Sending support to both Shir and smonster, and rest up and get better, Laura

x-post with Natter:

Does anyone have advice on starting a baby on solid food or a book they recommend on the subject? The pediatrician mentioned today that she was old enough to start on food, but she was very vague on the details.

Brendon was super slow and would have nursed alone until he was a teenager I think. When I asked about it his pediatrician said when he made grabby hands motions when we were eating he was ready. He had his first food (pizza crust!) at 8 months. Now he was huge (22 lbs at 4 months) so at 8 months and 30ish pounds we just started mushing up what we were eating and gave him some. He didn't get teeth until he was 18 months (thank God) so he stayed with mushed stuff for a long time. He wasn't allowed dairy products until he was 2 because of family history of diabetes and of course no meat until he could make his own decisions because of me being vegetarian. He nursed until he was 2 and I was pregnant with Bobby.

Bobby was interested in food earlier and stopped nursing earlier. We did the same thing with mushing up food. Sweet potatoes, fruits and other veggies, pasta, that kind of thing.

Never got into the packaged baby food stuff.

eta: I did buy some of the baby cereal things, but they never seemed to like them.

My old favorite parenting blog, Ask Moxie, has several posts on food. This is the "starting solids" one. [link]

What a nice blog post! My kids are so old they didn't get the benefit of blog posts, just me guessing and taking advice from friends.

Thanks, flea. That post said 6 months is best, but ltc is 4 months and her doctor thinks she is ready to be introduced to foods. She is absolutely fascinated when any of us eat anything.

It is most likely she will just play with it in her mouth and spit it out, which is fine.

Yeah, the doctor said breast fed babies can be reluctant to learn how to eat food, especially if you start later.

As fond of mine were of the yummy mom food, they all eat real food when they are ready. I really think you have to be child led on this because anything else just leads to frustration for all parties. It sounds like ltc is showing interest though so go for it if you and TCG are ready.

Note, diapers get ickier with non-mom food. Just sayin'.

Luckily, though I was born long before we could refer to blog posts, my mother had a good friend who was a nurse. Possibly saved my life when I had measles.

Something occurred to me - do vegans breastfeed? or am I just being weird?