- Rice Cereal pours out super fast! Holy cow! I just wanted to start with maybe a table spoon and see how things went, but instead we started with probably close to a 1/4 cup. Yikes! And I couldn't pour it back into the box because I rinsed the dish out, but didn't dry it before pouring some in so some of it was wet. Sigh. Lesson learned there.
- We're using the Bumbo for a high chair which works great, the only problem is when she gets mad she stiffens her whole body which raises her bum off the seat and looks like she's about to flop over backwards out of it. After about three or four bites the above image came into play.
- I'm not really sure how runny to make it. The directions on the box are crap for first time moms! I thought I made it pretty runny the first night, but I tried runnier the second night and it seemed to be better for her.
- The video camera on the tripod and dad snapping still shots make great memories, but are distractions for her. (And it turns out he only took one picture and it's blurry. Booo!)
- She still got up at 2:30, 5:30 and 8:30 to eat. Sigh.
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| Sneak peek of her photo shoot in the background! |
- Instead of using the Bumbo I decided to put a towel on the counter and sit her on it with her cradled into me. Sounds awkward, but she's not sitting up on her own yet and I wanted to support more than just her head in case she decided to do the body stiffening thing as described in #2 above. It worked SO much better! Obviously we won't do it forever, but I figure while she's getting used to the idea of eating cereal it doesn't hurt to try it for the next week.
- I poured the Rice Cereal a lot slower this time! I didn't actually measure it, but it was roughly a table spoon. I figure we might as well start small so we're not wasting so much.
- I didn't make it a ton runnier, but more so than the night before. It was still plenty gritty, but dripped off the spoon easier.
- With each bite I made mmm, yummy, nom nom noises in a sing song voice. I don't know that it actually helped, but it got some smiles out of her!
- She slept until 4am!!!! And then got up again at 7am!!! Then up for good at 8:30! And still napped at 11am, 2:30pm, and 7pm and was in bed for the night by 10pm. (I know, 10 sounds late, but Nick works until 11:30 and I wait up for him to get home. If I put her to bed any earlier it means I have that many fewer hours of consecutive sleep before she's ready to eat again.)
Over all I think we had a pretty good experience. She furrowed her eyebrows, but never made any faces like, what are you doing to me? Really I think it went as good as could be expected.
But I have a question for all you experienced moms. Every time I fed her, bathed her, and then nursed her before putting her to bed. The third night she ate a LOT and still nursed for 15 minutes. My question is, how much is too much? How do I know if I'm over feeding her? I don't want to give her a belly ache or have her puke all over.
5 comments:
From what my doctors have told me, really at this point you are just feeding them to get them used to the idea of eating real food- not so much for the calories. With Brooklyn our doctor had us start rice cereal a little younger to see if it would help her sleep through the night better but really, you still want their main source of food to be milk. The rice cereal doesn't have all the nutrients they need at this point in time. I wouldn't give her more than a few tablespoons of cereal... but that's just me.
I don't think you should worry about over feeding her. Only because you never know how much cereal she is actually eating and with it so watered down, its not gonna take up a lot of space. That and the fact that she'll eat more as she goes through different growth spurts and such, and you dont want to deny her the food she needs just because you think she ate too much. My doctor always said to always nurse them after cereal and let them have as much as they want. Plus with nursing you never know how much they are actually drinking.
I think you are doing wonderful!
: )
My answer is really lame- every kid is different. Trial and error and go with your gut. You know her best, so you will make a better decision than anyone else can.My pediatricians always said to feed them as much as they want, but Samuel used to eat until he threw up, I always had to stop him because he NEVER wanted to be done. Isaac doesn't throw up, but he'll eat until he has a tummy ache, so I feed him til he slows down and looks more sleepy. So as long as she's happy, you got it right. You're doing great Sara!
Here is another suggestion on positions to feed her: With my kids, I would sit on the floor, lay the child between my legs. I propped their head on my ankles (feet together of course). This way they were still in a laying down position as if drinking a from a bottle, but just a little more elevated. It wasn't messy either. I still had a free hand to assist with feedings, stopping the child from throwing their arms, etc.
Of course with all the new "fangled" things doctors tell you now (have baby sleep on their back, etc.) this may be a 'no-no' thing now, but it was easy and my kids are still alive today, so I must have done something right.
I've learned that sometimes they eat a ton and sometimes they're just not interested... you provide the food and she'll let you know how much she wants! Babies are much "smarter" than we give them credit for. Ethan didn't love the taste of rice cereal because it tastes like, well, nothing. He preferred oatmeal. :o) Maybe Shasta will like it when she's ready to move on. They say to start solids anytime between 4 and 6 months and there's really no harm in starting them later. We started Ethan at 4 months just for the practice, so that he got used to having the spoon in his mouth and something a little more solid than milk. We'd just practice more and more... until finally, he was eating! It helped me to see it as "practice"... then I wasn't so stressed about him eating or not.
Hope that helps, friend. You're a great mommy!
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