Hello, Dear Readers.
I have a few questions about food that I want to throw out there in the blogosphere. Thanks in advance for your answers.
Right now I nurse the boys in the morning before I go to school. [~6 A.M.] After their first nap they split a jar of vegetables, have rice cereal, and have a 4 oz bottle of milk. [~9 A.M.] More play time, another nap, and then they split a jar of fruit, more rice cereal, and have a 4 oz bottle of milk. [~Noon] Play, nap, and then I nurse them around 3:30 or so. Either rice cereal or oatmeal around 5, plus they spilt another jar of vegetables. Around 7, they each have a 7 oz. bottle of milk and go to bed.
So, how do I go about transitioning them to drinking out of sippy cups? Will they drink milk from the sippy cups? I know they can't have cow's milk until they are a year old, so do I give them breast milk/formula, which is what they currently drink from their bottles? Water? Juice? What kind of finger foods would be the best to start them on? When should I start feeding them table food instead of jarred baby food. Is there anyone who wants to hire us a personal chef so that said table food will magically appear at our table? Should I adjust this schedule?
Is it Friday yet? (Whoops. That last one snuck in there. It's been a long semester.)
(They'll be 8 months old in 10 days. Ack! They'll be 8 months old in 10 days?!? How did this happen?)
4 comments:
Sounds like they are great eaters! As far as the table food goes, I would start them on Cheerios or Puffs (Gerber). Those both dissolve pretty easily in the mouth and it lets them practice their hand/eye coordination trying to pick them up (you will be surprised at how quickly they get the hang of it though!) Once they have the hang of those, you can try adding other things like peas or cut up banana, etc. (soft, small)
As far as the sippy cup goes, it will probably be trial-and-error to see what works for you. You could start by giving them a sippy cup with water when they eat baby food... they won't drink much at first but they will start to get used to the cup (you may also have to take out the valve at first so that they realize there is something in there to drink). If they don't seem particularly interested in water, I'd try the breast milk next - and if that doesn't work, you can try diluted juice (like half water). But I would start with water while they are getting used to it - you never know, they may love it! And it is easy to clean if they spill :)
We started Katherine with Gerber Puffs for her first finger food and she loved them. We also tried Cheerios, but she choked on those a bit, so we stuck with the Puffs for a while.
We had a bit of a rough time with sippy cups. We tried various cups and it took a while before K "got it" and took to the cup.
Katherine never did regular bottles, so we did not have an issue with switching from a bottle to a sippy cup. We only put water in the sippy cup and then eventually whole milk. I never had the need to put breast milk in the cups.
I think it depends on the boys and what works for all of you. I would start with water and try that for a while before trying anything else. It often takes a while for things to click, so give it time before switching to try something else.
We also had these Munchkin Fresh Feeder bags that are basically mesh bags that the kid chews on and eventually tiny pieces of food come out of the bag. We put things like bananas, strawberries, and other fruits and veggies in there. That allowed K to eat and we did not panic about things being too big for her to eat.
By 8 months old Katherine was eating small lumps of food by herself. This allowed her to get used to feeding herself and also got her used to the feeling of various foods in her mouth. I'd start giving the boys some finger foods to let them try it out.
Good luck! I know it's hard transitioning to the next phase of eating. I can't believer they will be 8 months old soon!
Hooray for the boys loving rice cereal and veggies! That alone can be a battle with some little ones.
We started Madeline with a sippy cup (valve removed) full of water pretty early. It's messy to start, but if you get one with two handles they'll get the hang of it pretty quickly and be managing the "up" part on their own in no time. (Setting the cup down correctly is more of a challenge, so expect some spills here.) At our doctor's recommendation (and my personal preference as more of a Crystal Light drinker and fruit eater) we haven't done juice at all. Madeline LOVES water and demands it at every solid food meal. We bring a sippy cup with us wherever we go out and she demands water at every non-milk meal. (A note ... juice can also cause looser stools, so Colette's recommendation to dilute is a great one.) We've also not put breast milk into the sippy cup, so she expects water in the cup and milk in the bottle and thinks of these as very separate parts of the meal. When she transitions to cows milk in a few months, then we'll probably put water in the bottle (during weaning) and real milk into the sippy. Uncertain. Right now, I like that she knows what to expect from the sippy cup, and so can "ask" for milk (sign, gesture, grunt, grab for mom) and water (this is usually a table slam or a reach for my glass) as separate concepts.
Cherrios are absolutely a great first food. (And if you look at the nutritional info, they're almost identical to baby oatmeal, so you really can feel good about giving them as a snack.) We started really early (6 or 7 months?) with some softer veggies (sweet potato cubes) and then moved on to Cherrios and peas and banana quarters pretty quickly as her pincher grip improved. Carrots can be good too, but you have to boil them for years to get them soft enough for little gums to mash down. When you get to pasta, the wheels are excellent for this as well. Nice and big to grab, and super soft and easy to mash.
If you're looking for recipes and suggestions, I found this website to be more helpful than most of the books I bought on the subject: http://www.homemade-baby-food-recipes.com/index.html.
Sounds like they're doing great. And 8 months old! Where does the time go?!?
Yikes! Apologies for the super redundant posting. Not sure what happened there, but it looks like my comment showed up 6 or 8 times. :(
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