Nugget is – OH MY GOD – 6 months old this week. Can I just say that, so far, this is the BEST AGE EVER. I know it’ll continue to go up and down, but right now, I love this age on him. Love it. He’s finally started sleeping on a consistent schedule – anywhere from 10-11pm until somewhere from 7:45-9am. THAT IS THE AWESOMEST SCHEDULE EVER. My greatest fear, when having a baby, was all about sleep. Because sleep & I have been on thin ice since… oh, all my life. All I could think was that it could actually get worse. We’ve always been lucky that Mr Nikki’s work schedule lets us sleep until 8:30, so… wouldn’t it suck to have a kid who ruined that? *snort* I was truly petrified of having one of those kids that insists on waking up at 5 or 6, no matter what.
Honestly, I’d have been ok with sleeping until 7. 7 is a reasonable hour to me. But 8? *swoon*
Anyway. This is a lovely age. Partly because he’s so much fun and partly because (thanks to the sleep schedule), we’ve finally settled in and recovered from the new baby/new job/big move drama and feel human again.
I’ve been eagerly awaiting the 6 month mark because I’ve been dying to start feeding him “solids.” Food is such a big deal to me – cooking, supporting real foods, weekly trips to the farm for our raw milk (goat & cow), etc I gave him a few tiny bits of smashed up banana a couple weeks ago, a couple times, actually, and he seemed completely weirded out by it. He did the same thing when I stewed & smushed some apple. Mr Nikki thought he didn’t & wouldn’t like it, but I sensed he was just adjusting to the texture & flavor.
Last week, I figured it was close enough to 6 months and I smashed up a pretty big piece of banana. He ate the whole thing. I didn’t expect him to and he made horrible faces the whole time, but when I stopped giving it to him or took too long to get the next bite into his mouth, he stared at the bowl, kicked his feet around and yelled at me. Well, ok, then. Horrible faces, be damned, he liked it. Two times, that happened. Then TADA! No more horrible faces. He’s used to it. He LOVES it. He loves it in the way that his mouth is open wide as the spoon is heading his way, and he lunges his face forward & tries to grab the spoon with both hands. I wait a couple days, as advised between new foods but so far he loves the banana, has also had apple and pear – and tonight, I broke out the baby food maker and made some broccoli. (Banana, obviously, I just smashed up. Apple & pear, I’d cooked myself and smashed. But I discovered, because of the broccoli, that the baby food maker really does make things easier. Steam/cook and puree in a couple easy steps.)
Broccoli. Well, the jury is still out – though I suspect, as he did with the sweet fruits, that it’s just a new flavor and after a couple times, he’ll be demanding it. After the broccoli, I plan on trying avocado in a couple days, then cauliflower a couple days after that, then I have some apricots sitting in the fridge. (I’m following a list that our naturopath/pediatrician gave us, in terms of which foods to try at 6 months, which at 9 months, etc.)
All his food is fresh, organic, and healthy. He eats better than most adults do, already.
And here I’m left wondering – why do people buy baby food? I know that most people do, and I’d never given it much thought before having kids of my own, but now I can’t imagine. A) real food is cheaper B) its not time consuming to cook & puree it AT ALL C) you know that it’s fresh, pure, and hasn’t been processed or sitting around. Then again, I guess a lot of people don’t realize the importance of that. I do truly believe, however, that you’re less likely to have a picky eater on your hands when you’re dealing with real foods. I think processing, etc, does a lot to a person’s palate. And I’ve got evidence to back me up on that – I know a number of people, one being one of my best friends – who raised their children on whole foods and there isn’t a picky eater among them. Well, kinda. My friend’s daughter turns her nose up at pasteurized milk. She won’t touch the stuff and says it comes from yucky cows. Most of these kids love things like kale. KALE. Do you know what a great thing it is to have children who eat kale?? I can’t wait to give that to him, too. Then soon enough, he’ll be able to help me go out back to get eggs for breakfast in our own back yard. I love the idea of him seeing where our food comes from. I think this might be my favorite part of parenthood so far.