Her very first solids

I'm brimming with excitement and some amount of trepidation this morning as I attempt to give Faith her first solid. Last night, I was busy referring to a few books and putting tags to mark important pages about weaning my little baby from milk to her first solids (hmmm... its a misnomer to call it solids when the first food is so liquid-y).

Eagerly, I told my mom to come in earlier to help me. And thankfully she did, cos I wouldn't have been able to manage to feed her on my own. Partly becos we still haven't gotten an infant seat/high chair for her as yet and as a stop gauge, I've put her in Bumbo. However, she tends to flop forward, making it difficult to feed her. So, my mom's had to put her hands on her shoulders to stabilise her.

I was in a dilemma deciding back and forth between feeding her Earth's Best Organic Whole Grain rice cereals or organic avocado. Finally, I decided on the former as I figured she might need some time to get use to a different texture in the mouth. Since the introduction of every new food item requires about 4 days to check for any allergies or reactions, I thought the 4 days of practice with rice cereals might allow her to accept eating avocado better, and hopefully result in less food wastage.

At first, I started out with a spoon supposedly for solids (its the one with the yellow handle on the picture below), but it had a very shallow surface and maybe Faith couldn't quite gripe the food with her mouth. So, we changed to the other spoon, that was meant for juices and soups. Faith loves the soup spoon better and she loves her cereals even more. She eagerly opened her mouth to receive every spoonful of the cereals.

Unfortunately, I couldn't take a picture of her eating cos I was doing the feeding and my mom was holding her. It was a messy affair for Faith, of course, as with any baby's first feeding. She had cereals dribbling all over her mouth, on her nose, chin and neck too. But it doesn't really matter cos she's enjoying her food and that's more important. I had mixed about 1 tablespoon of the cereals with 4 tablespoons of breastmilk. At the end of the feeding session, there was only about 1 tablespoonful of cereals left behind in her bowl. Not bad for a start.

Either I'm not very adept at this whole feeding thingy or I haven't gotten the ritual down to a pat yet. But, it certainly takes longer to prep and feed her than it is to breastfeed her. I had a cup for water, a bowl for her cereals, then I had to warm the breastmilk in a milk bottle before mixing it with the cereals and use a total of 2 spoons in all to feed her. Sounds like a lot of things at a go. Oh well... I'm sure there would be more once she really starts to eat porridge.

Despite the many cutlery's and all, I'm glad Faith is taking to her first food well. It is heartening and I'm full of pride at how happy she seems to be with solid food. The picture at the beginning of this posting was taken after she was done with her feeding session. See how happy she is and the big, toothless gummy smile she bestowed on my mom and I after the session. Cute!