Over the past months, a few things came up breastfeeding-wise that I wanted to post about, but I was so late to the game that I felt I had nothing new to add. Weanergate? Yeah, those people criticizing Jen were IDIOTS. When they began questioning her use of the article "the" instead of using "a", I quit listening to her detractors. Weaning is a careful dance between a mother and her baby (or babies) - everyone has needs that must be met.
I would like to point you over to Jackie at Nursing Your Kids - Jackie has had some great pieces lately. One clarifies some facts missing from many of the news articles surrounding the Sophie Currier Case. For example, the following accommodations were offered to Currier:
* permission to express milk in a private room at the testing center during the allotted break time;
* permission to bring food and drink into the testing room;
* permission to pump milk while in her separate testing room;
* the option to leave the test center to breastfeed during the allotted time.
Jackie has some great insight/thoughts on this and I encourage you to read her post on it. In addition, Jackie has also posted about the new study that was released that shows that breastfeeding infants may end up not being such picky eaters after all, from the article she provides the following quote:
"Whether you are breast-feeding or formula-feeding, once you start introducing a food, make sure you offer your baby opportunities to eat fruits and vegetables. They need to taste them to learn to like them."
I would say that my experience has been fairly similar. Sure, there are some foods that my 2 year prefers over others, but hell's bells - there are foods that even I prefer over others. In the White People Food category, my son loves Greek yogurt, rice, fries, pizza, cauliflower, stinky cheeses, tomatoes, avocado, and all fruits. In the Indian Food category, he loves just about anything South Indian and he likes some things North Indian. We mostly cook South Indian at home and he has rarely turned away a veggie cooked South Indian. One of his favorites is a specialty from my husband's state of Kerala. It is a fish with red sauce that is comprised of spices, onions, and a stinky, pulpy fruit similar to tamarind called kodumpuly. It does not matter which sort of fish we cook with, my son will eat it.
Does my son eat such a variety because we were open to shoving such different things in his mouth? Or is it because he was breastfeed exclusively? Or did we just luck out? I will never know for sure, but as I am on the cusp of starting solid foods with Anjali, I have been thinking back to the lessons I learned with Arun. First and foremost, I am not sure how much I will mess with cereal. What a waste of time, effort and money. And canned jars of baby food? Again with the time, effort, and money. With Arun, I was a New Mom and had it in my thick skull that babies eat cereal and baby food. Now, I am not necessarily wiser, but not foolish enough to have Best Laid Plans. When Anjali turns 6 months old, I will attempt to give her some things, but am not going to stress about it.
My doctor said it best: "Solids before 12 months is a skill to be learned not a nutritional requirement."
5 comments:
My son is the same age as Anjali and the dr said to start cereal already. I am EBF (he takes breastmilk bottles while I am at work) and I am not ready to start him on solids... so we are waiting. Until when, I don't know. You mentioned cereal and jarred baby food was a waste - out of curiousity, what do you suggest instead?
Lautencl,
Eek!! I meant that cereal and jarred baby food was a waste because my son would not eat them. I know lots and lots of folks who have had success with cereal and baby food!! Um, just not us.
When Anjali turns about 6 mos, I will think about what we want to give her. I just do not relish going to all the trouble of buying a big box of cereal, pumping breastmilk and then not having her eat any of it. She does not NEED cereal - she is gaining weight at a steady rate, is perfectly healthy and is not iron deficient. I am going to tell my doctor what a miserable experience cereal was and see what she says.
I am not a doctor, but I wonder if pushing cereal on babies is not pretty bogus at such a young age if the baby is perfectly healthy and there are no weight gain issues. Again, that is just my very uneducated opinion. I am a CPA, not an MD. :-)
thanks cagey. i'm a cpa, too :-)
I was surprised when my dr suggested it at 4mos because he is also gaining weight and perfectly healthy. Cereal seems to be a filler and I'd rather him just get breastmilk. I do want him to develop a wide palate (we love to eat all types of cuisine and yes, I have looked at foodiebytes - it's GREAT).. I digress.. bottom line - rice cereal - blech. pho broth - yum! Good luck!
Thanks for the link!
We never used cereal or jarred cereal unless my MIL was over. She felt she was starving him if he ate the foods we gave him- avocado, cooked sweet potato, banana, chunky applesauce, pears, and other soft foods he could handle himself. We didn't spoon feed him until he was much older than 6 months.
I wouldn't called the jarred stuff a waste, but it is just food and water and you can make that yourself. I don't see the need to spend money on it unless you really need the convenience of plastic containers and jars.
Cereal is recommended because it was previously thought that breastmilk than it actually does so iron fortified rice cereal made up the difference. Now we know breastmilk has plenty of iron for most children and that processed rice cereal isn't the best thing for little baby bellies (though it's certainly not the worst.)
(posting as girlfiend because I don't have a blogger account for nursing your kids)
I missed part of a sentence. Breastmilk was thought to have less iron than it actually does.
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