Solid Food Stinks

Motherhood is fruitful with torturous rights of passages - not sleeping, aching backs, hair loss, permanent belly fat, loss of brain cells, etc. - but to top it all off SOLID FOODS arrive between months 4-6.

In theory, solid food should be fun. Your baby tries new tastes and textures, and learns how to eat from a spoon and a cup. It's messy and hilarious, and every new parent has the pleasure of sitting in front of their baby just as they sneeze a mouthful of rice cereal. As a new Mom, you plan to feed your baby the most wholesome foods - never introducing her to sugar, flour, or preservatives - and having a kid who jumps up and down for a snack of wheat germ sprinkled celery.

In reality, solid food stinks. First you have to get your baby to like rice cereal (if that's what you start with - I could write a whole other article on how to decide WHAT food to have your baby begin with!) Does she like it before her bottle, or after the bottle? Does she want it mixed with water, formula or breast milk? Does she like it liquidy or thick?

Good lord.

Once you have accomplished that feat, you are supposed to introduce beginner foods; but, they have to be given for four days with nothing else to ensure there is no allergy. However, most babies don't fall for any new food in four days - it probably takes more like 15 - but since you can't introduce another new food while you're feeding the old food (again, allergies) it would take about 6 years to get through bananas, avocado, apples, sweet potato, and pears.

Meanwhile, the rice cereal is constipating your little one because it's iron fortified, and although all of the books tell you that your baby now needs to start drinking water, no one has told your baby that. They won't take it from a bottle, they haven't figured out the sippy cup yet, and they're too smart for watered down formula. So, you've got this poor baby, turning red in the face all day trying to poop AND your making her try peas.

Try prunes says my sister. Yeah. They only make pureed prunes mixed with other berries ( a no-no because you can only introduce one new food at once) and because she's still not sleeping through the night, this mom can only think of napping during the day and not planting herself in front of the food processor and chopping up prunes. Gross.

To top it off, as the weeks go by, your baby is getting hungrier and hungrier - the bottle is not doing it's job anymore - but you still haven't moved past rice cereal and are afraid to feed it to her twice a day because she gets so friggin' gassy at night (preventing her from sleeping well, and thus preventing you from pureeing prunes)! Of course, move on to oatmeal you say; but, there is another four days lost and we still haven't even mastered the sweet potato!

I'm jealous of the moms who say their baby eats everything. I don't think they realize just how miraculous that really is. At this rate, Livija might still only be eating rice cereal when I send her off to college.