Chow Down

Our boy has suddenly started enjoying many more solid foods, especially those he can pick up himself - yay!  Leading up to his 9-month check-up, he really only liked to pick up puffs, Mum Mums and Cheerios, and there were very few pureed veggies that we could feed him.  Apparently he is a fruit and carb kid. 

In the last week though, per his doctor's suggestion, we've started having more fun with finger foods.  I've really just started giving him anything I can think of that seems easy for him to pick up and eat.  I usually put a number of different foods on his highchair tray and let him go to town.  I used to be more concerned about waiting three days between new foods which made it hard to get very many new foods in front of him each month; however, since he hasn't had any bad allergic reactions, his doctor thought it was okay to try new things more frequently.  I still keep track of them and watch for big reactions, but unless we're giving him a ton of new things every day, we should be able to pretty quickly tie a reaction back to a new food.

All that said, over the last week, he's tried (and liked): tofu dusted with Cheerios (easier to pick up and gives it more flavor), boiled apples with cinnamon, lentils, mozzarella string cheese, whole wheat bread, and cottage cheese.  He also seems to enjoy pureed peas and brown rice much more than he used to - he was opening for more faster than I could get the spoon back into the bowl.  I love watching him eat on his own and I really enjoy not having to try so hard to get a few bites of veggies down. 

In addition to eating a wider variety of solids, he's eating more --- he continues to have a full banana at daycare every day plus at least one jar of food or yogurt with fruit and Cheerios, and at dinner he will sit and eat most of what we put in front of him for about 30 minutes.  For instance, tonight he enjoyed half of an avocado, a few Jackson-sized handfuls of apples, puffs and tofu.

Here's to hoping J continues to be a big, adventurous eater!