Our pediatrician had a few basic guidelines when it came to introducing solids: Nurse as long as you can. Begin providing new foods between four and six months. By nine months, he told us, except for nuts and honey The Child should eat what we eat. Except how is that even possible? At five days per allergy screening, it would take three months to expose her to roughly 18 ingredients. We eat a lot more than 18 ingredients. Where should we start? And how the heck was this going to work?
I had my own addenda to the guidelines: Family meals had to happen as soon as possible. No calories in the crib. And I did not want to feed her anything if I wouldn’t lick the spoon myself. That meant all meat and green vegetables would have to come from scratch instead of a jar, so we made our own baby food.
I nursed for 15 months, and The Child’s first food was yogurt at 5 ½ months. Plain Whole Milk Yogurt from the Straus Family Creamery. No sugar, no fruit, no flavorings. Yogurt was something she watched me eat all the time, and had already expressed an interest in tasting. She quivered at the tang the first few times but wanted more. After a week of yogurt we introduced baby rice cereal. This was not received as well as the yogurt, but once a pattern between the two bowls was established, the incentive to get more yogurt got some rice cereal down without too much fuss. For the next two months she continued on the rice cereal and yogurt every day, while we slowly introduced avocado, sweet potato, banana, apple, carrot, and egg yolk. The Child detested fresh bananas but loved store-bought organic banana baby food.
Waiting a week for an allergy screening was overkill. We have no family history of food allergies. But we were really exhausted, and Saturday morning routinely became new-food day. This habit had some other advantages. It provided a weekend day to shop, prepare, freeze, and label, leaving us more prepared during the week. The Spouse’s work and travel obligations were dramatically increasing, so focusing on new foods each weekend meant both of us were participating in new food time as a family activity. Just as weekend cooking had been a favorite thing to do together before we were parents – it was now part of our family focused weekends.
We started a list of what we had introduced and when, using a Post-It inside the kitchen cabinet door. In the first few weeks it’s easy to keep track, but months later we were glad there was a readily accessible list reminding us what had been cleared. We also methodically screened oils, vinegars, and spices for allergies as well. I’d never heard of anyone being allergic to olive oil or fresh cracked pepper, but we wanted to make sure we started building a list of cleared ingredients to make flavorful food. Steamed carrots are okay. But covered in olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper before roasting… those are carrots we all want to eat for dinner.
At nine months she was eating everything we ate, three meals a day. She still nursed in the mornings and once before bed. We quit middle-of-the night feedings cold turkey around this time as well. We’d figured out how to creatively cook with a smaller set of gradually expanding ingredients, and there was less panic because introducing new foods wasn’t just an allergy avoidance thing anymore. It morphed into a habit of regularly trying new things which continues to this day.
The Child’s first real meal was grilled lamb with roasted onions, bell peppers, and potatoes. It had seasoning, caramelization, and flavor. And it turns out when you scoop a little of everything into a blender – your puree will be this hideous gray mush that smells and tastes just like grilled lamb with roasted vegetables should. Even when you’re the mom licking the mush off the spoon.
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