Our Story

Since starting Dahlia on solid food, I have been struggling with so many details: how much should I feed, how often, what kinds, how fast to introduce new foods, how long should I wait to introduce ‘potentially allergic foods’ like wheat, cow milk, peanuts, etc., should she get water, should I feed only organic, should I make it or buy it, and what about fingerfoods???

I know this will surprise most of my audience, but there are very strong opinions for each and every one of these topics. I have personally been pretty heavily indoctrinated that breastmilk is ALL a baby needs for the first year, and solid food experiences are basically just a developmental activity, not a nutritional necessity. However, there are still a lot of people out there clamoring for my parenting ear. They are saying things like, “Your baby needs extra water now that they are eating solids.”, “Your baby should be getting cereal at this point (6 months).”, “Your baby needs more energy now that they are crawling, so feed more solids.”. And even beyond these directives, I have the influential example of a lot of the women around me. Some women I know feed their babies pretty much anything at this age, both in baby food and in fingerfood. Others very carefully introduce every little ingredient and wait days in between each food.

Deciding about fingerfoods is an extra struggle. Dahlia watches everything that we eat with those large, cute blue eyes, and sometimes even begs for it with her hands or open mouth. What makes these decisions so hard are that most of what we eat, I consider a choking hazard. I feel like I should help her develop hand-eye coordination and chewing by offering fingerfoods, but I am pretty stumped on what to offer. Cheerios seemed like the most obvious food until I found out that the second ingredient is sugar! Soft foods like banana and pieces of fruit are impossible for her to pick up at this point, so she just mushes them around and pushes them off the tray/table. (Although there was one moment of brilliance where I marveled at my daughter’s apparent genius: my 7 month old baby, getting frustrated with not being able to pick up mushy pear pieces, pushed the piece to the edge of the table and then ate it off the edge of the table with her mouth!! I was astounded.) It seems like each time I go to the store, I come back with a different “healthy” brand of O’s cereal. One was impossible for her to gum into a soft enough food–she worked at it for minutes before she spat out a half dissolved O. One had wheat starch (wheat!!!), and one had cane sugar (are all sugars equal?). So we finally settled on Purely O’s by Cascadian Farms. It has wheat starch, so Dahlia is starting early on wheat, but it doesn’t have any sugar, and I think the wheat starch is what allows them to dissolve so easily in her mouth.

So, like every other issue, I guess I have come to the point where I just need to decide what seems best for my little family and go ahead with that. I think a lot of the opinions floating around are perpetuated by the baby food manufacturers. I don’t like getting purposely skewed parenting advice so that I will buy more of someone’s product. My suspicions tend to lead me back toward the “breastmilk as the staple and solid food as a developmental activity” camp.

Basically, I am trying not to be completely overbearing in how fast I introduce new foods, but also go slow enough so that I can catch any problems if she reacts to a food. She is getting better at gumming fingerfoods, so our options there will start to open up. I have given up on the completely organic route, but still buy organic for her when I can. I make her baby food, and offer her bites (or hold it for her to suck on) of anything we are eating that is appropriate for her. I am not militaristic about our food regime, but I try to get 2 feedings in. It is usually prunes or fruit in the AM (to avoid adventures in constipation), and veggies and cereal in the PM. She is fast approaching a year old anyway, so I think food will become less of a struggle. I am going to try to avoid processed sugar as long as I can, but it may be a losing battle.

So there you have it. Maybe I think too hard about these things. It is the blessing and the curse of living in this information age. Next edition: Adventures in the Childhood Vaccine Controversy.

Our baby’s got mad skills. (“Kneebouncers”:http://www.kneebouncers.com?)

Dear Dahlia,

Wow, this month has just flown by, and all of a sudden you are 7 months old! We have been so busy that it seems like you just turned 6 months old. Well, let’s see what happened this month:

We did a LOT of travel. We drove up to Boston and back in one weekend (that was almost 13 hours of travel in 38 hours). You took your first airplane flight down to see Aunt Jaime and Uncle Sal get married. You did so well on the flight that strangers were complimenting us on how well-behaved you were. You were able to fall asleep while nursing on the flight. It has been so long since you did that in public, and it was really special and sweet for me. Since we didn’t have a babysitter down there, you had to stay up past your bedtime a few nights for the rehearsal and the wedding. You were so good and took it all in stride. No breaking down and screaming. You even got out on the dance floor with us and rocked out a bit. I think I learned a lot about your flexibility this month. I thought that you absolutely needed a schedule for sleeping, but maybe I’m the one that needed the schedule more than you! I still feel that you need an early bedtime and naps, but I am feeling much less structured about the naps, and not as guilty when you have a late night here and there.

