Since our anniversary on October 10th, we have been feeding Niko something other than breast milk. We wanted to keep it a secret and unveil the truth on Thanksgiving, but unfortunately, Nina spilled the beans (that isn’t one of the foods) to her mother a few days before Thanksgiving. So, no surprise!!!
That wasn’t the 1st time she has told her mother something that we weren’t ready to announce (it was the baby announcement)!!! It was actually funny because Nina sent me a text message at work and it said, I DID SOMETHING BAD TODAY. My reaction was thinking she probably purchased an expensive item for the baby. But, it wasn’t. I wasn’t upset…I mean, sometimes it’s hard to keep a secret for a long time when you really want to tell everybody!!! Since her mom knew, we had to tell the rest of the family earlier than we had wanted and that was OK.
I sent my parents a text message with a picture of me feeding him and on Thanksgiving, Nina posted an Instagram collage of him eating so her dad could see it!!
Back to food, Niko has eaten sweet potatoes, avocados, bananas, butter nut squash, home-made applesauce, strawberries, yogurt (both store brought and home-made), pears, green beans, spinach, carrots, and cranberry sauce. Nina combined bananas and avocados and froze it and Niko loved that frozen combination — she calls it “baby crack”.
Every time we eat in front of him (it doesn’t matter what it is), Niko wants it in his mouth!!! A few days ago, I was cutting green beans in his baby jail with him in it and he kept crawling over me to the colander. On November 8th, we were going to meet my parents for breakfast in New Braunfels, but we quickly changed our minds because seeing 4 people eat may anger the baby, so we met them at a park and my parents supplied breakfast tacos. Yes, we ate in front of him, but he was pre-occupied by the fact that he was able to crawl outside on a blanket and it wasn’t our house. He could see and hear a lot more.
We are doing it thru a process called baby-led weaning. It allows babies to control their solid food consumption by “self-feeding” from the very beginning of their experiences with food. Basically, in easy to understand terms, we give him food that he can pick up and eventually some of it goes in the mouth and is swallowed. I know he swallows it because we see it his in poo. Sometimes we spoon feed him or he takes control of the spoon (most of them end up on the floor).
Niko did really well on Thanksgiving. We took his highchair outside (yes, we ate outside, it was such a lovely day) and put some food in front of him and he was good to go.
It is really fun watching him eat and feeding him. The 1st time we did it, we set-up the tripod and video camera. We got so many blackmail photos and can’t wait till he is older so we can show him.
We are still feeding him breastmilk and the real food is twice a day.
It is very messy and gets on his fingers, in his nose, on his face, in his hair, in his eyes, on mom and dad, on the floor, in the bib (their is a pocket on the bib and it catches most of the food that gets dropped), in his neck folds, and on his clothes.
