Feeding Time

For anyone new to the blog, I am a mom of five kids. The oldest child is now seven, the youngest is 6 months old. I was originally just going to blog my pregnancy and birth on the fifth baby, which I did, but now I am blogging "after the birth". If you are pregnant, you can go through some of the older blogs for "what to do's and how to's"

The above photo is of Miley, my six month old. Last time I weighed her she was 19 lbs. and she is a "hunk" of a baby. She started getting hungry around 4 months of age. Some of the first signs are-not sleeping through the night (my first biggie), and staring lovingly at your food and becoming very interested with your chewing habits. Also, they will try to take food out of your mouth. I was going to be "very good" on this one and only feed her bland food for the first year, but I can't help it, if I'm eating sushi, I give some to her. So, she's had: mashed potatoes, green beans, cooked carrots, beef stroganoff, some seaweed fishy soup they serve at the sushi place, bananas, mashed avocados, and mashed soft boiled egg yolk. Oh, plus, some squashed pinto beans, chicken tortilla soup, and a chip. Is that bad? At least I've just given her water to drink, oh, and a little emergen c, and some sweet green tea. Oh well. She ate blandly for one week at least. I keep thinking I need to do some rice cereal, I just haven't gotten around to that one. She's just SO hungry at mealtimes, that if I have forgotten to bring the avocado "container", I give her what we are eating.

I have an awesome baby food maker on my kitchenaid mixer. It's just and attachment that makes the food super soft and baby foodish, but with five kids in tow, I'm just trying to remember the diapers when we leave the house. I will say, her lunch today was flavorful, but dinner tonight was salt free and bland and she still ate it all up. Praise God.

I'm sure there is something particular you are supposed to do when you start feeding the baby, but I did that with my first child and probably the second, and then lost all "reading control". All of the books I had read on feeding time just slipped out of my mind and I began to wing it. My third and fourth children eat very very well. There's very little they won't eat, including olives and super garlicky caesar salad.

There's one tempting item at the buffet or out to eat that I REALLY try to NOT give. And it's the EASIEST one TO give. Rolls. Lots and lots of rolls. I have had real candida issues in the past and yeasty rolls, bread, is always the culprit. Signs of yeast or candida include: skin issues (eczema, spotty skin on the face, cradle cap, and itchy skin) and sometimes thrush when they are younger. I have written on this twice before, so look in the archives for what to do on this, but I'm finding some children are SUPER sensitive to white flour or to too much wheat too quickly, so this is my one feeding line I dance around quite lightly.

The little silicone bowl behine Miley is the bowl I use. She eats about 1.5 tablespoons now, but started with one bite on the first time in her seat. She really choked the first two times and I just slapped her back a couple of times but kept at it. I have skipped one day of feeding in the last three or four weeks and she woke up in the night that night, so I'm doing it more out of wanting to sleep through the night than anything else.

She REALLY opposed it the first week or two. She choked, she spit, she blew bubbles and then suddenly, she chewed. I prayed over her, spoke over her, put on my ipod, whatever I could do to get through the feeding sessions and then when she actually chewed, I wanted to take some video. It has been the highlight of 2010 so far. Now, if Michael would potty train, that would take the highlights of my life to a whole new level.