A New Favorite "Food"

Tommy isn't crawling yet but I decided to let him try puffs. I think they taste great, Tommy thinks they're weird. He just kinda smacks his mouth if I give him one but won't put one in his own mouth. He does, however, LOVE pop cakes!

I bought a bag to try for myself since the grocery store where we shop was sampling them. They are very bland but I noticed that they pretty much just dissolve in your mouth so I thought I'd let Tommy try a piece. He went nuts over it!

Now I give him a piece every morning to munch on while I get my lunch made and his bottles put together for daycare.

New Food!

Last night my mom, sister, and Granma went to dinner at Red Lobster and we brought Tommy along. Bill HATES all seafood and can't even stand to be in Red Lobster because of the smell. Even though he hates seafood, he made it clear to me that he wants me to make sure to feed Tommy, and any subsequent children, seafood in hopes that they'll like it.

I ordered fresh Haddock and after double checking Wholesome Baby Food that it was ok to give him fish at this age, I broke off the tiniest of pieces of fish and fed it to Tommy. He chewed and made some funny faces before swallowing. It was hard to tell if he liked it or not so after a few minutes I gave him a tiny little piece again. After this piece, she started diving toward my fingers for more and yelled when I stopped. I think it's safe to say that, for now, he loves fish!

I wasn't really into the idea of Baby Led Weaning as a way to introduce solids but I think a few bites of whatever we're eating here and there along with purees might be the way that works best for us.

7 Months!

Tommy was 7 months old on March 7! I can't believe how fast the last month went! I know February is a short month but since it was a leap year, it really was only 1 or 2 days shorter.

• Tommy is now wearing size 3 diapers during the day but size 4, overnight diapers at night.
• He has outgrown most of his 6 month size clothes and is wearing some 6-9 months and a bunch of 9 month clothes.
  
• He still isn't rolling from back to front and rarely rolls from belly to back. He's typically content however we lay him.
  
• He sits up unassisted but we have to put him that way.
  
• He will stand and hold on to things for about 30 seconds on his own before he loses his balance.
  
• He has 2 teeth!
  
• His belly has decided to accept oatmeal and Tommy loves it!
  
• He's still drinking his milk and eating 2 solid meals each day.
  
• He laughs and gives big sloppy kisses!
  
• When he's not sick, he rarely eats overnight though he typically wakes up at least once for his binky.
  

I love him so much!

Oatmeal Success!

If you have been following me for even a short amount of time, you know that Tommy has a sensitive stomach. He has a dairy sensitivity and we had no luck with rice cereal or oatmeal at 4 months, 5 months, or 5.5 months. Our pediatrician wanted us to feed him cereal of some sort for the iron content which he would need after 6 months but we really didn't want to put him through the awful stomach pains he seemed to experience after eating rice or oatmeal. I started making spinach for him and luckily, he loves it.

Last week was February break for me and since I had a couple of days where I had no where I needed to go, I decided to give oatmeal another try. The first day I fed it to him (Thursday), I mixed it with peaches and fed him in the morning. I followed it with a couple of spoonfuls of prunes. That night he did great! I braved it again the following morning and again, no stomach pains!

Since then I've given it to him once a day either in the morning or in the evening for 6 days straight and ::knock on wood:: we haven't had any problems! Wooohoo!!!

Oops (6 months old!)

It's been 2 weeks since my last blog post. Wow, time got away from me! My baby boy is 6 months old already! He is wearing some 6 month sized clothes, some 9 month, and some 6-9 month sized clothes. He's in size 3 diapers and weighed in at 17lbs 12oz at his 6 month appointment which is the 54th percentile for his age. He was 26in long (33rd percentile, although I think he has stretched out since that appointment) and his head circumference was 17.5in (71st percentile, yikes!).

The pediatrician suggested trying barley cereal since we're still having trouble with rice and oatmeal but I'm holding off for now and feeding him spinach to give him the iron that he needs. She also said that if I wanted, I could try and introduce dairy when he's 8 months old. I'm not sure how much longer I'm going to be breastfeeding for though. Things are still going alright so I'm going to keep going but we are up to 12oz of formula a day.

