Mia's Nummers

Well, according to everyone except for myself and people who agree with me, I have been keeping Mia from starting solids for too long. First, let me say that I had very specific reasons to hold off and guidelines I was following for the best outcomes. Yes. We may have all started solids earlier and had a good outcome but I'm trying for an even better one for Mia.

The guidelines I was following from her pediatrician states that the following must be met before Mia can eat:

1. Double her birth weight (as of last Monday she was 1.5 lbs shy of that)
2. Sit up unassisted (I just found out, thanks to Bruce, that Mia can do this for bits of time)
3. Able to bring things to mouth consistently (she has been maneuvering her little pacifier in the dark into her mouth at night when she's not disoriented)
4. Loss of tongue thrust (I've been watching and seeing it gradually disappear)
5. Ability to let you know she is full (she's been doing this all along -what? some babies don't?)
6. Interest in food (the real reason everyone wants me to feed her - her constant attempts at getting our food and drinks!)
7. Good head control (from day one she has had good control for her age, it just got better)

Here's the reasons I was waiting:

1.  Skip the puree stage (waaay less work for me to cook, puree, separate into ice cube trays, freeze, thaw bits at a time, heat & serve)
2. Breastmilk is all the nutrition she needed (Solids don't give her all the nutrients she needs. Babies don't even need to really add food to their diet until 9-12 months because breastmilk is a more balanced meal for babies)
3. Why spend all that time feeding her when she can just skip to learning to feed herself (Bruce and I have been giving her cups and spoons to play with since September as practice)
4. Waiting ensures her GI tract is more prepared to handle solid foods (less chance of gas, rashes, & allergies)
5. Kids who wait have a lower incidence of diabetes and obesity.
6. Because it gives me a couple more months of clean eating (selfish, I know, but the other reasons are the unselfish bigger reasons to wait)

That being said (and I can be long winded), we decided to have Mia make a go of oatmeal before we get into the real, real food at 5.5 months (I figure, she was 10 days late so it's like 6 months if we feed her 11 days before her sweet potato debut). I didn't really expect her to eat any. We were going to spoon feed her so she knows what to do but really let her play on her own gettting to know the food and how to feed herself. Soo, what you've really been dredging through all my wordiness for.....

Mia's first try at oatmeal!



Some stills as well, since she's so darn cute even with a messy face:

The next day we decided to make the oatmeal a little thicker and give it another go. This was the first time Mia sat with us while we ate dinner and got to eat dinner too! Forgive our chatter in the background, it was family meal time.