Elliot first foods.

Well Mr Elliot is days away from being 6 months old. While it seems that time has flown by, it also feels like he has always been here apart of our lives. For awhile now he has been batting at anything I put up to my mouth so I knew he was definitely interested in food. With the other 2 kids I was so rigid abt not even beginning first foods till they were 6 months. This time, I didn't feel quite so restricted. I had read abt baby lead weaning where you introduce finger foods first to baby & that idea made sense to me. Mimi wouldn't even eat baby food, I had to finally give her pancakes! There is also some new info on rice cereal as opposed to fruits/veg/meats that says rice doesn't necessarily even need to be first. I had started giving Elliot pieces of hard bread but mainly when I was holding him & trying to do something. This wasn't really for him to 'eat', it was more so I could do things wo him trying to grab for everything! Last week, days bf his 6 month birthday I had set him down to the high chair (again so I could get stuff done) & given him hunks of banana. He was definitely interested. But those darn bananas! So slippery! And w his cumbersome motor skills still finely tuning the banana hunks were quickly getting shot into the air. This was proving to be quite frustrating for him, bless his heart! So for his first feeding, which I'll say was actually more of a tasting, I held the banana for him.

The next night I decided he could certainly try some rice cereal since the whole 'holding his food for him' didn't seem to make much sense to me. I had actually bought some organic brown rice to grind in my Vitamix so I ground his rice & then cooked it for 10 minutes making a paste like gruel very similar to Cream of Wheat. To my surprise he actually loved it & was lapping it off the spoon in big slurps! I think he's really enjoying having dinner w us at the table & I'm happy to have dropped his evening feeding so now he goes to bed at 7ish w the kids! I would say the only downside is that he is quite a distracting dinner guest. The kids can't stop goofing around & making crazy faces at him. The more he laughs the more they act silly & I'm thinking to myself... is this what dinner w 3 kids is like? Sigh...