Feeding updates

So the lil J is a little more than 4 months old now.

I read that solids should be started somewhere between 4-6 months of age. I was watching him for signs of being ready. We saw him watching intently as we ate. And we saw him opening his mouth as we were taking bites of food--he looked like a baby bird waiting for us to drop a worm in there, LOL! And his appetite was really wacky--has been ever since his cold.

So we decided to give it a go. We started him on rice cereal. It's made by "Earth's Best" brand, it's made from organic brown rice. I thought he did really well at his first feeding. He's shown no objection to the rice cereal. I have a book on making your own baby food (which I've been planning to do) & it recommends starting with rice cereal & then barley & then oat & then moving to veggies.

Well I looked & looked & couldn't find a barley cereal. I was just gonna skip it & go with the oat (also made by Earth's Best), but then it occurred to me that I could just make my own. I personally LOVE barley & always have it in the house, so I cooked some barley & pureed it with baby formula. I made 7 servings & froze them. I thaw one daily & feed it for lunch. He eats one ounce of cereal for lunch. (I know I read somewhere that you shouldn't make your own cereal cuz it's not iron fortified BUT I honestly don't get why everyone is quite so obsessed with the iron for babies........I mean there's so much iron in his formula that his poop is green, so I certainly don't think he's iron deficient; I don't know, I just see this sort of stuff regarding nutrition a lot & I have to wonder..........I mean ages ago babies certainly didn't have all this iron supplementing going on & they obviously lived............I don't know, perhaps I'm mistaken & there's a really good reason that I'm just not aware of, I'm certainly not saying my stance is right here, I haven't really done research on it, haven't had the time, but I don't think I'm gonna hurt my son by giving him ONE cereal that isn't iron fortified, that's all I'm sayin')

So while I was making the barley I also made peas for him & froze those as well. But after the week of barley I'll probably do a week of oat before the veggies, like the book recommends.

Beyond that I don't have any plans yet........not sure yet when to move to 2 meals per day.........I'll have to go through the book again, I'm sure it'll say........I do know that it says feeding right now is really just practice & experimenting with textures & tastes. The majority of their nutrition for the first year should be coming from breastmilk or formula.

I've been pretty amazed with him for a while now. I've discovered that he's not picky at all, thank God. He will take his formula at any temperature, he does not care. And when he's sick he will suck down anything I give him--sage tea, grapefruit seed extract, advil, etc.

And just today I was eating hummus with my lunch & he was watching me & opening his mouth like the baby bird. I dipped my finger in the hummus & let him suck on it. At first he made a face like he wasn't too sure about it. But then suddenly he smiled huge & opened his mouth more & more. I let him finish sucking it off my finger & after he was done he was literally squealing with delight. It was REALLY cute. So so far it appears he has mommy's tastes--barley & hummus being faves!