Austin's New Menu

Austin is over 6 mo. By any standards, it is time to start feeding him solids in some form. I decided we were going to get into a routine this weekend. I pretty much gave up on strict BLW because it failed miserably. If he needed to get calories actually into him instead of onto him, I was going to have to operate the spoon. I had very little success on Saturday, but I did get about ½ teaspoon of avocado into him. On Sunday I got a little more avocado and less than a teaspoon of oatmeal into him before he started “blowing bubbles” with each mouthful of food. Blowing bubbles isn’t so cute when you have a mouthful of oatmeal. I didn’t know I needed a bib to feed this boy!

I noticed a problem on Sunday… no stinky diapers all day long. For reference, we usually get 3-4, and one of those generally necessitates a complete change of clothing. I wanted to watch him to see how he did on Monday before giving him any more solids. Dallas took Austin to Fran’s on Monday with a bag full of milk as usual.

Big mistake! Fran met me at the door on Monday afternoon when I picked up Austin with the following words, “I need to talk to you about his food.” Uh-oh. Fran has been hinting/suggesting/recommending food since Austin was 4 mo. I told her I had no plans to feed him until he was 6 mo, and she agreed in the polite way of hers that clearly says I’m not doing it the right way. Apparently, she got tired of waiting for me to act. She told me in no uncertain (but polite) terms that Austin needed solids starting on Tuesday. I tried to explain that I was feeding him solids, but was concerned about constipation. I blame Dallas for not explaining about the constipation when he dropped Austin off!

Long story short, I explained how I planned to introduce solids, how I wanted solids to fit into Austin’s schedule, etc. Fran pretty much disagreed with everything I said. She disagreed politely and said that I was the parent and she would follow my instructions, but in her experience… Again, I got the message that I wasn’t doing it right. In the end, I told her to do it her way and tell me what foods she needed. That made her happy. And so Austin’s journey with solids began. It began along a different path and in a different direction than I planned on taking, but it began.

I realized as I left daycare that I really needed to just let this one go. Generations of babies have started with pureed food and worked their way up to solids. Fran has done this many times with many babies, and Fran takes care of him for 5 of his 7 meals a week. He is going to do great…and probably progress faster under Fran’s experienced tutelage. I am so thankful to have such a wonderful caregiver who is looking out for Austin’s needs and interests and who will give me sound advice when needed.

As expected, Austin did much better eating his carrots and apples with Fran on Tuesday than he did with me. Fran believes that Austin is going to be a great eater…he is, after all, his daddy’s boy. I was vindicated just a little bit, however, on Wednesday. Austin decided he had enough carrots and proceeded to spit them all over Fran! Maybe it wasn’t just because I was doing it wrong! Fran said it is because Austin is so smart. She said he wasn’t hungry and was just letting her know. She tried to feed him a little later, and he ate great!

We’ve had a week of carrots, apples, and oatmeal. I’ll let you know what he will be eating next week…once Fran gives me the menu!