Two days ago we had a tooth break through! It's just one little needle-sized piece but Tommy's been teething non-stop since then! Luckily, he hasn't been too fussy or anything, just drooling and chewing everything. Yesterday, he was laying on his belly playing with some toys and he pivoted around and started nomming on the leg of his bouncy chair!

Tommy isn't crawling but he is trying! He tries to pull himself forward by his arms and he tries to get up on his knees but when he is able to, he face-plants! I don't think he's super close to being able to crawl but he is starting to get very interested in what's around him and trying to get to everything!

He is also starting to get weary of people he doesn't recognize. He will let them hold him but he looks around for Bill or I to make sure we're near.

I'm so in love with my baby boy!

Making Baby Food

So I mentioned before that I am making Tommy's baby food. We had a few gift cards left for Babies R Us and I decided to buy the Baby Brezza baby food maker. I knew that, although it is a one use appliance, I wouldn't make baby food if it was too much of a process.

So here is my experience with the Baby Brezza. Yesterday I decided to make some more sweet potatoes. I bought one large potato for $1.22.

I pealed and chopped it up in to smallish sized pieces, the manual recommends 1/4-1/2 inch thick:Then I filled up the blender (I didn't take a picture of this but I also put the water into the reservoir as instructed by the manual):

The next step is to put on the top and press the "steam and blend" button until the light under 25 is lit since it takes 25 minutes to steam a sweet potato (also in the manual):
Then you just let it go! I was doing this while the SU basketball game was going on. I missed a few minutes in the beginning of the game to peal, chop, and load the basket of the blender but then I got 25 minutes to just let the machine do it's job. After it was done I found this:
I poured it into an ice cube tray to freeze and got 11 cubes worth:
When I feed Tommy, I thaw 2 cubes and mix with 1oz of breastmilk and he gobbles it all up!

Now for a bit of a downside. The blender really doesn't hold all that much. I did buy a pretty large sweet potato but I had to do two batches to steam and blend the whole thing. One whole (large) sweet potato got me 21 ice cubes worth of food.
That's really the only drawback I can think of and I'm pretty sure it has to do with making sure the whole batch is steamed thoroughly. It's really so little work that I don't mind doing a couple of batches. The convenience of being able to steam and blend in the same appliance really out-weighs the negative here.

For $1.22 I got 10.5 servings of sweet potatoes making the cost about $0.12 per serving. A jar of Gerber sweet potatoes at my grocery store costs $0.53 which gives me a savings of $0.41. However, if I was not making my own baby food I would have bought Earth's Best brand which is $0.85 per jar giving me a savings of $0.73 per serving! Beyond the financial savings, I really feel like Tommy is getting good, nutritious food and I know exactly what is in it.

The parts of the Baby Brezza are nice and easy to clean, the machine is easily wiped clean and almost all of the parts can go in the dishwasher.

Overall, I'm very happy with it so far. I've made sweet potatoes, carrots, peas, pears, and apples. All have been very easy but the peas didn't come out as smooth as I would have liked even though I manually blended them for longer. I'll have to look into how to make them smoother. Any questions about the Baby Brezza or suggestions? Let me know!

Tommy's 5 Month's Old!

I can't believe it. 5 months!
He's weighing in around 15.5 lbs and wearing size 3 diapers and 6 months clothes. He's drinking 8oz bottles at daycare (oink oink!) so I'm still pumping but we have to supplement every day now. I'm just glad that he's still getting breastmilk. He has also started with veggies. He has tried sweet potatoes, pears, and carrots and loves them all. He has discovered his feet and tongue and sticks his tongue out all the time. He also seems to have really discovered his voice. He talks and sings all day.

His sleep was terrible for a little while but seems to have improved lately. He is back to waking up about once per night but last night he slept from 7:30-6:00 straight through (please don't let me jinx this!!!).

He's so much fun lately! I love you Tommy!

Solids Success!

