Not So Sure About Ped 1st Food Recommendations...

[Marisa6826]

Today is Sophie's official 1/2 Birthday! We saw our Ped for her 6m checkup she's 14 lbs. 4 oz. (25th percentile) and 24 inches (5th percentile). Her noggin is the 50th percentile but I can't remember what the measurement was...

So the doctor comes into the room, says, "We're going to talk about food today". I thought, OK, he's gonna give me a hard time about only having fed her the rice cereal once.

He proceeds to tell me that she can have ANYTHING she wants as long as she can gum it....he starts listing foods - meatballs with sauce (I'm thinking MEATBALLS WITH SAUCE???), pasta, eggs, fish, meats, Cheerios, cheese, yogurt,etc. He said that she could have whatever spices we use, although less salt and sugar is better. I know to stay away from honey because of the botulism thing. I don't really use it anyway.

I kind of waited till he was done and said, "Uh, what about the grains, yellow veggies, green veggies, fruit, meat thing?"

He said, Nope. Doesn't matter as long as I wait a couple days in between and he actually prefers table food to jar food because she needs as much texture as she can handle. He also went on to say that "She needs meat because she's depleted her iron stores that she had." Um. Doesn't the Similac Advance with Iron cover that?


So I'm kind of freaked out by all of this. My gut is that it's way too fast and I probably will go a lot slower. I bought the Satter book (actually three of her books including "Child of Mine"), just haven't had the time to start reading it (I'm still working on Quicken for Dummies since I'm meeting with my financial planner in two days).

I bought Sophie some Yo Baby to see if she likes it. Got the vanilla and banana varieties.

Any ideas here, girls? Beth - what's your insight here?

Thanks

-m

He also told me that I should start giving her a cup. She can't even hold her bottle yet!

[Rachels]

This does sound like a lot for a baby's developing digestive system to handle. Speaking as the parent of a food-sensitive babe, I'd go with your gut and avoid this stuff for a while longer. The longer you hold off on allergenic foods, the less likely she will be to develop reactions. As she gets older, you'll get more comfortable trying stuff and introducing new foods. But for now, and until you're sure she's managing solids well (intestinally speaking), I'd stick to easier-to-digest stuff. Avocadoes, bananas, applesauce, sweet potatoes, etc. are good first foods. Rice is often constipating, actually, and some babies have trouble with grains in the first year. Yogurt is a good idea, too. HTH!

-Rachel
Mom to Abigail Rose
5/18/02

[egoldber]

Well, I would certainly introduce one food at a time, at least initially so as to make sure that there are no food allergies.

But I agree with your ped about a lot of things including that, in general, table food is better than jar food and that spices are fine, but less salt and sugar is better. (My ped said the same thing and so does Satter mostly.)

I was told no wheat until 7 months and introduce protein when solid intake starts to cut into breastmilk/formula intake, usually around 8 months.

Oh, and I held Sarah's cup for her until she was 13 months. She NEVER held her own bottle. There's no harm in introducing a water or formula sippy with meals. She may not get much out of it at first, but she'll get practice.

HTH,

[blnony]

His advice doesn't sound too bad. Audrey is having a problem now with texture and food. I wish I had started trying more table food a little earlier. She will eat Goldfish crackers, thats it. She will inhale Gerber Stage 2 Carrots, and will gag and turn red if I give her cooked carrots from the table. I talked my Ped. about it, and she also thought I should have tried table food earlier, if anything for the texture. At 10 months, we are still on stage 2 foods and bottles. Now at every feeding, I am trying to get her to eat something with texture, but in two weeks we haven't progressed much at all. Audrey has systematically refused sippy cups for months now. I'm about to go out and buy one of every kind of sippy I can find, and hope she will eventually try one. And, Audrey can hold her bottle, but flatly refuses that chore too!:)

I am saying this in an effort to maybe ease your mind. I agree with Beth, you need to just introduce on thing at a time to make sure she isn't allergic, but after that, I think you could probably give table food a try.

Also with the iron, when they start on solid foods, they can't absorb iron very well from formula, so they need to get it in forms easy for them to absorb in their diets.
Good luck- the whole solid food thing is hard to figure out.

Edited to say: gag and turn red...doesn't mean choking. It means hating it and trying to scrape it out of her mouth. I realized it sounded like I was choking my child:)

[daisymommy]

Wow, I'm so glad I'm not alone in this! Joshua is taking teh Stage #2 jars mixed with some cereal, bottles of formula, and loves Cheerios. That's it. I've tried table food mashed up, but he gags and spits it out, looking at me like I'm trying to poision him. I'm not sure how much more to push, or how much more to to just let him be since he seems very happy with our current feeding arrangement. Things were so much easier when all he could do was drink! :) He loves drinking out of a sippy cup with a straw on it, but I still hold his bottle for him. I'll admit--he probably could do it himself, but that's one thing I'm not ready to give up yet. I cherish the brief moments he will stit still in my lap, while I feed him a bottle. I hate to think of handing him a bottle, and going about doing something else.
Right there with ya...

