Food!

Owen recently turned 6 months old (which is another post in this series) and a week or so before he did we decided to start some solid foods. With Collin I was so excited and anxious for this milestone, food, hooray, excitement! But with Owen I held out for as long as I could, I'm not all that excited about seeing Owen grow up so fast, so I'm hanging on where I can. Not to mention that giving foods before 6 months really doesn't serve much of a purpose for babies. Here's why to delay solids.

As it turns out, babies are born with an "open" gut, and it doesn't close until 6 month or so, which means that their bodies don't utilize food in the same way an adult's does- until the gut is closed. Anyhow, we were 5 days away from 6 months, and I didn't want to start while we were on vacation (which happened to be when Owen turns 6 months old), so, enter the pears!
Pears. Its true. We skipped right over rice cereal. I'm not a fan of the flavorless, bland, starch. It really doesn't add anything, nutritionally and there are a few new studies that link giving rice cereal with obesity later in life. So, we're sans cereal, and heavy into fruits and veggies.
The first week we just gave Owen pears and watched him carefully for allergies or issues with bowel movements, when all was clear we moved on the sweet potatoes, then carrots and now we are on to peas. Along the way Owen has been so excited. He admires food from afar- and constantly watches us whenever we eat as though yelling with his eyes "please, please, can you share some?!?"
After his first few bites, Owen quickly figured out that food is delicious and anxiously anticipated each bite. We started with 1/3rd of a jar at dinner, and now is to a 1/2 jar. He gets so excited for dinner, and yells at us in his sassy little yell when I don't get the food in his mouth fast enough.


Once we were confident in his liking of food we added fruit in a mesh bag to suck on-- he loved tasting watermelon, mango and banana.

So basically, we're halfway through a cornucopia of flavors with no end it sight. He loved the food, and as you can tell by his expanding set of chins, he's not missing any meals, solids or breastmilk.

Onward we go.
Begrudgingly on my part, but with exuberant enthusiasm from Owen. Its a simultaneous push and pull, I want him to slow down, and he can shovel in the food, and experiences of life fast enough.