Cohen eating food

(an orange slice (from my Richards white!)) 

(a big hunk of cucumber) 

(half an apple)

I can't stop taking pictures of our little guy munching on whatever we hand him. I wanted to write about what is working for us with food lately, mostly just because I like to look back on these stages that seem to go so fast. When Cohen started on solid foods a few months ago, it felt like we had a lot of differing advice on how to do it. Lots of people are all about baby starting with rice cereal. Others say to start with meat. Then there are the self-weaning people who say to just give your babe chunks of food, and see if they feed themselves. 

And like so many parts of parenting, we decided to just do what felt right. For us, that meant me making purees for Cohen using the food we already eat. So I made applesauce using this recipe, and I ground up brown rice, and I put uncooked oatmeal in the food processor so we have a big jar of oatmeal flour to mix with boiling water in the mornings. I have also roasted butternut squash, sweet potatoes, and carrots for Cohen. And more recently I actually boiled beef tenderloin, and threw it in the blender. He never likes a new food the first time, but after a few tries, he is eating everything really well. And then sometimes we give him big chunks of fruit or veg, just for him to suck on. We watch him really carefully, and take it away when he starts to actually break down the food. 

On a typical day, 8 month old Cohen eats a little bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, some sweet potato and beef mixed together for lunch, applesauce for dessert, and maybe some butternut squash or carrots for supper. We like to make his largest meal lunch, so that ideally he is not having to do too much digesting when he is going to sleep at nighttime. And I am nursing about 5 or 6 times in 24 hours. 

I know we aren't following all the rules, but this seems to be working really well for us. I love seeing Cohen eating so well, and I love that I don't have to buy any special "baby" foods. 

PS: I liked this post