On Sunday, I finally got around to making Brooklynn some food she could eat that doesn’t come from a small plastic package with a picture of the food on the side. A trip through the local library revealed no fewer than 10 books on how to make baby food at home from six months up to two years.
We missed the six month mark by a little bit; it would be easy to blame the fact that we were in the hospital and then we were in and out of the doctors office and traveling and had company, but the fact is we didn’t do it earlier and we probably should have. We’re already over a third of the way into the books and talking about introducing textures and gumming and chewing foods.
We give her rice puffs to pick up and chew and she could probably start on some Cheerios or something like that. Other than that, her texture has been mostly limited to the time that I didn’t put enough water in the powdered oatmeal and the dead leaves that happen to blow on to her blanket outside.
I made chicken (ground in a food processor), a combination of potatoes, butternut squash and apples all mashed up together, and dish of carrots, parsnips, and sweet potato with some seasoning mashed up. Personally, I thought the last two dishes would be good enough so serve with our own dinner, so I didn’t expect any issue from the baby.
Really, you might think that after nine months of living with a baby, I would have learned to never expect consistent behavior.
The hard part about this is Brooklynn loves to eat. She sees a bowl and a small spoon and her mouth is open before we can even get her all the way into the high chair. Last night, bowl and spoon, just like normal, except this time the bowl had a mixture of chicken and potato/squash/apple in it.
Mouth open, in goes food.
She really looked like she might die right there on the spot. Half of the bite was spit back out and she looked at me like she was asking, “What did I ever do to you to deserve this?”
I have to give her credit – I help the spoon up to her mouth again and she took a second bit. Maybe she thought that first bite was an aberration. Maybe she didn’t think I was actually mean enough to feed her the horrible stuff again. I expect it might be a little while until I get some of that trust back.
We normally give her a little water from sipper cup, and she went through her usual dinner amount in the first two bites, like she was desperately trying to wash the yuck out of her mouth. After four bites, she stopped eating for me entirely. Rhiannon walked over, grabbed the spoon and held it up.
Brooklynn was relived, like she thought, “Well, I know that Mom won’t put gross stuff into my mouth… Oh no, not you too!”
We did give in and feed her some powdered oatmeal with fruit in it. I don’t know if the right approach is to force the new food only or work it slowly. I’m just thankful she doesn’t know how to call either 911 or child protective services.
