal. The box says to mix the rice cereal with breastmilk or formula. We had a can of formula that we got in the mail, so we opened that up to use because (this may be TMI, so feel free to skip to the next paragraph) I have a really hard time expressing any breastmilk. I have an electric pump and everything, but I don't have a very strong let-down reflex and so can't pump anything. I'm really blessed that I don't have to be away from Lydia very often and that she is a great eater. She doesn't have a problem nursing even though my let-down is pretty weak, and on the occasions when I have to be gone longer than 3 hours she has been great to take a little bottle of formula. I was pretty upset about having to use formula at first (both when I was away and in the rice cereal) but I've since come to terms with it. The only other thing I have to say about that is that I do NOT like the way that formula smells. Even in the rice cereal it about makes me gag. I'm probably going to just start using water to mix up the cereal because I can't take the formula smell. 

Moving on, Lydia did great! She didn't eat very much - but she was very interested in what was going on. She would reach for the spoon to bring in to her mouth and then we would laugh and laugh at the faces she made when she realized that there was cereal in her mouth.

The whole affair was a success, and even relatively clean. The only even minor mess was when David was feeding her. Lydia grabbed the spoon and quickly let go, resulting in a flying mass of rice cereal that landed on her head.

We invited David's mom down to participate in the fun. Lydia had about enough of the high chair, so we moved her to her little bouncer for the rest of her food. 

Later that week, Melis came up for dinner and she helped us feed Lydia again. Her facebook status later that night read: "Attempting to feed this sweet thing was not as successful as I had hoped!" She is so funny. But even a few days in, more cereal was on her face than ever made it into Lydias mouth. 

Now it's been over a week. Lydia has had rice cereal and bananas. Today she is going to start sweet potatoes, or green beans, or peas. She's going to start something new. She really liked the bananas and is getting used to the texture and the whole getting the food to the back of her mouth to swallow thing. I'm so happy that she has been so good and that the transition has gone so well. She is such a sweet little thing. Now I'm excited for her to start eating little pieces of banana and cheerios and things.