I've taken comfort in the fact that a baby doesn't need any other nutrition but breast milk for the first year of their life. Truth be told, I was starting to feel discouraged because Ziva wasn't really eating any solids. (It's funny that my family honestly wanted her to eat steak at 4 months old!) We started giving her tastings of different fruits and vegetables when she was about 5 1/2- 6 months old. Though, we were lucky if she would eat half a jar of mashed fruit or some vegetables from our soup up until she was 9 months old. I really believe that it's not healthy to force anything in terms of milestones we'd like our children to achieve (every baby in their own time). So through my frustration, I smiled and laughed with her and definitely didn't feed her more if she started fussing too much.
Since Ziva wasn't really enjoying baby food most of the time, we started to give her food from our plate, and we realized she liked it much more! Seasonings... yum... And yes, I googled it. Apparently you're not supposed to add seasonings to their food until 12 months. I also have friends who would never give their baby food from a can, anything with preservatives, white flour, etc. I have come to peace with the idea that as long as it's fairly healthy, I know her body will be able to process the food well and it will help her along the road to eating full meals. Some things I do that are not so widely accepted: adding a little bit of salt and pepper to her scrambled eggs, a dash of cinnamon and sugar on her cooked apple, giving her vegetables from a dairy dish, tuna from a can, multi-grain cherrios... you get the idea.
I would never think of giving her "junk food." Okay, I take that back. We've wanted to give her ice cream for the longest time! We just enjoy it so much, we want to share it with her! Don't worry, we've resisted. I do kind of find it interesting that so many people in Israel give their baby Bamba. To me, that feels like junk food, PLUS I haven't given her any peanut butter yet as a precaution against the dangerous peanut allergy. As you can see, I'm not really one to judge. It makes me feel a little better that I know children have survived on much unhealthier food.
Lately she's been eating AND enjoying- scrambled eggs, carrots, sweet potatoes, tuna, crackers, challah, pasta, cherrios (Ziva loves carbs! Who doesn't?), tofu, salmon, brocolli, apples, pears, avocados, chummus, chicken and more! Something that really helped her start eating more was putting the pieces of food on her tray and letting her pick them up by herself. She liked the independence of it all. In the end, I guess it's better since I won't be spoon-feeding her for the rest of her life. Sometimes I'd like for her to just stay my sweet little baby, but I see this as my first parenting lesson of letting go! Meal time has become such an adventure for her, and I love to see her enjoying food in a similar way as we do. She honestly won't eat anything that resembles baby food. A couple weeks ago she touched a very ripe banana and got this disgusted look on her face! I think she didn't like the slimy texture. Yehoshua calls her our little Sephardi baby since she won't eat anything that's too plain. It's so amazing to see her personality and opinions unfold before us.
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