I have to admit, the idea of starting my daughter off on solid foods both excited me and made me nervous. There are so many theories about how to get your child started on his or her first foods, which foods to avoid, how to start them off, whether or not to make your own food or buy baby food, and so on and so on. How was I ever going to manage everything and make all of the right decisions so that my daughter would continue to thrive?
Thankfully, I quickly learned that, no matter what theory I used to approach solid foods, my daughter was going to do or want the opposite. Trying to introduce solid foods became so difficult and time-consuming for me that I finally just gave in and found the one method that my daughter would eat, with the one food she would eat: chicken with brown rice on a gigantic wooden spoon.
Now, most manuals and baby food books say not to introduce meats as a first food. This wasn't the first food that I tried to introduce. We started with avocados, then carrots, apples, rice cereal, peas, and green beans. She didn't like anything. I tried feeding her from a the plastic-lined spoons, wider baby spoons, regular spoons, and as finger food. She wanted nothing to do with any of it. Finally, I realized that she loves to play with my wooden spoons. She also loves to put these in her mouth. She also likes extremely bland food. So, we tried the chicken on the wooden spoon and...IT WORKED!
For one month, the only way I could introduce any food to my daughter was on the wooden spoon. Eventually, she began to like other foods and she began to eat on the regular baby spoons. But, I learned a very important thing. No matter what you read or what you know, your baby is going to have something else planned for you. You have to think creatively in order to resolve the challenges that Baby tries to give you. After all, we are smarter than our babies...right?
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