Feeding This Kid Part 2: Solids

I started feeding Grace solids right at the 4 month mark. She was my first child and I was determined to do everything by the book and according to the recommended timelines provided. Despite my best efforts, most of the cereal would just pour down the front of her, and very little got into her mouth. That did not stop me, I powered through. At no point in the following weeks did Grace ever show an interest in solids, but I never stopped preparing them and feeding them to her. She would normally eat a bite or two then clamp her mouth shut and I would coax and stress (and sweat) over trying to get her to eat more until I got frustrated, and stopped, and threw the food in the sink. She never liked it more beyond that point. Ever. Which was merely a foreshadowing of how she would feel about food later in her life.

Because of that experience I had a negative association with solids. When it came time to start Christian on solids I wanted to put it off a little bit longer. I was going to start with him at 6 months. Two more months of maturity for him, and two months that I didn't have to stress about it.

At 5 months, as mentioned previously, I had finally gotten the nursing thing down. I had also, formally sleep trained Christian. His naps were flawless, rock solid, wonderful. I'd lay him down, he wouldn't cry, and he would fall asleep immediately. But regardless of letting him cry it out, five nights in a row, I could not (for the life of me!) get this child to sleep through the night. A made another valiant attempt in Utah to get Christian to sleep through the night. I figured this would be fool proof. Big house, no worry of disturbing neighbors, we were in the basement, etc. etc. It took Grace all of 24 hours of sleep training before she figured it out and sister friend was only 5 weeks old, Christian at 5 months, and round two of sleep training should catch on, right? Wrong. If I let him cry he would become hysterical and then the more he cried the more he woke up. It was a vicious cycle and despite the method working for Grace, it did not work for Christian. I was so tired and desperately thought that perhaps instead of crying it out adding solid foods to his diet would keep his tummy full and help him sleep better.

Although I still didn't love the idea, I made an attempt. He hated it.

We got a kick out of his reaction. It was the first try, no surprise that he didn't love it. The next morning I tried again. He gagged, made faces, and started to cry. I bagged the endeavor. We were on vacation and making my child cry in an attempt to eat rice cereal was not on the agenda.

When we got back home, I bought oatmeal cereal (instead of rice) having heard that some babies prefer it. And he hated that too.

I waited a few weeks and then tried again. Don't let the smile fool you, he gagged on every bite and most of it is on his face, in his hair, and all over his shirt.

We took another break from it. I got some advice to skip the cereals and go directly for the goods, fruits and veggies. Sweet potatoes seemed to be the poison of choice according to the Moms that I talked to.

I'd make him laugh, sneak the spoon in...

And he would shudder and gag.

And then let the food sit on his tongue until he either spit it out, or mustered the strength to swallow it.

I got lots of advice. My sister-in-law Ashley told me she would use cereal to beef up the baby food and then she would sing the whole time. I tried it. It worked! I declared it the answer to all of my problems and Christian would now eat baby food and life was good.

But he wised up to my new method, and refused the food no matter how well I sang. We were back to square one. I continued different methods of tricking Christian into opening his mouth so I could sneak the spoon in. Sometimes he would eat it, and other times he would spit it out while simultaneously rubbing his hands all over his face. Let's just say he required a lot of baths.

I had the thought to use his pacifier in an attempt to prevent him from spitting everything out. I would sneak the spoon in, and immediately get the pacifier in. He would suck on his pacifier and ultimately swallow the food. It worked!

This method allowed me to be the most successful at getting food in his belly, however, by the end he knew that the pacifier meant swallowing and I wasn't fast enough. It became ridiculously messy, and I knew he wasn't really eating but just being tricked into doing so.

Honestly, I was ready to throw in the towel. After Grace disliking solids, Christian's nursing battle and solid foods battle, I was chalking myself up to be the worst feeder of babies on the planet. My sister was waging the same war with my nephew Blake when she struck gold. If she fed Blake cereal in a bottle (with a wider cut slit in the top) he would eat it.

Perhaps the spoon was throwing a wrench in my system. So I tried with Christian. Aaron got him to eat two (yes TWO!) whole containers of bananas through a bottle nipple. And then with the next attempt he wouldn't even take it, and he wouldn't take a bottle full of milk either. He was onto our newest attempt at "trickeration" and wasn't having any of it.

It was at this point that I gave up. He was 7 months old and had barely made any progress. I wasn't sure what my game plan was. Perhaps I'd try again, perhaps he'd skip this phase and go straight into softer more solid foods. Regardless, I wasn't ready to try again.

While we were in Virginia my Mom started feeding Christian some puffs. I warned her that when I made the same attempt he choked on them and it scared me. She broke the puffs into smaller pieces and Christian seemed to be enjoying it. He made chomping motions and even fussed until my Mom fed him more. She turned to me and said, "He seems to like these, maybe he might be open to eating solids." I probably scoffed and said something to the effect of "Knock yourself out." She gave him some banana baby food, and he ate it without gagging. To say I was shocked would an understatement. He would open his mouth, lean into the spoon until he had it in his mouth, he would eat and then swallow. I just stared at him. The next day I tried, and the same thing happened. My Mom filmed it so we could show Aaron that miracles really do happen. In the video you can hear me say, "Are pigs flying right now? Is this really happening?" Just a mere week from turning 8 months and Christian magically started eating, and liking, solids. It was as if a switch was flipped and he was suddenly open to the whole idea. When we got home I tried all sorts of different flavors and varieties and he ate everything I offered him.

I have waged some serious war in the food and sleep department with Christian, and although frustrating and sleep depriving these battles were it never took away from how sweet, and lovable Christian was. He definitely helped me learn some new skills though.