Saturday at lunch, I offered John some banana spears. I wondered if he would prefer them to the mashed banana I tried a few days earlier. John is clearly delighted by getting to manipulate food, as he starts flapping his arms and legs when I sit him down on my lap at the table. He studiously picks up a piece of food, brings it to his mouth, touches it to his lips or even mouths it briefly, then gently sets it back on the plate, while imitating a chewing motion even though there is no food in his mouth. He is imitating what he observes Mama and Daddy doing every day and I don't think he realizes where our food disappears to. When John has "successfully" swallowed some food, he has wretched and gagged, which tells me that he's happily doing what's perfect for his personal development right now but isn't ready to be actually consuming foods. One day he won't gag and that's when he'll be ready!
John did not seem to like the taste!
His lower left front tooth came in last week and we think we see the lower right one coming in now, although we can't feel it poking through the gum yet.
I know that John is the nearly spitting image of Chris, but sometimes when I look at him, I see so much of my father in him, like in the below photo. Maybe it's the eyes and brow line.
Laughing with Daddy after we got home from an afternoon parish picnic:
Katherine, Just a question in my mind out of curiosity, because you seemed to be so gung-ho about waiting to try solids until he was ready -- quoting all those delay-solids articles, etc.
ReplyDeleteMy question derives because it seems John has not yet developed any more of the "readiness" signs than when you first started talking about delaying solids at his six month checkup in this post. It seems like Mama is the one who wants him to be eating and though he really could care less and doesn't like food, still sees it as a toy, etc, you keep introducing these things in hope he will take them. But, I know you have said before that you really would prefer to wait, so I'm wondering if you had a change of heart or if this is still in line with your original philosophy somehow and I'm just not getting it. Maybe I wrongly assumed that "readiness" would be child-led rather than parent-led?
I have done several different things with introducing solids (as many as I have kids! ha) but I, like you, have a need for a "philosophy of" anything I decide... so I am trying to get the whole picture here... Thanks in advance!
Sarah: No, I do still have a philosophy. :) Something in John changed subtley. The way he grabbed at my plate changed from the way he watches and grabs at everything to something much more intent. He was starting to grab fistfulls of food with eagerness. I just had a "mother's sense" that he wanted to be included in what we were doing at the table. I believe that has been confirmed because now whenever I sit down at the table with him, he gets very excited and dives for my plate. I have to hold him back while we say grace.
ReplyDeleteMama would have preferred to wait even longer on letting John have access to solids, but if I'm really going to let this be child-led, then I have to respect that I think he's VERY interested in at least playing with food.
All that said, he's really not eating. He's trying, but only getting "essense" of food down his gullet. However, he seems to find it very important to be allowed to handle the food and put it to his mouth. He started to get quite upset at the restaurant today because I didn't think there was anything safe for him to eat, so I was holding him back from my plate. Only when I handed him a piece of bread did he become happy and content, then proceeded to cover the entire floor with crumbs. Your waiter-husband would have been quite distressed!
I think the process is definitely child-led at this point. I rather regret sticking those mushed bananas in John's mouth, but I just wasn't sure whether he got the idea. He *did* get the idea but *didn't* want bananas in his mouth. Now I'm just making baby-safe food available to him when I eat because what I eat often isn't baby-safe or it's more spiced or filled with added fats than I want him to be eating at this point.
I figure that John will imitate us eating food the same way he'll imitate anything else we might do: like when he's a toddler and imitates me cleaning, all the while thinking it's a game. At some point, John will stop imitating for play and start eating, whenever he's able and interested. In the meanwhile, he's having loads of fun but is still nursing for 100% of his calories. We continue to plan not to give him rice cereal or jarred baby food.
Does that make sense? Doesn't seem like I'm being hypocritical? ;)
It does make sense; the part that was missing was the instinct a mother has about her child's wishes. There was no way to read that through a blog. :-) Thanks for the explanation; I knew you'd have one.
ReplyDelete