Adventures in baby food

Well...I had fully intended to adhere to the AAP recommendations to begin Anna on solids at 6 months old. However, after surviving on 4-5 hours of interrupted sleep per night for a period of 2 weeks, I was ready to try anything that might make her sleep. We gave her some cereal 3 days shy of the 6 month mark--gasp! I'm sure food allergies are right around the corner (not really), but this mama was desperate for some sleep. (Not that the cereal made a bit of difference in her sleep, by the way.)

We took this:

(Close-up of the spoon--isn't it cute? Stainless steel, bought it on Etsy.)

Added this:

And this happened:

"What is this?"

"This looks nothing like what you guys had for dinner."

"Hmmmm....tastes like mushy cardboard."

"What? You're gonna make me do this again?"

This one's blurry, but I think the pursed lips tell the story. Or you can watch the video to see the gagging.

Anna's first bite from Angela Gianini on Vimeo.

The cereal was too thick so I tried thinning it. She still wouldn't eat it. I thought that the whole ordeal was probably a sign she wasn't quite ready for solids, so decided to attempt again next week.

However, I had 2 extra sweet potatoes lying around this week, so cooked and pureed them and tried again. Guess what?

She looooooooooved them.

When she finished off the bowl, she started licking the stray bits from her fists and bib.

Sweet potatoes were Will's first food and he loved them, too--must be evidence of their Tuten genes. :-)

I stored the remaining sweet potato puree in containers I purchased from One Step Ahead. Since I have more free time on my hands with this baby, I'm going to try making her food and freezing it. I love this website, which has lots of recipes and tips. For some reason, I was really turned off by a lot of the jarred food when I fed it to Will. The smell of the Gerber Squash triggered my gag reflex and just the appearance of the jarred meats really disturbed me. I didn't give Will any pureed meats other than a Chicken and Rice combo (and I usually sent that to daycare so they could feed it to him), so he was almost a vegetarian until he was old enough to chew up small pieces of meat. Somehow, though, I think I will be less grossed out by foods that I make and then puree. Maybe. Maybe not. I'll keep you posted. :-)