Sunday, May 2, 2010

Food for Thought



I've noticed that most of my baby invested time is spent thinking about what foods they can eat, and how easy it will be to feed those foods to them. Along with that there are some other tricks to baby's eating habits- especially in the diaper changing area. These are some things I've noticed with my boys that I thought I'd share for fun!

-We started solids- and by solids I mean baby cereal and fruit purees- a little early (3 months or so) around here. We first tried cereal, then fruit- which its actually recommended that you do veggies first- and then veggies. Feeding the boys veggies became extra stressful. I told my mom that I knew they needed a well rounded diet, but they just cried the whole time I fed it to them, and then they would be fussy for the rest of the night. They were fine with fruits however. Well my mom told me just to hold off on veggies for now. That they would probably take to them when they were older. Low and behold and 6 months they were eating green beans and peas like they were candy. They love them now!

-My boys have a sweet tooth. I tried just mixing their baby cereal with water, but they wouldn't take it. Juice was the only way they'd accept the cereal food offering. If there wasn't juice around we'd use water and sugar. Before there 6 month miraculous likening of veggies, we had to mix those with fruit, or with sweeter veggies like yams, in order for them to touch the stuff.

-Finger foods are a mom's best friend- along with juice boxes after your child learns to use a straw. At about 7 months a friend introduced me to the wonderful world of finger foods. It's a little messy at first, but once you incorporate it into your daily routine it is wonderful.

-I really enjoyed getting to bring new foods into my boys' diet, but it has its consequences. There's always an adjustment period were you get burned bums and strange bathroom cycles. This can often mean that mom and dad are once again up in the middle of the night with a child who used to sleep peacefully till morning. But at least its not permanent.

-I was way excited to start feeding the boys regular milk. One: because formula is so expensive. And two: because regular milk is slightly easier then formula. Well the transition wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. We had to mix their milk with formula, and we would slowly try to lessen the formula part of the mix. Then when we thought we had them just on milk they would refuse their bottles and we'd have to start over. We have them on just milk now, but we still have to warm it up- they've always been picky about the temperature. Now we're trying to slowly make it cooler and cooler. This transition also led to burned bums and pooping in the middle of the night.

-Along with finger foods and juice boxes I just discovered a new best friend: Animal crackers. Mostly because they make a good healthy snack, and they are dirt cheap. Cereals are wonderful too. Our boys like fruit loops a lot, but they can interfere with the diaper changing too- by interfere I mean they change it to very weird and bright colors. Oh, graham crackers are great too!

-We love our juice around here. It has it's place that's for sure. We usually water it down to keep them from getting the runs, but I've noticed that juice boxes don't cause us much trouble in that area. One thing I have noticed about juice is that the extra liquid can lead to a baby peeing out of his diaper in the middle of the night. Now we just try to change them closer to bedtime, or try to not give them juice close to bedtime.

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