Feeding a Baby

My post about feeding a toddler was all about what Noah eats now that he is 1 year old and how I make sure he gets a healthy and balanced diet at home and at daycare. Noah is just not the picky eater type (have you seen his belly?), but I like to think that it also has something to do with the way we’ve approached feeding him from a very early age on. I did read quite a bit about what’s “normal” and what other parents do, but not all of it made sense to me and we decided to take all that overwhelming information with a grain of salt and trust our instincts instead...

The first time I had to think about/re think the way I thought all of this was going to work is when at about 4 months my breast milk supply started to dwindle. I did have a small stash of milk in the freezer, but that disappeared quicker than expected as well. Before Noah was born, I was determined to breastfeed him until he was old enough for solid food and that he wouldn’t be a formula baby. But then I went back to work and even though they have mom’s rooms where moms can go pump, it was exhausting to drop what I was doing every 2 hours to be hooked up to a milk machine. It didn’t help at all with me getting back into the rhythm at work and it wasn’t the most comfortable experience for my body either when a meeting took longer and I didn’t find a chance to pump for a few hours. So without making a conscious decision about it, by pumping less often every day, I trained my body to produce less and less while Noah was growing and needed more food. I did feel bad for a while; no formula was my one principle I had, the one aspect I was certain about when it came to how to raise my child (you’d think there would have been more important ones, but let’s be honest, I just didn’t know what I was getting myself into, and this seemed an easy one to make a firm decision on). But it just didn’t work out. Looking back at it now, it forced me to be more flexible with my own expectations and I learned that it is okay to abandon your principles when circumstances change.

We postponed the trip to the baby food aisle at the grocery store until pretty much the last minute when we realized Noah wouldn’t have enough breast milk to last him through the week at daycare. We reviewed different options, read a million labels, and decided to try an organic store brand formula. I shouldn’t have been surprised but Noah loved it right away and completely finished his first bottle. I didn’t get it. For those of you who haven’t had the chance to taste the difference between sweet breast milk and iron fortified formula: the taste of formula lies somewhere between licking an iron bar and chewing on crushed up seashells. Yuck. But hey, Noah liked it, and it made everyone happier. And then I quickly realized that it was okay. I didn’t owe anyone an explanation, and it is what worked for us. It allowed me to focus on my work while at the office, knowing that Noah would be okay and fed and happy. For a while I had felt like I was failing at being a good mom by not giving him all I possibly could, but once all the stress around feeding him disappeared, it quickly became clear that it was the best thing I could have done. You can’t always do it all. And by substituting with formula I made a choice to be a happier, more relaxed mom at the expense of him drinking that yucky formula for a few months. There are much worse things a mom can do, wouldn’t you agree? 

They say anywhere between 4 and 6 months is when you’re supposed to introduce solids. We wanted to wait until Noah was 6 months old, because his pediatrician said a later start lowers the risk of children developing allergies, but he was so interested in what we were eating, and I have to admit, we were just ready to see his facial expression at his first bite of food (yes, I did take a video!). So on January 1^st 2014, at 5 months old, we started with pureed everything: carrots, broccoli, sweet potatoes, peas, apple sauce, etc. Since it’s all just fun and games at that age anyway, we experimented with different things and pretty quickly just offered him food to chew on as well: bananas, water melon, steamed slices of carrots or sweet potato, etc. I don’t even remember how introducing ‘real’ food vs just purees happened, but we just didn’t overthink it. It was more like, hey, do you want to see what he does with a banana? Sure, let’s give it a try! Only when I mentioned it to my cousin whose daughter is only a few weeks older than Noah (Hi!) and she responded with something along the lines of “oh, we’re trying baby led weaning too” is when I realized, there was a name for what we were doing. Baby-led weaning allows babies to control their solid food consumption by "self-feeding" from the very beginning of their experiences with food. While I totally agree with the approach to let children experiment with food and try different flavors and textures with all their senses, the part that bothered me was the sense that you had to either subscribe to this method, and classic baby food and purees were now a no-go, or not do it at all. Many parenting blogs or websites have that feel on about every topic that is out there: it’s either or, this or that, often with a bit of judgment; oh, you’re one of those moms! If you want be part of this club you better stop feeding your child with a spoon right this second! How frustrating! Not only does that mean that you’re constantly getting feedback from complete strangers that you’re doing something wrong, you can’t help but second guess your choices and reevaluate everything you do constantly. Not that reevaluating your though process is a bad thing, it’s quite the opposite in my opinion, but it’s sometimes easier said than done to trust your own instincts, and it didn’t make it easier for me when I constantly felt I was deciding against something/disagreeing with aspects of different schools of thought. 

I think what helped me in figuring out what I wanted for Noah is breaking it down to the smallest questions I had to make a decision on. Answering the question whether to feed a banana whole or mashed up in the moment is a much easier decision to make than what general feeding method is right for you and your family. And that applies to so many things. You’ll never know if something works until you give it a try and you can always (ok, most of the time) change your mind. Isn’t that what parenting is all about? Making a million small decisions about your child’s life (sure, and a few pretty big ones) every day? Yes, it sounds scary and like a lot of responsibility, but the good news is: you get a million chances to do it right, and if you do it all with your child’s best interest in mind and you take the time to step back and consider all aspects, you have a good chance of not doing it all wrong. Ha, listen to me getting all philosophical about raising a kid when all I wanted to share was how we got to where we are by keeping an open mind and trying different things with Noah’s first experiences with food. 

One last thing I have to say: I talk about me and my decisions quite a bit, but while I was doing all the reading and collecting tons of information, Tony was and is very much involved in those million decisions we make every day. That’s by the way also a plus for our relationship. I may not always agree with how he wants to do things (and vice versa), but in areas where there’s no need to be strict, what’s the harm in just trying it both ways and see what actually works? 

Thanks to those of you who stayed until the end, and welcome back to the ones who just skimmed through the middle section. 

Here are a few final thoughts and tips on what worked for us:

• I shouldn’t have to say this, but be careful and be close by when your little one chews on things they could choke on. We’ve never had an issue with it and babies do have a good gag reflex, but you probably don’t want to leave your 6 months old alone with his chunks of food. 
•  Cantaloupe was great for a while. Any fruit for that matter. When it’s nice and cold it can also help with teething (so I hear, Noah doesn’t like super cold food). 
• Try (almost) everything and be prepared for it to get refused. Just try it again the next day. You might be surprised what they all like. I liked adding spices too. They will let you know if they don’t like it. 
• It’s okay if your baby eats nothing but strawberries for dinner if that’s what they want. At this age, it’s all about learning, not about the nutritional value, which they still get from breast milk or formula.
• We used these fresh food feeders for a while, thinking it would be safer, but they were used more as a toy and he didn’t get to feel all the fun textures. 
• Be prepared for a mess. We removed the cover from our high chair (no, I wasn’t going to wash it every night, a diaper is cushion enough) and I’m glad we went with a boring standard plastic version instead of one of the pretty wooden ones I had originally wanted. 
• Try different sizes. Large chunks are easy to grab and suck on; peas and blueberries are excellent for fine motor skill development. 
• Don’t let others (including your pediatrician) scare you away from it. 
• It is recommended that you introduce one type of food at a time and wait a few days before the next one to make sure they’re not allergic. We were careful with the introduction of yoghurt and grains, but that’s about it. I didn’t think he was going to develop a carrot, pea, or apple allergy. But you never know.