parental interest in solids

As the mother of a two and a half month old, I can't yet imagine wanting to
give her food until she insists upon it (unless there was a health need).
My typical response to "When will she start eating food?" is "When she can
pry it from my clenched fist, or sneak it like the dogs." I will be happy
to have a big girl which I know will happen soon enough. But when she does
start eating, I know I will have to deal with -- am I providing the best
nutrition I can? Is she getting enough water? Should I have introduced
that food? Gosh that poo smells. Etc.

But I know it is a very common desire of parents on this board and IRL to
have their babies on solid food at around 6 months or shortly thereafter.
What are some of the reasons you guys have wanted your babies on solids?

-- Dagny
Mom to Meg, 10/03

"Dagny" wrote in message hlink.net...
As the mother of a two and a half month old, I can't yet imagine wanting to
give her food until she insists upon it (unless there was a health need).
My typical response to "When will she start eating food?" is "When she can
pry it from my clenched fist, or sneak it like the dogs." I will be happy
to have a big girl which I know will happen soon enough. But when she does
start eating, I know I will have to deal with -- am I providing the best
nutrition I can? Is she getting enough water? Should I have introduced
that food? Gosh that poo smells. Etc.

But I know it is a very common desire of parents on this board and IRL to
have their babies on solid food at around 6 months or shortly thereafter.
What are some of the reasons you guys have wanted your babies on solids?

Moo boy started to get very interested in us eating at around 5 months
old so I felt a bit mean when he couldnt join in. He will grab food
off the plate, but then again he will grab anything near him! Health
wise I am not concerned about him being anaemic, he looks fine to me.
Development wise I wanted him to be able to experience the fun of
eating, squishing food between fingers, throwing it at the floor etc
and tasting things other than milk. I am not too fussed how much he
eats as long as he actually tastes a bit of it. I have just given
him a taste of a cold potato I was munching because he was interested
in it. We started solids at 6 months, he is nearly 7 months old now
and has about half a teaspoon of food a day unless its banana where he
will go for about a tablespoon! He only gets fresh organic stuff in
the order least likely to cause allergies, so no wheat etc for ages
yet.

I suppose for myself I had a dream of being able to leave him with his
dad for longer (he won't take EBM in a bottle or cup and is fed on
demand to his own erratic schedule)

teapot and

x c nnnnnnkuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

(Moo boy)

IRL there is simply a lot of pressure to introduce solids, mostly from the
older generation who did so at very early ages and want to believe that was
necessary/good for babies. So you hear things like, "You started cereal at two
weeks and you loved it!" or "That baby is way too big to wait until six months
to eat."

Leslie

"Dagny" wrote in message hlink.net...

What are some of the reasons you guys have wanted your babies on solids?

I didn't want mine on solids until he was interested.

Since I had no plans to start solids at any particular time, it was
necessary to assure the pediatrician that I'd start DS on solids when
he grabbed for my food and stuck it in his mouth. He did that in
mid-May with a piece of pita bread, about two weeks after the ped
warned me that if I didn't get him started on solids he'd be one of
those babies who only wanted mama and refused solid food.

He is now a voracious eater of just about anything (sardines,
clementines, tomatoes in balsamic vinegrette, chocolate, capers), so
he was just one of those kids who's really interested in food. I also
know a 2.5 year old who was nursed on demand and allowed to start
solids on her own, and she's still only really interested in eating
cheese and in nursing -- so it's not that the tactic per se guarantees
a baby who's mad keen for food.

--
C, mama to one year old nursling

(Leslie) wrote in message ...
IRL there is simply a lot of pressure to introduce solids, mostly from the
older generation who did so at very early ages and want to believe that was
necessary/good for babies. So you hear things like, "You started cereal at two
weeks and you loved it!" or "That baby is way too big to wait until six months
to eat."

Or (my personal favorite) "How is that child ever going to learn to eat real food?".

