spaghetti

this baby is a smart one.  and a tricky one.  he has figured out the difference between what I'm eating and what he's been given to eat and he is not having it.  i tried to eat spaghetti today and he kept grabbing at it and when i tried to feed him his own purees he would not do it.  he has also developed an aversion to his spoon utensils though too, so if i feed him with my hands he will gobble little bits of table food up.  so i think it's a combination of those things - he wants to eat what we're eating, he doesn't like utensils, and he would rather use his/my hands.  today we ate little bits of spaghetti with tomato sauce, and if i was careful not to let him see me do it, i could put some baby version of meat and spaghetti on my fingers and feed that to him instead of feeding him my own pasta.  yes, i would rather not feed him the weird gerber meat sauce with pasta from a jar, it just seems strange to feed to a baby because he hasn't even had simple foods like avocado yet, and here i am feeding him meat sauce of all things, but he just refuses to eat baby type purees and he seems to like the taste of adult food better.  i need to buy some more sweet potatoes and cook them up and cut them into tiny bits but meat sauce with little pasta noodles was all i had and he really liked the tomato sauce on my own dish so i gave it to him.  it's the first time he's eaten anything other than prunes in a long time so i'll take it.

recent videos

feeding and sitting videos

 

food battles

Here's where we were in the beginning of eating solids where he was eating purees like a champ, and then where we are now back to square one with oatmeal.  He won't take anything, thinned or thickened, sweet or savory, or flavorless cereal.  Sigh.

As soon as the spoon even comes close to his face now he starts crying.  I've been letting him play with it because I feel like he has something against eating utensils now.  I've tried using my finger too.  He will happily eat little nibbles of soup broth and that's about it.

food and sitting

Baby had an incident of throwing up alot of fluids a few days ago, the same day he chowed down on carrots for the second time.  I think it turned him off solids for a while because he's refused every single time since then.  I try multiple times a day and he just won't do it.  Pears, carrots, peas, squash, sweet potato with apple, green beans, nothing.  I will probably have to buy some more prunes and give those a try because he seems to like that consistency/sweet flavor the best so far.  It's been a battle trying to get him not to scream and gag on the food.

On a more positive note, he has been sitting unassisted pretty well considering he could barely do it a few days ago.  He's still wobbly and his body will have little spasms trying to maintain his posture, which will often cause him to overcompensate and fall to the side, but he can sit up on his own for several minutes with nothing holding him up.  He will also start to reach for things while he's sitting upright, which is something new today.  He'll see a toy and really want that specific toy and will go for it.  He will also express frustration when he can't get the toy or can't manipulate it the way he wants, which is usually toward his mouth to eat it.

He's been pretty fussy during the daytime this week, which is always tiring.  Never sure what the reason is, he's just extra cranky all day long multiple days a week.  Sometimes it makes me wonder if I'm playing with him to the best of my ability because he just seems so angry and moody alot, but at the end of the day I feel like I've been entertaining a large audience who has been boo-ing me all day and I am then exhausted.

We've narrowed our feedings at night to 2 feeds.  Rather, we limit him to 2 feeds because I've started to ignore him if it hasn't been long enough.  He's in the habit of waking every 3 hours but I make him go 6 hours for the first stretch and 4 hours for the second stretch.  He will then sleep another couple hours and finally get up for the day.  It's nice but I also haven't been getting any more actual sleep because I still wake up and can't fall asleep until he stops because it's usually pretty loud screaming.

I shouldn't write blog entries at the end of the day, they will have a negative tone, and all-in-all things are going great but there's just that feeling of being "done" by the evening, which I'm sure every mom can relate to!  In that sense, I'm thankful for his 6:30-7pm bedtime after which I am FREE!

Now where does schoolwork fit into this day???....

carrots

There are times when your baby's poop really excites you, and today is one of them.  Sorry in advance.  They are becoming more solid I noticed, just right though.  I've been alternating prunes with one new food to keep him "running smoothly" while we are in the early stages of this whole eating solids business.  This morning he had a helping of prunes and then tried to eat my breakfast so I fed him homemade carrots.  It was his second time having carrots and this morning he could not get enough.  He started eating his hands and shirt when I was spooning more from the jar because he couldn't wait.  We have a hungry baby on our hands!  I'll post a feeding vid/photo later.
I'll have to watch his carrot intake though - don't want him turning orange like andrea ; )

Happy 6 months!

6 month videos

 

 in the above video he's making some funny noises with his lips

 

 playing with his toys

eating prunes