Chips Off The Old Block
(I’m trying hard to remember to do more than just post pictures on this blog. After all, things happen, and what’s a blog for if not to tell the world about them?)
Tonight, we served Julian and Eloise their first food that wasn’t a single ingredient: pasta with Newman’s Own tomato sauce. (This is not entirely true. I guess I should say it was their first food that wasn’t explicitly “baby food.”) I’m pleased to say that they liked it, although this isn’t really a surprise. If allowed, Rachel would eat pasta with tomato sauce for dinner every night of her life, so the babies are just taking after their mama. (True, Rachel doesn’t generally run hers through a food mill.)
I’m excited, because hopefully this will be the beginning of real food for the babies. Maybe next time it won’t be sauce from a jar!
Filed under Parenting | Tags: feeding, milestones | Comment (1)No More Sterilizing?
Apparently, you don’t have to sterilize bottles. It makes sense: if you’re not going to sterilize them before every use, why would you bother doing it only sometimes?
Filed under Parenting | Tags: bottles, cleaning, feeding | Comments (2)It Goes On
Today we continued along the path to solid foods, introducing the more conventional rice cereal. Rice cereal is… weird. It looks like instant mashed potatoes, and when mixed with formula is, if possible, less appetizing. Eloise was not impressed with the special of the day, but Julian contentedly nommed it down. Tomorrow we’re going with applesauce. (And yes, yes, I know you’re “supposed” to wait 3-4 days before introducing each new food, but I just can’t, in good conscience, keep shoveling this bland mush into their mouths. If they like the applesauce, we’ll settle on that for a few days.)
The other thing going on is our continuing struggles with sleep. I meant to write a long, detailed post on our adventures with sleep training (and may yet, if I find the time and you, dear reader, express an interest) but the short version is that we went with Dr. Ferber. Julian has never really been a problem in terms of sleeping through the night, but we needed to get Eloise down to a single wake-up to feed, and we’re still working on getting them to nap reliably during the day.
About a week and a half ago we decided to eliminate Eloise’s final night feeding, and that’s been something of a battle. Even though she should be able to sleep through the night without eating, she emphatically does not want to, and is not shy about expressing her displeasure, loudly, at 4:00 in the morning. The last two nights have seen me spending those gray hours between 4:00 and 7:00 sitting in the glider with her sleeping on my shoulder, since she’s currently refusing to go back down into her crib. The challenge is exacerbated by the presence of her brother, who can sleep blissfully through almost anything, but not his sister wailing at 4:00 in the morning. We’re now planning to whisk him out of the room at the first sign of an Eloisplosion since otherwise they take turns working each other into a frenzy and no one gets any sleep.
As if that weren’t challenge enough, we’re also trying to wean them off sleeping swaddled. Yes, at this point, the babies can only fall asleep if tightly wrapped, which means if, say, they wriggle out of their blanket in the middle of the night, they can’t go back to sleep… ELOISE.
Our plan is to use the spirit of the Ferber method: we’ll put them down unswaddled and each night wait a progressively longer amount of time before picking them up and swaddling them. That sounds like it might work, right?
Right?
Please, God, let us get more sleep tonight.
Filed under Parenting | Tags: feeding, food, sleep, solid, swaddle | Comments (6)Solid
I can’t believe it’s finally time, but the twins started solid food for the first time today.
We’d been seeing signs that they were ready. For one thing, Julian’s been gobbling down more and more milk recently, so he seemed to be getting hungry. They’ve both also taken a strong interest in watching us eat, and they’ve had good success with slurping formula off a spoon when we practiced. And we’ve been excited about it, too: it’ll be fun to introduce them to new foods and new flavors, and figure out what they like and dislike.
The standard food to start babies with is rice cereal, but let’s be honest: rice cereal is basically gruel. I have no problem with them eating rice cereal on a regular basis—it’s healthy, easy to digest, not particularly allergenic, and so forth—but there’s no way my children are going to be initiated into the world of food with the same stuff that got spooned out to orphans in a Dickens novel.
For their ceremonial first meal, we decided to go with avocado. Avocados are pretty good for you, and they’re totally delicious, and they’re a pretty awesome shade of green, which we thought would make for an entertaining mess. So, this morning, I took a nice ripe avocado, put about two teaspoons of it in a bowl, mushed it up with a fork, and added water until we achieved the consistency of a slightly thin smoothie.
And what do you know! The kids liked it! Sure, it kind of went all over their faces, and a large amount got smooshed down their chins and on their cheeks, but they ate it! And seemed to enjoy it!
Check it out:
Tomorrow, we’ll give them a little rice cereal for “breakfast” and gradually add maybe a fruit in the morning, or an evening vegetable. For the first few weeks, I’m given to understand, solid food is intended as a supplement, not a replacement, for the nutrition and calories they’re getting from milk and formula, so it’ll still be bottle city around here for a while. Huh, I guess that means bottles and spoons to wash every day. Awesome.
Filed under Parenting | Tags: avocado, feeding, food, milestones, solid | Comments (2)I’d Eat That
We’re getting closer and closer to starting the twins on solid food. In fact, we’ve tentatively scheduled their first “meal” for this weekend.
To practice, we’ve spent a few mornings feeding them a small amount of milk or formula on a spoon to get them used to what a spoon feels like, and what it’s like to have food in the front of their mouths rather than squirted towards the back. After some initial rejection, they both took to it like pros, and even started opening their little mouths when we brought the spoons close. So cute!
I’ve been planning for a while to make their food myself, rather than relying on little jars. Baby food is just a puree, right? I can make a puree, and if I make it I’ll know exactly what’s in it, and I can earn liberal elite points by only using the finest organic and locally grown fruits and vegetables. Plus, as it turns out, it’s super easy, and cheap as all heck.
Yesterday morning, I broke out a pot with a steamer basket and the food processor and made carrots, peas, pears (all steamed and pureed with a bit of water), and squash (roasted and pureed with a bit of water). The whole operation took maybe an hour and a half including cleanup, and check out the results!
Look at that vivid orange and green! And, I have to tell you, it tastes pretty good. Assuming you like carrots and peas and pears and squash, and who doesn’t?
It was odd to have to ignore most of my usual culinary instincts: no, the vegetables don’t need to be salted; no, the squash doesn’t need oil to bake up deliciously; and no, I didn’t need to worry about over-mixing the vegetables in the food processor. And, considering how bare bones the preparation was, and how delicious the results, I might have to rethink my usual inclination to season the hell out of everything I cook.
I’m also totally digging these cool 2 oz Baby Cubes for freezer storage. Should be awfully convenient.
Filed under Parenting | Tags: feeding, food | Comments (5)