[blnony]

I know. I hate to push things, because I think when she's ready she'll be ready...but all the other kids in our playgroups around Audrey's age are way beyond her eating wise, and the other moms are always asking me about it. It makes me feel like a failure. Everyone keeps asking, is she still on babyfood??? Like I'm raising Forrest Gump or something. :(
It does make me mad, but I don't want to make eating a battle or something she doesn't like. One idea my Ped. had is trying the Stage Three "dinners" like Spagetti and meats with veggies and just trying a little at time at each meal. This so far has cost kind of a lot of money, with no results. I try giving her little bits off my plate, and she just mashs it into her highchair tray and smears it everywhere like fingerpaint!! ARGGG! I don't know. I just keep telling myself hopefully by kindergarten she will be eating real food, and I won't have to pack little jars in her lunchbox. :) (along with her dueling passys.)

[daisymommy]

The other day, I ran into a lady from my Lamaze classs who's son was born the week before Joshua. He is eating table food straight off his own plate. AACK! Boy do I ever feel like a failure as well. But I just secretly keep telling myself that I'm going to follow Josh's lead, and try different foods every once in awhile, and when he's ready, he'll let me know. He has taken longer to do some other things, and maybe this is just one of them too. I don't want to force him if he's not ready, and make him hate eating because he's afraid of gagging everytime. We have Josh's 10 month checkup today, and I'm afraid of hearing it from the Ped. though!...plus I still rock him to sleep, but that's a whole other topic :)

[Ryansmom]

So glad I read this post. We are also stuck on stage 2 plus some (a few) Cheerios. Ryan's "friends" are eating everything in sight -although yesterday he did eat a few crumbs of a blueberry muffin. Our main problem is he gags on anything with texture. When he gags, he generally throws up all of his meal. I have learned to give texture only at the beginning of the meal to hopefully not loose everything he just ate. We recently tried tiny bits of colby-jack cheese and he seemed to like it.

Ryan holds his own bottle and generally does not let me hold it - which I miss very much. However, he has no clue about sippy cups. He just chews on the end. I always feel akward at playdates - no sippy cups or goldfish for us... :(

Anyway, glad to hear we aren't the only ones. I will let you know if I find anything else helpful. :)

[shall85296]

We have been fortunate in that our 10 mos. old son demands to eat everything we are eating. I get about every 3rd bit of what I am eating... one for me, one for the baby, and one for the pup.

But... he won't eat "baby food" w/ lumpy texture - pureed oatmeal for example. He will only eat the boxed cereal type - which is perplexing me. I keep trying it - but to no avail.

Anyway- I read the Ellen Satters book, and thought it was useless quite frankly. I needed info on what to feed my baby - and when! So I found the Super Baby Food Diet book - and it told me everything I needed to know. Especially about what foods to introduce when. The only thing that didn't work for me were the homeade cereals - which he won't eat because of the texture.

[egoldber]

It may not seem like it, but he really will start to eat those textured foods eventually! You are absolutely right to follow his lead. The worst thing you can do is to push him to accept foods he isn't ready for. Let him go at his own pace, but keep offering him new foods and textures, and he will eventually accept them. Actually, this is why the Satter book doesn't talk about what foods to introduce when, because all babies are ready at different stages for different foods. You are doing your job, and letting him do his, and that's all you can do!

[daisymommy]

We had our ten month checkup today, and he basically said the exact same thing Beth said. I was so happy to not hear him say I was doing something wrong, or that I really needed to be trying harder. The Ped. said don't make it a battle so that Josh hates eating, keep encouraging him every once in awhile, he's healthy and getting the calories, vitamins and protein, iron he needs now, and not to stress about it. I asked half joking, half serious if I was going to mess him up developmentally if he wasn't on table food soon, and the Ped. just laughed and said "Of course not! Everyone is in such a hurry for their babies to grow up and do everything so fast. He'll do it in his own time." Hooray! I guess well be fine.

[blnony]

YEAH!!!!! Maybe I should call your Ped. and get a pep talk!:) I also think its a thing they will do in their own time. I still worry about it, but I think it will be like everything else I once stressed over; I look back and wonder why I was so freaked when everything worked out fine and there was no need to worry so much. I guess that mommyhood though!:)

[jenmcadams]

Thanks to both of you for making me feel like we're not alone :) Abbie has been eating pureed foods and (pretty thick) cereals since 6 months, but she absolutely refuses anything with texture. She eats a wide variety of fruits, veggies (especially orange and yellow veggies) and will eat any kind of cereal, but she won't touch any type of texture, table foods or finger foods. I always make sure there's something on her tray (e.g. cheerios that I've soaked in milk, thawed frozen veggies, cut up pasta with parmesan, etc.) and we offer her pieces of what we're eating, but the most she ever does is pick it up and mush it in her hands. My DH and I can't believe that she'll put everything but food in her mouth...from dog hair to toys to paper she finds on the ground, she'll stuff that right in, but as soon as we offer her some food that's not pureed, she clamps right up. She also thinks sippy cups are teething toys and only puts the spot in her mouth half the time...the other half the time, she's chewing on a handle or the bottom (which is why I rarely give her a cup without a spout...it's such a mess to clean up and she doesn't seem to be making the connection b/t the cup and the liquid).

Oh well...it's good to hear that others are experiencing similar things. My Ped has said not to worry about it...she's developing normally otherwise and definitely isn't small from a weight perspective.

Good luck and let me know if you find any magic cures :)