Adventures in Solid Foods

Since Gabriela turned 6 months, we have been trying to be more consistent about giving her two meals of “solid” foods a day in addition to her fabulous breastmilk diet.

We aren't sure what she thinks about it all. Gabriela definitely likes avocado. When we tried to feed her butternut squash, which I thought she would absolutely love, she made this terrible face like she was trying to vomit or gag. But then as a scientific controlled experiment, we fed her avocado and she made no such faces or attempts to get rid of her food. I guess she just doesn’t dig the squash.

Gabriela still hasn’t quite gotten the whole swallowing thing down either. She sucks her thumb lots (still), and insists on putting a thumb in her mouth following every bite of food. We have tried to explain that we are not giving her dipping sauce for her thumb sucking, but she doesn’t listen. This results in slimy, gooey hands, which she then runs through her glorious locks of hair, making for one entirely sticky baby that needs to go immediately from high chair to bath tub.

So far she has tried bananas, avocado, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, and pears. Gabriela didn’t seem to be a fan of sweet potatoes, squash or even the sugary sweet fresh pears. They say to keep offering foods even if the baby doesn’t take to them right away, so we will continue to try.

I plan on making all her baby food. We'll see how that goes. So far it's been really easy. I hope Gabriela takes a liking to her squash and sweet potatoes - I cut some up and froze them so I only have to take out a couple cubes at a time, cook 'em up, blend them with some breast milk and then have a couple feedings worth.

What's next on Gabriela's menu, you might ask? Mango and Peas but not together. We'll let you know the report we get from Gabriela and her ever expanding palate!