My infant has been teething for quite some time now, and finally the first adorable little tooth has made it's appearance. Since then my baby has been reaching for and eyeballing all sorts of tasty foods. I read that 6 months is the recommended age to introduce solids, but as a mother of three I think you need to follow your baby's clues, and introduce solids when they seem ready.
That being said you should be wise in this decision, because you should still be close to the 6 month mark. With my first two children I was advised to introduce solids at around 4 months, and while we started them almost to the day my oldest child turned 4 months, my second baby was a bit older before we started them. With my youngest I have been reading it's now customary now to wait until your baby is at least 6 months old before allowing them to begin sampling a plethora of delicious tastes and textures, but some places I've read on the Internet that "food before one is just for fun", and while the little jingle is endearing I don't think it can be the universal idea for every baby. I say this because every child is different. Not just their personality, but also in their "firsts". Some babies talk sooner than others, some infants walk before they crawl, and so on. You can't treat each child the exact same when in fact they're just as diverse as we are as adults. This is why I just follow clues my babies give me, and when I feel they're ready to start tasting foods then that's what we do. The first few times they do eat some super mushed up yummies it's gonna be quite messy and you may think that since they're spitting out most of the food that they don't like it or that the faces they make indicate that they're not enjoying the food, when what you need to realize is that these flavors are all new to them. Also they have only been sucking on a bottle or a nipple since birth so the movement of eating "food" is also new to them. We personally start with a food like sweet potatoes. It is nutritious, but also kind of sweet to taste yummy for their first culinary experience. I typically feed them the solids once a day, at dinner time. Since my youngest baby started eating solids just a bit before the 6 month mark we weren't as punctual to eat solids every single day, only when baby gave me clues that they were interested in eating them. Also pay attention to their diapers. When you introduce food make sure you only try one food at a time to give them time to let you know if it irritates their bowels or if they possibly develop a rash. You need to limit the variety at first so you can clue into what caused the poopy mess or what was behind the tummy ache and irritability that night for instance. If baby seems to have handled the first food for about a week ish, then move onto the next food. Also you don't always have to buy prepackaged baby food you know. We mash up veggies from our own dinner, or for example I mashed up a very ripe banana the other evening for baby to mush on. Unsweetened applesauce is another choice. I wouldn't recommend yogurt at this age though. Be smart in your decisions and do your research on which foods you really should wait to introduce to baby such as peanut butter, eggs, and honey. Happy nomming!
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