Baby 1 / Cindy's Good Intentions Zip
Sylvia passed the six-month mark a couple weeks ago, and I've just started introducing her to food. It's very exciting. So far we've done rice cereal, which she gobbled up. Bananas, ditto. Pears, couldn't get enough. This weekend it was time to move to carrots. Whoo-hoo.
With each of the kids I've had the best intentions of making their baby food, but twice now I've bowed to the gods of Gerber. Third time's a charm, though, as just the thought of weighing down my Ecobags with dozens of little jars of food and then piling them willy-nilly in the pantry wore me out. So this weekend I made Sylvie some food.
First I toted my Ecobags to the store and bought organic apples and carrots and an ice cube tray. Then I peeled, cored, chopped, and cooked the apples with a couple tablespoons of water. I froze all of this in little applesauce cubes to use later in the week. Next I peeled, chopped, and steamed a few carrots, added some of steam water back in, and used a pureed her up a nice little dinner. The extra I froze in little carrot cubes for later in the week.
Come dinner, she got one taste of the carrots and gave me a betrayed look. She added insult to injury by shaking her head side to side a few times as if to clear her head, then screwing up her face as if she'd smelled something foul. I tried again. Oh, I couldn't, she seemed to say. I'm simply stuffed.
Feeling deflated by her lack of hunger, I picked up a plastic container of Gerber bananas. She kicked her feet vigorously, made the happy squeaky sound, and opened her mouth like a famished baby bird. Then proceeded to eat the whole thing container and part of another.
The next day I tried the carrots again. Same diva routine. More packaged bananas.
Meaning it might be time for a talk. While she was born at a lower birth weight than her brothers, she's heading in a different direction: She gained 20 percentile points on girth between her four-month and six-month checkups. If she's not willing to eat her vegetables, I'm not seeing her lose the one physical trait she clearly inherited from me: The Morrow thighs.
(For what it's worth, I'm consulting a great little book called Top 100 Baby Purees for making her baby food. Although I'm guessing Sylvie will have little interest in any of the recipes until we proceed to the dessert section.)
With each of the kids I've had the best intentions of making their baby food, but twice now I've bowed to the gods of Gerber. Third time's a charm, though, as just the thought of weighing down my Ecobags with dozens of little jars of food and then piling them willy-nilly in the pantry wore me out. So this weekend I made Sylvie some food.
First I toted my Ecobags to the store and bought organic apples and carrots and an ice cube tray. Then I peeled, cored, chopped, and cooked the apples with a couple tablespoons of water. I froze all of this in little applesauce cubes to use later in the week. Next I peeled, chopped, and steamed a few carrots, added some of steam water back in, and used a pureed her up a nice little dinner. The extra I froze in little carrot cubes for later in the week.
Come dinner, she got one taste of the carrots and gave me a betrayed look. She added insult to injury by shaking her head side to side a few times as if to clear her head, then screwing up her face as if she'd smelled something foul. I tried again. Oh, I couldn't, she seemed to say. I'm simply stuffed.
Feeling deflated by her lack of hunger, I picked up a plastic container of Gerber bananas. She kicked her feet vigorously, made the happy squeaky sound, and opened her mouth like a famished baby bird. Then proceeded to eat the whole thing container and part of another.
The next day I tried the carrots again. Same diva routine. More packaged bananas.
Meaning it might be time for a talk. While she was born at a lower birth weight than her brothers, she's heading in a different direction: She gained 20 percentile points on girth between her four-month and six-month checkups. If she's not willing to eat her vegetables, I'm not seeing her lose the one physical trait she clearly inherited from me: The Morrow thighs.
(For what it's worth, I'm consulting a great little book called Top 100 Baby Purees for making her baby food. Although I'm guessing Sylvie will have little interest in any of the recipes until we proceed to the dessert section.)
posted by Cindy at 6:29 PM
4 Comments:
Yep, she's a Wilson/Morrow. Hang in there. Naomi was here Saturday and now eats anything not nailed down. Just can't get it to her fast enough. Glad her 6 month check-up went well.
Mom
While Sylvie may be slow on the uptake on veggies from the spoon you are handling, I read recently that one mother of a budding picky eater discovered that if her child was in charge of getting them in his mouth himself, he was much better about eating them. So if you can stand the mess, give her a small amount on her high chair tray, let her smear around in the peas, carrots, sweet potatoes, etc. and see if she winds up licking her own fingers and getting used the taste/texture that way. In the meantime, might I suggest instead of buying pre-packaged pureed bananas, buy fresh and mash them with a fork. Much more economical, eco-friendly and the whole family can enjoy bananas in their non-mashed state.
I'll give the feed-herself method. Maybe she would be more open to it. Good point on the bananas. I started using super-ripe bananas and smushing them up a few days ago, and she loves them!
Be sneaky! Mix carrots with bananas and gradually reduce the amount of banana until you're serving pure carrot.
Also, since your daughter recognizes the jar, try putting your carrots into a jar that once held the commercial stuff.
One more suggestion -- since the carrots might have a texture she doesn't care for yet, consider fixing her some butternut squash. It has a texture much more like the bananas and brings the "orange vegetable" benefit of vitamins A and C.
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