Be Solid

I've had solid food on the brain lately, as Sawyer is getting his first tooth and reaching the 6-month mark. (Not that babies need teeth to start solids...just that teeth and eating seem linked to me.) Usually people start on rice cereal mixed with formula or breastmilk, but, like everything else with this whole baby thing, I decided to do some reading about when to start solids, and what to start with. Here are some things I found.

-There is good reason to wait until baby is around 6 months. Prior to this age, infants don't have great coordination of tongue and swallowing movements. The emergence of teeth at 6 months or after (typically--they can appear earlier) seems to suggest that infants were designed to suck rather than chew. The upper end of the digestive track is not designed for soilds--at or around 6 months, many digestive enzymes begin working. Research shows that starting on solids before 6 months can increase food allergy risks.

-Breast milk or formula with iron contain all the nutrients your baby needs for the first year. Solids are an addition, not substitue for breast milk. The first few months of solids are more to introduce textures and tastes than to provide nutrition.

-Baby often shows signs of readiness. These may include begging for food, the ability to sit up, and the dexterity to pick things up with thumb and forefinger.

-Rice cereal and bananas, two of the suggestions first foods, can result in constipation. So, why is rice cereal usually the first solid? Tradition. Not that it is bad, but if baby shows signs of constipation, back off and give strained or pureed peaches, prunes, pears, or applesauce. If you don't choose to start with rice cereal, you can start with whole grain cereal (find a recipe here), bananas, pears, avocados, peaches, applesauce, carrots, squash, or sweet potatoes.

We're going to wait until after our trip to Virginia to start solids, though Sawyer has been very interested in food for a while now. I have been reluctant to start, both because I don't want to change when we've got things going well, and because I knew this trip was coming up, and hated to start a new thing before our first flight and more than a week of travel. But I'm excited about this when we get back! If you want to read a great article from Mothering magazine about solids (where I got some of this info), click here.