We had intended to wait until BabyL turned six months old before introducing him to puréed food. However, he was beginning to show signs that he was ready a few weeks early. Those signs included:
- He reverted to nursing every two hours instead of every three and began waking in the middle of the night to eat when he had been sleeping through the night;
- He was intently watching us eat and imitating our chewing motions;
- He was able to sit well when supported and has excellent head control (meaning he'd be able to turn his head away from the spoon to indicate he did not want any more food); and
- He had doubled his birth weight.
So, I bought a sweet potato, peeled it, cubed it, and steamed it. Then I puréed it with my immersion blender, and froze it into 1-ounce cubes in an ice cube tray. Once they were frozen, I transferred them to a plastic freezer storage bag and wrote the contents and the date on the bag.
I defrosted one cube, then put half of one (so, half an ounce) in a bowl. I mixed it with an equal amount of expressed milk to make it very liquid.
Then we put L in the high chair (which I swear has more straps than an F16 fighter jet), and gave him a tiny spoonful.
He really wasn't sure what to make of it.
Since then, he's also tried pears. He seemed interested in them the first day, but after that wanted no part of them. I have banana ready to go, and we will also introduce butternut squash and oatmeal. He's still not that crazy about this new method of eating and usually only eats about two bites, but I don't want to create a negative association with eating, so when he fusses, we stop.
