I think it’s appropriate that he is turning six months on Pancake Tuesday, considering what happened at De Dutch yesterday.
The book we bought on Baby Led Weaning encourages you to follow the WHO recommendations of exclusive breastfeeding until six months. After that, signs of readiness for solid foods are listed as:
- Being able to sit up with minimal support
- Able to easily bring things to his mouth with his hands
- Most importantly… shows an interest in eating.
Well, yesterday the waitress set down my pannekoek and a plate of hash browns… and Babby’s hand shot out from his high chair, raked through my hashbrowns, and stuffed a fistful into mouth.
…He may be ready for solid food.
Who are we to argue? For the rest of the day, we offered him what we were eating as long as it was non-salted and non-chokable, even though he was a day short of six months. Are we rogue parents or what?
So yesterday he ate (and I use the verb loosely) pannekoek, cantaloupe, tomato, apple, hash brown (unsalted), and… calamari (batter removed of course – that would be wrong, surely).
That’s normal for a baby’s first day on solids, right?
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Of course it almost all went on the floor in the end because he hasn’t really figured out swallowing. Ultimately, I think he may have swallowed one hash brown and a shred of pancake, and a lot of cantaloupe/tomato/apple/squid juice. So he’s not so much eating solid food as he is behaving like a food dehydrator.
But he’s a happy dehydrator.
Who likes squid.