First Food!

Is it just me or did this day come WAY too quickly? This past weekend we made our way into the world of "real food" with Charlie, and although I'm constantly wondering "how did we get here?" this really did seem to just kind of sneak up on us.

I decided to hold off on solids until I felt like Charlie was fully ready, and right around the 7th month mark it seemed like it was time. He'd been grabbing for our food a lot, staring at us whenever we would eat (seriously entranced!), and smacking his lips while watching us. With Henry I had started with rice cereal, then oatmeal, then puréed veggies and fruits, but with Charlie I wanted to take more of a baby led weaning approach, although I didn't want to follow that exclusively. So we started out with mashed up sweet potatoes on his high chair tray and let him go to town. He was curious of course, and put some of it in his mouth, and loved it! After that I decided to purée a bit of it and spoon fed him, and he liked that too. It was so cute when he got his first taste- that little smile and those wide eyes.



The next day wasn't as easy. It was just me feeding him and when I tried to do the puréed sweet potatoes again he continuously pushed the food out with his tongue, and I couldn't get him to "chew" and swallow. I was a little confused because I know that's a sign of not being ready for solids, but the day before he ate like a champ! So I put the food away and figured I would try again at dinner. When Hank got home I ended up running out to the gym so he was in charge of feeding. I warned him that it might not be easy, but he said he was good to go, so I headed off, thinking I would come home to a baby refusing to eat. But to my surprise when I got back Hank told me he had ate everything I set out for him! He told me he mimicked eating while Charlie was, opening his mouth when he wanted him to open his mouth, chewing, etc. and it worked! That was a week ago and since then he's been eating pretty well with the exception of a few instances.

So far we've tried broccoli, apples, and oatmeal. I make the baby food in a small blender and I've mainly been spoon feeding him, but also mashing up some of it and letting him feed himself, which is really more of him playing with the food and maybe accidentally getting it in his mouth! All in all though it's been a successful week and I feel like we're in a good place with solids.

Also, here's our schedule as of right now, in case anyone is interested. I know always love reading about things like this!

6:30am wake up and nurse
7:30am (breakfast)- oatmeal with pureed fruit
8:30ish-10:30ish nurse then nap #1, then wake up and nurse
12pm (lunch) today was the first day I gave Charlie a little bit of regular food at lunchtime too, while I ate. He did a broccoli/apple purée
1:30-3:30/4 nurse then nap #2 
4:30 (dinner) veggies- so far he's only done sweet potatoes at night
6/6:30 nurse then bedtime

A little sleep update too- up until this past week Charlie had been going through a really rough sleeping patch. He was waking up at least 2-3 times a night (sometimes more), and like I mentioned before, I wasn't sure what to do because he had no problem actually going to sleep. All of his waking would occur well after midnight after going down around 6pm, so I wasn't sure what approach to take as far as sleep training. We started the solid food and I think that definitely helped, because that first night he slept through the night. I also let him fuss a little more than usual before going in, and the one time he woke up around 2am I didn't need to go in there- he put himself right back to bed. It's been a week now and he's been sleeping MUCH better. If he wakes up it's around 5am, and I nurse him and he goes back to sleep until 6:30. His naps have been good too, so I'm hoping we're out of the woods for now. Although really, we all know this could change at anytime (probably tonight since I said "sleeping through the night" out loud! haha) but for right now I am soaking up any and all sleep I can!

xoxo