Oh, now I get it

Veronica started showing an interest in eating (solid food that is) several weeks ago. Nothing as obvious as Ethan’s grabbing the peach at putting it into his mouth when he was a baby. But clearly, she wanted to know what the rest of us were up to at the dinner table. (Colin, on the other hand, shows absolutely no interest in solids yet. In fact, when I tried to give him a taste of the rice, he looked at me as if I was nuts.)

So, when she reached her four-month adjusted birthday, I decided we’d let her try some oatmeal. 

She did pretty good on her first couple of tries — taking a little and eventually managing to swallow it (after playing with it in her mouth for a while). And since the whole point at this stage in the game was to get her used to the feel of solid food, that was fine. 

Then, when her tummy trouble started, I stopped giving her the cereal, just in case it was contributing to the problem. However, since her tummy trouble is lingering, I decided we’d try again, but this time with rice (because it can act as a binding agent, which might help her problem). Rather than get rice cereal, I just boiled some rice for her and then mixed it with some breast milk in my food mill and ground it up. It’s pretty easy to do, and it saves me having to make a special trip to the store, and likely get stuck with a box of baby cereal no one will ever eat. 

Yesterday, when we tried it mid-morning, she was pretty indifferent to it. She took a couple micro bites, but wasn’t really swallowing it. So we called it quits. But after watching her try to grab everything off my plate at dinner last night, it occurred to me that perhaps my timing was off with the mid-morning feeds. Dinner time might work better. 

Tonight, Veronica sat on my lap again at dinner (she likes to be in the action, but isn’t quite stable enough for her high chair yet) and I tried giving her the rice again. And this time, after the second mini bite, it all clicked. It was as if a light bulb clicked in her head. She looked as if she was saying, “So this is what you’ve been trying to get me to do” as she grabbed the spoon and shoved it into her mouth.

So we’ll try again tonight at dinner and see whether she remembers what to do.