Introducing Solid Foods

One thing I didn’t put much thought into with having a second child was the transition to her eating real food. All I knew was that I would breastfeed her until she chose to stop. I told myself that I would be that parent with a 10-year-old still breastfeeding since I planned for Nori to be my last kid (but that’s a whole other topic to cover)!

Nori has begun eating solid foods in addition to being breastfed. This transition has been interesting. I am lucky to say that she eats pretty much anything now. This was also the case with Ava. My girls love to eat!

The tricky part with getting Nori started on solid food was beginning with the traditional puréed foods. Nori was not a fan of this. She did not like the thinned out food. She jumped right into the chunky textured food. This was a-okay for me. I enjoyed steaming her foods and feeding only things that I prepared for her.

I will guess that this is what everyone calls the baby-led weaning method. I allowed Nori to feed herself steamed fruits and veggies. I made them soft enough to smash between her fingers, but also firm enough to not be complete mush. She picked up on it pretty fast. It could have come from her watching us eat and mimicking the motions we used.

We began with sweet potatoes since that was Ava’s favorite food at this age. After sweet potatoes, we introduced green beans. Then we began adding in different veggies every few days. I didn’t introduce fruits until she was comfortable with the veggies. I don’t fully believe that babies will refuse veggies if they start with fruits. But I decided to do veggies first just to strengthen her palate by getting used to the earthy flavors first.

I did also wait about two days in between trying new foods to make sure she didn’t show any signs of being allergic to anything. We have a history of severe food allergies in our household so that was always on my mind when introducing foods. After introducing each food I looked for signs such as hives, vomiting, or any indication of a digestive irritant.

Nori’s favorite food right now is blueberries! She will eat them all day if I allow her. There isn’t any food that she doesn’t like. I did think she didn’t like bananas initially, but I realized that it’s just the texture she wasn’t a fan of. Baby girl didn’t like the slimy hands after touching them!

Since Nori is still under 1, I only feed her solid foods to get her comfortable with eating them. I don’t feed her solid foods for nutritional purposes since she is still breastfed and get all of her nutrients there. I allow her to eat the things that I eat. Once she turns 1, I will be more consistent with feeding her solids. Until then, I will continue to enjoy watching her test out foods and get messy in that process!

How did you begin introducing solid foods to your littles?

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