Honey Bunches
When I was a baby, I was breastfed for as long as I was interested (my third birthday as a matter of fact) and started on table foods when I was big enough to reach for them. I don’t think my mom knew about baby-led weaning, but that was essentially it.
At one pediatrician visit the doctor was pushing rice cereal so hard that Mom broke down and bought some. She opened it, found weevils, and that was the end of the rice cereal.
Tonight I repeated the experiment. The baby seems so ready for real food, plus the promise of sleeping through the night was too much for my sleep-deprived self. I didn’t have any fruit, so I got out the open box of baby oatmeal that was passed down to me. Less than a year old I’m sure, but well beyond the “use by 30 days after opening.” No weevils. Ok so far. A spoonful of oatmeal flakes in a baby bowl, moisten it with breastmilk, and the tiniest bit on the tip of a rubberized spoon. Bib in place. Ready to go.
Lex opened his mouth like a baby bird. He went right through the miniscule first bowl so I fixed another spoonful, splashed on the milk and kept on feeding him. I tried to use the spoon to collect some of the overflow, the way I have seen other parents do, but my big eater kept trying to get his mouth around it. I gave up and by the end he was holding the spoon himself.
That was about 5 hours ago. He has just finished his nightcap and is asleep. If he goes through the night, I might experiment with a mushy Cheerio next.
