Solid Foods

I finally caved and gave Bradley some cereal for the first time on his 6 month old birthday. I have been putting it off, partly because I'm in denial about how big he is already and partly because I had finally come to a point where I felt like I knew what I was doing and knew what to expect, and now I have to learn something totally different and sometimes I feel lost again :) I guess I need to get used to change!!

Cereal went pretty much how I expected it to go - mostly icky faces with some excitement and happy thrown in here and there :)

What I did not expect were the feedings to follow. I thought for sure he would get better and better each time because he would get used to it - not really! :) It took him about a full week of trying until I finally got him to eat some and not spit all of it right back out at me - how did I do this you ask? Well, you know - all the books and articles I read on this subject stress that you need to promote good eating habits - eat at the same place every time, with little distractions, be happy but not too excited, be patient, etc. Well during one feeding Mr B was not paying attention to me or the spoon full of food, he was fascinated, however, by the tray. He would stare down at it and pat his little hand on it over and over, and this lead to bending down as far as possible and sucking on the edge of the tray. So what do I do? I pour some of the cereal on the tray and let him suck it off :) Yeah - that's a good, healthy eating habit if I ever heard one - just pour your food on the table, bend over and start slurping it up! :) Oops! (I wish I got a picture of it because it was really funny!)

In the past couple days he has gotten the hang of it now, he'll open his mouth and pretty much will eat whatever gets in there instead of pushing it out with his tongue. I think the main reason why he became more interested is the new spoons I found - a lot more rubbery than the others I was using and I'm sure it feels a lot better in his mouth - so yea! Oh - and he hasn't tried to suck on his tray again, so maybe I didn't scar his eating habits forever! :)