OK well... maybe she isn't the queen... but she is hopefully getting the hang of it! Julianna started giving us the 'queues' that our pediatrician told us to look for... so how excited were we when we got to finally start her on rice cereal?? Very. It's a huge milestone, let's face it. Every parent knows that. It is the beginning of a very long frustrating but exciting road of introducing new foods to the baby & her making funny faces or spitting the food back out at us.
The first bite of Rice Cereal we gave her was priceless. She just was not sure what the heck we put in her mouth & more importantly why wasn't it her bottle? You could tell she wanted to like it... for us.
She gave us a desperate look like "What do I do with this??" ... then smushed it around in her mouth ... then gave a half swallow and the rest dribbled out. She then gave us a crooked little cute & unsure smile and waited for us to smile back. Once we smiled & laughed, she followed our lead and laughed back. Maybe she thinks it's a game?
The consistency right now is basically like soupy formula - we mix 1 part cereal to 4 parts formula. She can choke if it's any thicker, until she learns how to swallow correctly. The objective now is just to get her used to the spoon, and being able to push food to the back of her mouth and eventually swallow.
Overall, I don't think it was terrible for her. It could have been worse. She could have projectiled all over us. She ate about 10 spoonfuls for her first cereal feeding... Although, I'm not really sure how much
actually made it down the trap - and how much made it onto her bib. She'll get the hang of it. I have faith in baby J.
We'll do Rice cereal for this week then start her on Oatmeal ... then Barley... then the big-messy-colorful world of pureed veggies & fruits. Yum.
First night of rice cereal
"What's going on? What is this?!"
2nd Night of rice cereal
"Uggghhh... you are sticking this stuff in my mouth again?"
"Well, this isn't too bad I guess..."
"Yeah that pretty good after all!!"
"I always wondered why babies spend so much time sucking their thumbs. Then I tasted baby food."
Robert Orben (1927--) American humorist.