Your are eating a lot more grown up food lately too! So far, you have had carrots, pears, green beans, peas, blueberries, apples, bananas, cantaloupe, sweet potatoes, oatmeal, rice cereal, a piece of dried mango to chew on, and some avocado to mash with your fingers. That is quite a variety, and it will just keep getting better, believe me! I feel so honored that I get to introduce you to food. It is a wonderful, yet dangerous thing in our culture of excess. It can be especially hard to have a proper relationship with food, growing up as an American girl. I hope I can teach you how to enjoy healthy food habits from the very beginning. I am also learning a lot about our eating habits as I work toward that goal for you. For example, I know that you will be eating mostly what we eat in a few months, so I have to be serving us meals that you can eat! And if you can’t eat it, I have to be asking myself, why would I eat it? Tonight, I whipped up a batch of zucchini baby food for you. So there you go: I did start making your food again! I am excited to be able to make fresh, healthy food for you. You are really enjoying the food and wolfing down larger amounts each day. You are also learning how to sip water from a cup and I bought you your first sippy cup today.

You have been taking a pacifier more often lately. I wouldn’t say you are addicted to it, but it definitely helps you out sometimes when you are cranky. We really have the best of both worlds with it. Still no teeth, either! I guess they will come in their own sweet time. My friend said that the longer they stay in, the stronger they are. We’ll take that one. I’ve had some more fun advice from strangers this month. One person told me that I shouldn’t let you chew on my cell phone since your thin skull is more susceptible to the dangerous waves they emit. One lovely woman had this great piece of advice for me as we walked by: “She’s cold”. At least she said it with a smile. Oh, and I also got called out for letting your chew on a pen (don’t you know the cap is a choking hazard?!). Well, I do my best to only allow you to chew on safe things, but you are a quick grabber, and sometimes the best baby toy available is a spoon. Your greeting of choice lately is usually a big, juicy raspberry. You aren’t content with a sweet smile. No, after you check someone out, you usually blow a few on ‘em. It can be a bit embarrassing. At first, I couldn’t figure out why you did that so frequently. Then Daddy and I watched a few videos of you as a little baby, and I saw myself teaching you how to blow a raspberry, and encouraging you when you did it. I guess you are a fast learner!

Your sitting skills are definitely improved. You can go for quite a while without support. You are much better at rolling both directions, and have gotten very good at propping yourself up on one elbow to look up at whoever is standing over you. Still no crawling, however. I guess we jumped the gun with that expectation as well. Thats just fine with me, though. I was supporting your belly to help you learn to crawl one day, then I realized it wasn’t the sort of thing I needed to rush! Lets keep you away from the power cords and outlets as long as possible.

This past month you received the sign of baptism at church. We learned a lot about baptism before we decided to baptize you. We wanted to make sure it wasn’t just something we were doing because of the particular denomination we happened to be attending at the moment. We were so excited to welcome you into the community of Christian faith by this sign. Although you can’t understand or voluntarily accept that Christ has died for your sins, this sign shows how you are set apart because of our belief, and because of our decision to raise you with an understanding of how much God loves you, and how much we all need that love. At the same time, it reminds us that God set us apart before we understood His love for us and poured out His grace on us just as the water was poured out on you. What a wonderful reminder to us, and promise to you. I pray that we live up to the responsibility that we have been entrusted with.

Little girl, you are more and more fun each day. I cherish this time I have with you at home. You are growing into such a beautiful child, and that isn’t just our opinion, by the way. Plenty of friends and strangers comment on your exceptional good looks. We can’t wait to see what dreams and desires, talents and skills you have just waiting to come out! You are such a perfect picture of potentiality. Maybe that is why your blue eyes sparkle so much!

Love,
Mommy