Rice Cereal

I called my pediatrician today to ask about starting Lily a little early on solids. The experts say not to start until 4-6 months but my little chunker is always hungry! I figured she is getting about 30-35 ounces a day on average of breastmilk/formula supplementation on high ounce days. She is still going only three hours in between feedings during the day, and sometimes less. So I thought the cereal might satisfy her more, or at least add some bulk. In addition I called my friend Dr. Malden who happens to be a pediatrician. They both approved the cereal a little early. Between the both of them I got...if she is holding her head up well, doubled her birth weight or over 13 pounds, shows interest at my food, and can stop making the tongue thrusting motion then go for it. Well she is good with her head but I was unsure of the tongue issue since she has never been much of a tongue baby. So we gave it a whirl. We unpacked the highchair (Thanks Loomis') and bought the cereal.

She was mighty sleepy today which was crushing my hopes of getting her to eat the cereal around dinner. But after a three hour nap she finally woke up enough to eat some. No funny faces but major cuteness. Here is the video of her eating. I couldn't upload the first bite because the file was too big.

Overall I think it went well. She did really well with her first few bites, no tonguing the food. But she also tried to suck the food off the spoon and by the end was getting mad that I was not getting it to her fast enough. She did start the tongue thrusting when I tried to feed her but did better when Michael tried it. I couldn't get a video of her madness though.

I also was not expecting the sneezing with a mouthful of cereal. Insta splatter all over Mommy. Or the spit up following the feeding to be so different. But the best part? The taste test. Can I prequel by saying I haven't even tasted my breastmilk or formula. I smelled the formula..that was enough for me. I mixed her cereal with formula since I did not want to waste the liquid gold. Then I had Michael try the cereal..SUCKER! But then he proceeded to shove it in my face to try. Nothing prepared me for the nastiness that was to come. How do they eat this crap. And Lily seemed to like it! Yuck. It tasted like wet cardboard. Better her than me. A few messy baby pics