--
C, mama to one year old nursling

Dagny wrote:

But I know it is a very common desire of parents on this board and
IRL to have their babies on solid food at around 6 months or shortly
thereafter. What are some of the reasons you guys have wanted your
babies on solids?

I didn't particularly "want" to start him on solids, beyond letting him eat
them when he was ready and to go at his own pace. He started very slowly at
six months, and has been building up the amount he eat since then (he'll be
10 months on 1/8/04).

--
Belphoebe

Dagny wrote:
What are some of the reasons you guys have wanted your
babies on solids?
At 6 months? Because that's when the AAP (and most of the world-wide
equivalents) recommend offering solids, even for allergic babies.

I don't have any philosophical objection to waiting until she snatches food
from my plate. But I do have a practical objection - we eat a lot of
heavily salted, commonly allergenic food in our house, and I don't want her
first solids to be a stolen taste of yogurt (she gets eczema if I eat it),
or wheat noodles (she can't tolerate wheat in my diet), or peanut candy, or
a shrimp, or scrambled egg, or tofu.

By having a list of "these are things she can eat, everything else is
off-limits," I've got the support of her grandparents, who are used to
babies starting solids much younger and don't really get the whole "delayed
solids" thing, but are willing to follow rules that they think are overly
cautious but not completely unreasonable. Since Caterpillar is an avid food
watcher, and makes "yum yum" mouth movements at the sight of people eating,
a strict no-solids policy for a 6 or 7 month old would seem unreasonable to
them.

Personally, I'd like her to be able to eat some variation on table food
soon, because I don't have any particular desire to make and clean up mush.
So we have rice and sweet potato now, and when we add turkey, she can
have turkey soup. And when we add white potato, then she can have
rice-flour bread (and I'll have a reason to make rice-flour bread, because
I'm not willing to learn wheat-free baking just for myself).

At this point, I assume she's not getting any nutrition from solids, so as
long as she keeps nursing a lot, I'm not worried there. She has a bottle of
water she drinks from if she wants to, and she drinks a lot of bathwater, so
no worries there. I do worry about whether the odd bad night is really a
food reaction, but waiting wouldn't change that. And she's been plenty
stinky just on bm, so that's not a big deal.

Phoebe
--
yahoo address is unread; substitute mailbolt

Phoebe & Allyson wrote:

Dagny wrote:
What are some of the reasons you guys have wanted your
babies on solids?
At 6 months? Because that's when the AAP (and most of the world-wide
equivalents) recommend offering solids, even for allergic babies.

And, I found it kind of fun. It was fun to watch her discover new
tastes and textures. It was cute when she was covered in peas.
And she liked them. We did wait until 6 months, but she was
showing plenty of interest earlier.

My other main reason was that starting at ~4-5 months, she
refused to nurse in public. I think the world was just too
interesting. Shortly after that she refused to nurse in any position
other than laying down. When she started on solids, we had
more freedom - I knew she'd at least eat something while we
were out, which could hold her over until we got home
to nurse.

Mary

"Dagny" wrote in message news:Hz9Jb.15852 But I know it is a very common desire of parents on this board and IRL to
have their babies on solid food at around 6 months or shortly thereafter.
What are some of the reasons you guys have wanted your babies on solids?



My baby was hungry. It's as simple as that. I always try to follow
my instincts when parenting, and my instincts said my baby wants food,
she will have it.

KC

Dagny wrote:

What are some of the reasons you guys have wanted your babies on solids?

Pillbug watched EVERY bit of food we ate with
eagle eyes and made chewing motions constantly.
He also grabbed at everything. I held off all
the grandparents who wanted him started by 4
months; by 6 months, he was developmentally
ready (something about digestive system is
mature enough). Of course, now that we are
giving him solids, he will spit them out, and
still make chewing motions...

The main reason was that I wanted him to
experience the textures and I did not want
him to delay starting solids until after a
year, which I had read was possible if we
started too late.

-- Anita --
Mama of Pillbug, almost 7 months, who finally
pooped today after 3 anxious days of every
diaper being examined carefully... boy was
that a stinker!

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