We have ventured into the world of food with our little lady! We decided to stick with the baby led weaning approach with her, which basically just means that we're skipping pureed foods and letting her feed herself little bites of table food and soft fruits and veggies. With Ezra, we tried doing baby lead weaning but he had a very sensitive gag reflex and couldn't even eat Gerber puffs - which dissolve in the mouth - because he would gag on them and spit them out. He was on the very tiny side so we did purees with him starting on his 6 month birthday. It was so time consuming to sit down and feed him tubs of fruits and veggies twice a day. It was hard to take food for him with us when we went out and it was hard for him to transition to non-pureed food.
So, that brings us here, to 7 month old Selah trying tastes of different foods. I don't want to feel like I need to sit down and feed her a whole meal once or twice a day, I just want her to be able to try things and play around with different foods and textures while the rest of us eat so she stops staring at us and drooling and lunging towards our food! She does much better with food than Ezra ever did and I'm so thankful that it isn't an issue for her.
Her first food was avocado. I just sliced up half of one and handed her the pieces to see what she did.
She sort of got a little piece off into her mouth but then stored it in her cheeks and then it got stuck to the roof of her mouth and she didn't really swallow it, but at least she got to taste it and I think she enjoyed her first food, even though approximately 0% of it ended up in her belly.
I even let her try a slice of my green bell pepper... she just made a face and set it down.
A couple of days later, Ezra was eating a banana and of course, Selah was staring at it so I put her in her high chair and let her hold a big chunk of it. This time, I think she swallowed some pieces of it, but mostly just made a mess. I tried putting it in one of these mesh feeders but that just made an even bigger mess.
On Saturday we tried some Gerber puffs since we went out to eat and needed to give her something to occupy her while we ate and tried to feed Ezra. She loved them! She immediately gobbled them up and wanted more. She has tried the sweet potato and banana flavors.
We're working on signing "more" with her when she wants more food, and she signed back the second or third time we showed her how! So proud of my big girl.
On Sunday we gave Ezra some apple slices so I gave her a big slice, too. She mostly licked it but had just a couple bites.
So far, she's loving trying new foods but we're not making a big deal of it. Most days, she doesn't eat anything (except breastmilk, obviously) but it's fun to try things without the pressure of making sure she's eating enough food at the right time of day. It's our second child so of course we're a little more relaxed about it. I think we might start giving her small bites of whatever I make for dinner and putting it in front of her just to let her play around and maybe eat some. Of course, I always nurse her before offering her food so that all her nutrients are coming from breastmilk since she's still so young. Food before 1 is just for fun, so they say! She's thriving on exclusively nursing and I'm so glad.
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