A few months ago I posted our rough plan for introducing solids and the aftermath thereof. We are very fortunate that Lena has taken to food so well and are looking forward to the next step to finger foods, though she isn’t quite ready yet!
At the time of my post about solids, Lena was about five months old. We quickly ramped her up to three meals of solid food a day after that and even introduced a sippy cup for water. She was teething and drooling like you wouldn’t believe so we felt obliged to restore some of her fluids. She took to stage two foods readily and even loved mixing up fruits and veggies (yay for us!). I had high hopes of making my own food but with a busy work schedule we have continued to purchase most of her food.
Between five and eight months, I continued to breastfeed so we really didn’t change any of her feedings. She was still getting approximately six feedings per day for a total of roughly 25-30 oz. Added to that, she has at least one jar per meal (approximate 4 oz each) and sometimes 1.5 jars during lunch and/or dinner.
We were pretty happy with that routine so didn’t really switch it up that much until recently. When we hit eight months, I finally resigned myself to the fact that formula was a much more practical option for us so we starting mixing in a bottle or two per day. Things quickly progressed from there and we are now 100% formula feeding. With that change, we upped her bottles to 8 oz per feeding and in so doing, eliminated one of her smaller feedings in the early evening. This has definitely given us a new-found freedom and allowed us more flexibility with our routines because we always know we can easily feed her whenever we need to.With the addition of formula, Adelena also lost interest in having oatmeal mixed with her meals and so we’ve opted to leave that out.
Experiments with slightly chunkier foods have NOT been successful yet! Lena isn’t sold on protein yet and still prefers any protein items be mixed (heavily!) with some of the sweeter veggies like carrots and sweet potatoes. Fruit is never passed up either, of course. Thicker blends of food are definitely a hit, however chunks are usually met with disgusted faces and some serious tongue agility exercises in order to expel the unwanted items! Oh well…better luck next time perhaps!
