Feeding an Ellie

It's been almost five months since we started our solid food journey so I thought I'd give a little update.  Let's dive right into the mess with our baby spoon + bib, shall we?

We gave Ellie her first solids just a few days after she turned four months when her pediatrician gave us the "okay" to do so.  She basically said to have fun trying whatever, but suggested we wait three days in between each new food in case of allergies.  We started with peaches first - we wanted a "p" food for a little digestive assistance, and peaches just kind of sounded good.  After that, we introduced a new fruit or veggie every three days with no real rhyme or reason to the order in which we did so.  How very parents of the year of us.  Also, I'm sure she will love me forever if she finds out I told the world she needed help pooping one day - sorry, baby girl.  We also gave her cereal (oatmeal - she's never had the rice kind come to think of it), and she seemed to think it was alright but really loved her fruits and veggies so we usually mixed it with other foods whenever she had it.  We ended up ditching the cereal after a month or so-ish (again, we needed a little more digestive assistance and that plus the combo of fully transitioning to formula was not working out well).  She quickly started eating breakfast, lunch and dinner all as solids with bottles in between.  Ellie is a really good eater and the only foods she wasn't crazy about alone were peas and green beans, so we just mixed them in with another fruit or veggie and she was good to go.

At her six month appointment, we got the "okay" to move onto Stage Two foods as well as pretty much any foods she wanted to eat that we were willing to give her - anything from puffs to pancakes and everything in between.  We stopped going by the every three day rule at this point because Stage Two foods include so many different foods in each meal, it seemed kind of pointless.  She's never had a reaction to anything (thankfully), and continues to love everything we give her.  Girlfriend is not a picky eater by any means. 

Since around six months she's been eating quite a bit of what we eat, but even more so in the past two-ish months, I'd say.  We share everything with her except for things she shouldn't eat, like cocktails + caffeine. ;)  But really, this girl will eat anything and will likely use her ninja skills to grab anything off your plate or from your hands if given even .275 seconds of an opportunity to do so.  Fruit, veggies, breakfast foods (pancakes, waffles, eggs, bagels, toast, we eat a lot of breakfast foods), macaroni, mashed potatoes, and a little meat (mostly just chicken) are just examples of the things she eats on a pretty consistent basis.  But like I said, as long as it can be broken down or easily gummed up, we give it to her.  

The one time I gave Ellie a whole teething biscuit to eat.  She lived to tell about it but I'm still working up the courage to do it again - HA.

I mentioned this before, but giving Ellie solids for the first time (and really every day) is a little stressful.  I probably break everything into pieces that are about half the size they need to be, so while it takes a bit longer to feed her, it's working out okay for the both of us. ;)  Even puffs and yogurt melts I was breaking up until recently (i.e. last week).  Tips on how to not go crazy thinking about your baby choking are welcome. I'm contemplating taking an infant CPR course or at least getting some up to date knowledge on the topic because I doubt sobbing while holding a choking baby would do much good.

As far as feeding herself goes, it was pretty nonexistent aside from holding her own food pouch and sucking the food out until a couple days ago as I mentioned in a previous post.  She's pretty good with puffs + yogurt melts now and will attempt to pick up anything else I let her.  Sometimes she's successful in feeding herself sometimes not so much, but she gets better at it every day.  Also, she still doesn't hold her bottle.  As far as sippy cups go, she'll drink an ounce or two of water out of them but again, doesn't hold them herself, or if she does she usually doesn't tip it up far enough to drink out of it.  She will, however, happily take sips out of my water cup.

Introducing new foods to Ellie is one of my most favorite things about watching her grow.  I love to see her reaction to different tastes and textures.  It's usually a somewhat confused look, followed by a big smile, reach to your hand to grab more, and a bounce up and down in her highchair in excitement.  Next up on our feeding agenda is making our meals hers as well, not just sharing bites off our plates.  I'm sure the baby food isn't going away completely anytime soon, but would like it if she ate half baby food/half "real food" at this point. The pouches are just plain convenient (my baby Magic Bullet is definitely still sitting unused in the package by the way), but she shows a serious interest in what we're eating and always needs to be eating right this second if she sees us eating anything.  I'm determined to plan our meals a little better and am always looking for new meals to feed both us and our babe, so please share if there's something special your family loves!  Here are a couple examples of Ellie's lunches from the past week (they're pretty similar since a trip to the grocery store was in order):

yogurt melts, puffs, teething biscuit broken up // plain pasta - yes, I took the time to spell out her name // bananas // pouch 

puffs // pasta with sauce // bananas // pouch

On this day she ended up eating about five times as many puffs that are there (she was eating them as I got the other things ready), half the pasta, all the bananas and two full pouches... all for lunch.  One meal.  I wasn't lying when I said she's a good eater.

Lastly, a couple videos of Ellie trying to feed herself, first a teething biscuit and second some puffs - just for fun and/or if you like to listen to my obnoxious voice. ;)

Hope this helps some of you! I plan on providing more "feeding an Ellie" updates in the coming months as things progress. :)