I'm so happy that Tommy has responded well to the sweet potatoes. He gobbles them up! After we finished the first jar of sweet potatoes I gave him some homemade ones thinned with breastmilk and he really loved them! He has been getting 1 ice cube sized serving mixed with half an ounce of breastmilk every morning at daycare. Today I am packing 2 cubes with 1 ounce of breastmilk to see how that goes over. I have also given him pears twice now in the evening. The first time he really liked them. The second time he gave me a face like, "um, this is not a sweet potato, what are you feeding me?" but then gobbled the rest up!

This weekend I'm going to give him carrots and see how those go over.

I cannot tell you how relieved I am that he is able to eat some solids. I was really worried when he didn't tolerate rice cereal. Now I'm going to give him another week of just veggies and fruit and then try to mix in a tiny bit of cereal and see if his tummy can handle it. If not, then I'm going to give him some spinach for the iron content.

Big sigh of relief over here!

Sweet Potato update

Tommy had a decent night last night! He doesn't seem to have any negative side effects from the sweet potatoes! 4 more spoonfuls today. Fingers crossed!

Tommy's Tummy

My poor baby has a sensitive tummy. We found out at 8 weeks that he has a dairy sensitivity so I cut all dairy out of my diet. Then, right before he turned 4 months old, our pediatrician asked us to try rice cereal so we would know how he reacted before his 4 month appointment. After a few attempts, he liked it but it really upset his stomach. We decided that we were in no rush so we waited a month before trying again.

A month later, right after Christmas, we tried again and again, he had stomach pains. He was up at night crying in pain. I tried oatmeal after 2 nights of pain and it was even worse. He cried all day and then woke up at 10:30 screaming louder and with more force than I've ever heard from him. It was 15 minutes of inconsolable screaming. I was about to call the doctor when he just stopped. I kept him in the PNP next to my side of the bed because I was so freaked up.

Luckily, we had an appointment scheduled for the next day to re-check his breathing (back to normal!) after his chest cold so I knew I could discuss it with her then.

I told the pedi all about what happened and she was perplexed. She said that she wasn't thrilled that he reacted that way but it didn't seem like an allergy, just a sensitive belly. She suggested that we skip cereal for now and move on to veggies. As long as he tolerates veggies for a bit, we can try and mix in a tiny bit of cereal and see how he responds. She does want him on cereal for the iron content but isn't too worried about it until he's 6 months old.

So we skipped all solids yesterday and HE SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT!!! Woohoo!!! I needed that after 3 straight nights of little sleep. Today, I fed him 4 little spoonfuls of sweet potatoes. I figure that if his tummy is sensitive, it's best to do a little at a time. He LOVED sweet potatoes! No tummy trouble so far. We'll see how he does tonight. If all goes well, I'll give him some more tomorrow. Fingers crossed that this goes over well.

Optimistically, I started making baby food today. I had no desire to make my own until I started looking at the pre-packaged stuff. Some brands have all kinds of other ingredients in them. Not something I want being put into my son, especially with his tummy. Then the organic kind is SO EXPENSIVE! We had some Babies R Us gift cards so I bought a Baby Brezza baby food maker and tried it out this morning. I'm in love! It makes it all so easy! I bought a package of carrots for $1.25 and made up 2 batches in less than an hour!

I put the puree in the BPA-free ice cube trays I have here and froze them and popped them into a freezer-safe ziplock bag. The most work for me was peeling and chopping. The Baby Brezza is awesome because you just put the food in, turn on the steam and blend and let it go. Tommy started crying and needed a nap while I was doing the second batch so I took him out of his highchair where he was playing and put him down for a nap. By the time I came back, it had finished steaming and blending and was just sitting there waiting for me!

I realized that I can probably use frozen veggies and prep time would be practically nothing! A bag of frozen carrots is $0.99 at my grocery store without any sales or coupons. Tons of baby food for $0.99 with no additives. Sounds good to me! Once spring rolls around, I can buy fresh, local produce at the farmers market! I'm excited to try other veggies and fruits. Hopefully Tommy's tummy will hold up!