The End of an Era...

Whoa!  A long nap today!  Two posts!

For five months and four weeks, my girl has gotten 100% of her food from her mama.  But it was time for that to come to an end.  =(

I've (obviously) known it was coming for a while now, but we've been in no rush to start solids.  Still, at just about 6 months, she seemed she was ready, so I asked my mom to grab some organic pears from work (Trader Joe's) so that I could make her some food.

I've been going back and forth on whether to go the Baby Led Weaning route, and finally decided to do a combo.  So mom brought pears and I cooked them up, thinking Ruby would be more into the runny texture to start.

I was right.  

I actually didn't plan to give any to her the day I made the puree, but she seemed curious, so I put some on a spoon, and gave it to her...

Success!  She actually ate quite a bit!  She wasn't at all interested in ME feeding her, but would happily take the spoon from me and shove it in her mouth.  Since it was impromptu, I didn't even put a bib on her (she'd already spit up on her shirt, so I didn't really care about the mess I knew would happen).  I am glad, though, that I just ordered a bib with sleeves!

So here we are.  I have a girl that eats food.  She seemed so proud of herself (possibly because I was freaking out with pride as well - I'd been afraid that she would totally not be into it and her doctor would judge me).  We're going to give it another go today after she wakes up from her nap.  And then we're going to the grocery store to buy more food for her to try in the coming days!  I was dreading solids, but I'm actually kind of excited about it now.

As for incorporating BLW with more traditional feeding methods, I plan to give her purees on spoons (I'm glad she already prefers to feed herself), but also give her whole chunks of the same foods, either on their own, or in a mesh feeder, or both.  She's already shown that she's down with the mesh feeder thanks to some milksicles I made for her to soothe her gums.

So there it is!  My big big girl, all grown up and eating food.  I want to smile.  And cry.  But mostly smile (she just grows up too fast!).