Starting Solids

I can be a creature of habit when it comes to food. I’ll tend to order the same things from the same places, over and over again, to the extent that the waitstaff will probably know what I want the moment I come in. Spicy shoyu ramen at Mama Ramen, pho dac biet at the local pho place, a lobster burrito at Rubio’s, the baby back ribs at Chili’s–you get the idea. Our girls take it a step further. They’ve been eating the same thing every meal for their entire lives. Every meal is more milk. Okay, it’s not really a fair comparison since all they’re supposed to have is milk, but now that they’re nearing six months, we thought we would introduce some solid food.

There are a few signs to watch for to determine if a baby is ready to start on solids.

• They should be able to sit fairly well, which means that they’re less likely to choke.
• They should be taking in about twenty-five to thirty ounces of milk in a day.
• They should look interested in watching you eat, which hints that they may want to eat in the same way.
• They should have lost the “tongue-thrust” reflex which pushes solids out of their mouths with their tongues.

The AAP’s official recommendation is to wait until six months to lower the chances that the baby will have an allergic reaction, but some pediatricians are okay with babies starting solids as early as four months. We decided to wait until six months because of the concern for allergies.

We’ve been seeing many of the signs that our girls are ready for solids, and with the girls entering daycare at the end of this month, we thought it made sense start them on solids before they entered daycare. That way, we could gauge their reactions to the food while we still had a good baseline on what their normal behavior is like.

We started with rice cereal, mixed with formula. The rice cereal itself is pretty tasteless, and so the overall flavor should be pretty similar to just the formula. Rice cereal is a good food to start with because very few babies are allergic to rice, and there are no other ingredients in it other than the rice. Some people start with banana first. After two weeks, if the girls like it and they show no adverse effects, we can introduce some other single-grain cereal. After another week, the general rule is to introduce one new food a week and watch for any allergic reactions over the course of that week.

Yesterday, Agnes mixed some rice cereal and fed Eleanor in her high chair.

She didn’t seem to like it. She made a face similar to the one she made when we gave her liquid tylenol. She didn’t push the cereal out of her mouth with her tongue, and she did swallow it, but she didn’t appear to enjoy it. She took several spoonfuls, but she made the same face the entire time. We gave Eleanor her normal bottle after she appeared to be done eating the cereal.

We tried Miranda next.

Whenever Agnes brought the spoon to Miranda’s mouth, she would lunge her head forward to put it in her mouth. She did this over and over and seemed to enjoy it.

It was a bit surprising. We had been thinking that Eleanor was the one who was more ready to try solids, based on her earlier physical development (turning earlier, sitting better, standing better, consistently eating more), but she didn’t seem to like it at all. Miranda, on the other hand, enjoyed her rice cereal. I suppose that she’s the one who has been more fascinated with watching us eat, and she’s been the one who has been trying harder to hold her own bottle.

This morning, we tried it again. Eleanor didn’t like her rice cereal again. She eventually clamped her mouth shut. We might try it again tomorrow, or we might wait a bit longer before trying again. Miranda didn’t seem to enjoy the rice cereal this morning either. She made a face similar to Eleanor’s look of distaste. Maybe she wasn’t quite hungry enough when I fed her. We’re not quite sure why she had a different reaction, but we’ll try her again tomorrow as well.