"B" is for breakthrough

Woohoo, we have eating from a spoon! He opens up like a little baby bird and smacks his lips for more. Maybe he just didn't like the single fruit and breast milk purees I was making for him? This is not to say that the food just magically goes into his mouth, he's still Alexander, so he still kicks his feet and windmills his arms and makes wild lunges with his mouth, so I do have fruit puree on the extractor fan and upper kitchen cabinets, and I've taken to wearing an apron when I fed him, but it's an improvement on lips sealed with cement and crunched together eyebrows.

It began with him accepting a spoonful of pork and veg baby food from a jar that a friend was feeding her son. I bought the same jar to see if it was a fluke or not, and he cautiously accepted some. So, I spent some time in the kitchen trying to make things with a similar level of taste and texture and that was all it took. The first version was Italian spiced ground chicken and potato which he ate, but didn't seem to really like all that much. I think it was the texture, too smooth and grainy. He seems to like big chunks and I'd run most of that batch through the blender and just stirred in a few chunks at the end. The new things are simply cooked till they break down a bit, stirred, and that is all.

Last night he had lightly curried lentils with veggies (broccoli, onion and carrot) and some chicken sausage and breakfast this morning was a sort of four fruit apple sauce. I began to make the standard stuff with apples, nutmeg, cinnamon and cardamom but ended up throwing in half an old nectarine, a few mushy strawberries and several prunes. He ate that up for breakfast, followed by some rice cake, which he's very fond of despite the way it makes him gag.

I'm still going to keep on with giving him lots of finger foods because I think it's great for him, developmentally (and he enjoys it), but knowing he will eat from a spoon gives me the chance to get a more balanced diet into him.

He's greatly increased his solid intake these past few days, to the point that I am having some problems with too much milk left. Hopefully this will stabilize soon. Honestly, I wouldn't mind at all if he went the route of some other babies I know, who all but gave up the breast during the day, and just wanted it at night. I'd sure like to wear a decent bra again, and it would be wonderful to keep the girls covered up and warm as the temperature dips!