Little Kite Girl

Soooo…the big “solids” debate. From the very beginning I knew that Camper would be an eater. When I was learning to nurse him in the NICU, my favorite lactation consultant picked him up and cuddled him and noted how he turned to her to try and nurse. She said, “This ones an eater. We gotta get your supply up, now.” And it turned out, he was. He’d nurse for 45 minutes on each side every 2 hours. It was exhausting. When we started him on formula he ate all the time, as well. Some people say that babies eat less or less often on formula. Not Bubby. As time has gone by he’s even off at about 4 oz. (he was up to 6 oz. a time at one point) every 3 hours. What’s so confusing is that it stays that way…I think he’s meant to start eating more food less often, but not Bubby. He likes 4 oz. every 3 hours all day, all night. For awhile after he turned 3.5/4 months old he wanted to eat 2/3 oz. every 2 hours- and that’s when the doc said to introduce solids.

I decided to make the food myself- for a 5 month old it’s so simple to steam some veggies, puree and freeze. He likes carrots the most, peas the least, and I couldn’t even bring myself to make him eat the spinach. I quickly figured out that fruit is expensive in the wintertime! So although I really want to make his food myself, I am buying the fruits for now. He likes applesauce (just all natural applesauce, not necessarily babyfood), pears, (LOVES the pears!), and bananas. He also loves sweet potatoes, but I’m not too keen on them because I’m not sure he should be eating something so starchy? I started him on rice cereal (as is recommended), and when it became clear that he enjoyed that, I started adding the other foods. He loves all those fruits and veggies, rice cereal, mixed cereal and oatmeal. Just recently he seemed to be eating less of his bottles- so I’ve backed off the cereal a bit. I think that because he IS so young, his bottles are the most important thing. So instead of food 2x a day, he only gets it once a day, and although I still give him a little bit of a few things, I give him less food overall. A meal might look like this:

Carrots, Rice cereal Formula
Peas, Mixed cereal and Pears
Sweet Potatoes with Oatmeal and some Applesauce (cold from the fridge)

You get the idea. What I’m wondering though, is if it is really important for him to eat a bottle before eating, or if I can just still a solid meal in there in the middle of the day and have it be fine. I don’t want him to get dehydrated…especially because solid food isn’t nutritionally important to him right now. It’s simply a nice bonus, tastes good, and fills him stomach up in a way that he likes.

This afternoon I was eating my lunch and he actually got mad that I wasn’t giving him any- poor thing sitting there with his mouth open begging me for a taste. So I went down and fed him, and he was all smiles. I’ve been looking for a book on what to feed a 5 month old, but so far all I’ve found is this site. I’m not sure how I feel about it- especially because Bubby doesn’t like big bottles. From what I’ve heard for adults, smaller meals more often is healthy. I feel like any advice I get from the formlua/baby food companies are all given to make me buy the most amount of their product possible. So I think we’re going to keep following Bubby’s cues. It might mean more work for me, but so far Bubby’s weight and height to weight ratios are just perfect, so we can’t be doing anything terribly wrong.