I love the way this little guy explores his world without fear. He doesn't seem to be afraid of anything, and even through the tough spots (like his first cold and popping two teeth out in the same day) he works hard at staying happy. He's just a really great person and it's been magical getting to know him as his personality really starts to blossom.
Hitting the six month mark meant getting started on solid foods. He's been grabbing for my own food (and even making chewing motions and puppy whimpers at it) for a while now so I figured he would have no problem getting down with whatever I put in front of him. He's so easy-going, right?
Wrong! Once again I have been reminded that you can never predict how a child will approach something new. He tolerated his first spoon feeding pretty well (sweet potato purée) though he did seem a little wary of the whole thing (and there was a lot more coughing and hacking then I expected) but then he refused to eat it the next day. Then we tried green peas (nope), apples (gross), banana (are you kidding?), avocado (disgusting). Even rice cereal, the most basic and classic of all baby foods, was rejected.
I was shocked. After a week or so of letting him try purées I took to the internet. The general advice was to just give the whole thing a rest and try it again once a week or so until he seemed more interested. That seemed reasonable, but another idea that I heard again and again was that maybe CC didn't hate food at all – maybe he just hated the spoon.
I had heard about baby led weaning, but I didn't initially go with that approach because I felt like I really wanted yo see him swallowing effectively before giving him something actually literally solid. Now I decided to give it a try – starting out with some tiny chunks of banana.
He really enjoyed it – that is until some banana actually found its way into his mouth. Then he was all HACK, SPIT, BLECHHH.
He had so much fun squishing the food and making a mess that we continued, and over the last week he has smashed avocados, bananas, and sweet potato with glee. Yesterday he even ate some banana! At least, we thought he ate it. Twenty minutes later he started squirting mashed banana from his cheeks into his fingers and then into the rug. He'd squirreled it away in his cheeks, that little rascal!
So, to sum up – feeding babies is surprisingly challenging, but expectedly messy.