Solids!

Ruby has started eating solids! We decided to wait until 6 months and do the Baby Led Weaning approach. (Note that the word weaning is not meant in the sense of replacing nursing yet, but just in adding solid foods.) So far, we are having lots of fun!

So far, Ruby has tried:

  • Avocado
  • Steamed apple
  • Steamed butternut squash
  • Chicken (white meat)
  • Banana
  • Roasted sweet potato
  • Plain whole milk yogurt
  • Oatmeal
  • Apple sauce

It’s amazing to watch her navigate picking things up and getting them into her mouth, and she has gotten better at those skills even just in the two weeks since we began. You have to cut the pieces big enough that she can hold them (lesson learned – the first day I cut things too thin and they all broke), and small enough that she won’t choke. She tends to get the pieces in her mouth and then suck on them a bit. She isn’t actually swallowing a whole lot yet, but I know she’s getting some (ahem, I do see what’s in her diapers), and it’s really about exploration at this stage.

The oatmeal is fun because I prepared some regular rolled oats with less water, and rolled it into little nuggets. She really seems to like that a lot! The yogurt and apple sauce are the only things I’ve tried with a spoon so far, and she is always eager to grasp the spoon and put it in her mouth herself, which makes me glad we are going the BLW route!

It’s a bit messy, but she seems to make more of a mess of the things she eats off a spoon, so it’s really just picking the chunks out of her highchair when she drops things, and being ready with a wet cloth at the end. The first day, we stripped her down and really let her go wild, so she did get pretty messy, but since then, she’s been doing pretty well with all a cloth bib underneath a Tommy Tippee rubber bib.

I am just loving watching Ruby grow! She is learning new things every day, and it is just so cool.

-Anna

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