Well my little guy is officially 6 months old (and 3 days to be exact). So 4 days shy of his 6 month birthday he had his first rice cereal meal. Food is already quite an adventure.
I've been known to be called a new-age hippie or the one I particularly like, a"clean" hippie, so I want my baby to start out on the best foot possible when it comes to food. As with all things parenting, food is open to A LOT of interpretation. The thing that quite annoys me about food though is the fact I've read source after source in the form of nurses, pamphlets, websites, books, etc., saying that it's so important for your baby's first food to be a single whole grain. Then after that you introduce other fruits, veggies, meats, legumes, slowly one food at a time to make sure you can pinpoint any allergic reactions. So I look at a sample of rice cereal and read rice flour (likely white rice), and a number of other ingredients including oils, skim milk powder, vitamins, and some sort of sugar in the -uctose family. I think, huh. Single whole grain. Well what the heck is the other stuff for then?? I get the vitamins bit and I think the oil is probably used for the vitamin absorption, but why is their milk when all sources specifically say no milk until after a year old. And why, oh why oh why, is there SUGAR in it????!!?!??!
Cheesed off, I of course look to the internet in making my own rice cereal. Well it turns out it's pretty darn easy. Grind a 1/4 cup of brown rice in a coffee grinder and add to a cup of boiling water and whisk constantly for 10 minutes on a simmer type heat. Done.
So since then I have also made a squash puree from a squash hubby chopped up last winter and froze. Then tonight I made some sweet potatoes. Eli has also tried mashed bananas. He loves it all, especially the bananas and sweet potatoes. I am loving this food thing, so much fun. I've always loved food anyway and even considered a career as a nutritionist even though it may have meant a slight change in my own eating habits, *ahem.
The thing I'm finding difficult is a set schedule for him to eat at. Maybe it would be easier if he was eating on a schedule too but I'm totally set on baby led parenting so he will eat when he wants to and I'll just have to work around that. Actually I'm having troubles with that in all aspects of life. Bedtime is another hard one. I can't seem to make sure we are home by 8pm every night. Part of me knows that he should be going to bed at a certain time and this will increase he chances of sleeping through the night. But another part of me wants to stay at my parents a half hour extra when my father brings home a Dairy Queen ice cream cake and you know, maybe have a slice (or two). I just wonder how people deal with routines and still having a life past 7-8pm at night? Despite me being tired enough to go to bed at this time there is usually at least something else I need to do if not things I want to do past these times, like writing in my ever so popular (lol!) blog!
I'm always so interested in where my blogging takes me, I didn't even realize I was thinking about schedules. I just came on here to tell you my success with food, complain about the discrepancies in baby food sourcing and tell you how freaking tall my 6 month old boy is!!!
Dr. Mac measured him at 28 inches which is the 95th percentile. I thought to myself, hey, pretty cool to have such a tall little tyke until I realized oh maybe that's why we keeping hitting his feet dangling off the end of his carseat so much. Crap, it's only good for another inch and then we have to spring for a convertible car seat. The one our friends have that we really like (because it's so skinny and we could have two of them comfortably in the back of our vehicle) is like $300. And our funds have been stretched rather tight these past two months. We need some extra cash now! Manifesting time..... Too bad I'm not ready to go back to work yet. I just couldn't stand to miss a second of Eli's first year if I can be paid (even at half wages) to stay home and be with him.
On that note, perhaps I should go to sleep while he is sleeping to have the energy to do it all again tomorrow. The smiles alone make every second worth it! I probably missed a million new things he has done in the past three weeks since I blogged but I'll have to mention them next time. Oh he can definitely sit on his own and can military crawl both forwards and backwards. There that should do for now. Goodnight!
