The Freedom of Solid Foods

Solid foods are great. Because, on days like today, when we are running late for a morning coffee date, I don’t have to feed River breakfast. I threw a bib, a banana and half a mini whole-wheat bagel in a bag, and off we went. When we got there, I gave him the bagel and banana to munch on. He was satisfied, I got to catch up with my friend and didn’t have to spend much time on breakfast. It’s a good stage of life to be at.

We still give River mostly pureed foods. I find it easier to get a variety of ingredients in one place by mashing them together. My friend Karen though, the mother to a seven-month old, has barely used purees at all. She is having problems with her daycare provider because they don’t want to feed her baby solids, afraid she will choke. Karen says many people question her and judge her. Just because they see everyone else giving their babies purees, they think that is the right thing to do.

I’m pretty terrified of River choking, so I haven’t been giving him a lot of solids. He usually gets them when we are on the run. I’ll bite open a cherry tomato and give him half, or the same with a grape. Recently I’ve started to cut up some soft fruits into small pieces and let him play with them. But the majority of his food intake remains mush.

I’m not sure where Karen got this idea from, but she feels more comfortable giving her baby solids. As we sat together at a café, she pulled out a Tupperware container filled with boiled green beans, carrots, squash and pasta spirals. River became antsy watching little Helen eat these things, so Karen offered him some as well. He seemed to enjoy sucking the flesh off the skin of the squash stick. And he was happy chomping on the carrot and pasta.

We were recently in the market for Cheerios, but I pulled the Apple-Cinnamon Cheerios Mark picked out off the checkout counter when I saw the sugar content and the preservatives. Even the healthy brands have a good dose of sugar. Who needs Cheerios though when you can make your own veggie and pasta snack kit?