Well, let's first discuss the most important event of the last 24 hours: Natalie met her first "celebrity!" Okay, not so much a celebrity as a scandal-mongering yellow journalist who just may be contributing to the downfall of Western civilization with his faux news show. But, still, a real-live national television personality! Yes, that's right, I'm talking about the one and only Billy Bush. Mikey and I ran into Billy at our local Rite Aid this morning and exchanged pleasantries while wheeling Natalie's stroller casually around the store (okay, okay, so I may have actually stalked Billy around the store as he bought Pepcid AC and pretzels, and then not-so-casually hovered by the exit until he checked out.... maybe). But we did shake hands and he did admire our baby, and we did get a picture to prove it... which Mike immediately accidentally deleted. But, into the baby book this milestone shall go, photo or no.
An actual milestone of the last 24 hours? Natalie had her first taste of solid food in the form of rice cereal thinned with plenty of breast milk.
Our original plan, as detailed previously on this here bloggity-blog, was to breastfeed exclusively for Natalie's first 6 months, but, as usual, things did not go according to plan. We made the decision to introduce rice cereal for a number of reasons: 1) We are crossing our fingers and toes that having a little extra sustenance in her belly will encourage some better nights of sleep for miss Natalie (and, therefore, us); 2) She's been super-interested in adult-food and eating for about 3 weeks or so. She reaches for our spoons, and stares, entranced, as we cut, serve, and chew food. Apparently this is one of the first signs to begin "baby-led weaning," which is not a plan we are fully adhering to, but does seem to be a sensible way of following babies' natural cues; 3) Curiosity, pure and simple.
Here are the photos of this first adventure in solid food, which went much better than we could have imagined. Natalie appears to LOVE the organic rice cereal we tried, and was eager to slurp up every drop we offered her.
Here's her very own food bowl just before its debut use, a gift from my Uncle Jeff and Aunt Carol (I think its a Becca Van Fleet dish--just gorgeous!):
An actual milestone of the last 24 hours? Natalie had her first taste of solid food in the form of rice cereal thinned with plenty of breast milk.
Our original plan, as detailed previously on this here bloggity-blog, was to breastfeed exclusively for Natalie's first 6 months, but, as usual, things did not go according to plan. We made the decision to introduce rice cereal for a number of reasons: 1) We are crossing our fingers and toes that having a little extra sustenance in her belly will encourage some better nights of sleep for miss Natalie (and, therefore, us); 2) She's been super-interested in adult-food and eating for about 3 weeks or so. She reaches for our spoons, and stares, entranced, as we cut, serve, and chew food. Apparently this is one of the first signs to begin "baby-led weaning," which is not a plan we are fully adhering to, but does seem to be a sensible way of following babies' natural cues; 3) Curiosity, pure and simple.
Here are the photos of this first adventure in solid food, which went much better than we could have imagined. Natalie appears to LOVE the organic rice cereal we tried, and was eager to slurp up every drop we offered her.
Here's her very own food bowl just before its debut use, a gift from my Uncle Jeff and Aunt Carol (I think its a Becca Van Fleet dish--just gorgeous!):
Our hungry little monkey, in her last pre-solids moment (dontcha love her N is for Narwhal onesie?!):
And here are some of her enjoying every little bit of that delicious (read: bland) rice paste:
I love this one, just as she finished licking her chops and wiping her face after her last spoonful--"I'm done!"
A bath was a must after her meal. She managed to smear cereal not only all over her face and clothes, but in her hair, up her nose, and between her toes.
It was a pretty exciting event for us, and we're still crossing all those digits in the hope that some much needed sleep will be the result. We'll be sticking with one serving of the cereal a day, sometime in the evening before bed, until she's 6 months old and her little digestive system will be more fully developed to handle grown-up foods like avocado, carrots, pears, and more! I've already bought a little hand-held food mill and am super excited about making our own baby food when the time comes!
Happy weekend to all--ours is a bit on the sad side as it involved a goodbye to Natalie's Gma, who had to head back to New York today. It was a great visit, and we are definitely feeling blue that it had to end!
I hope that helped her sleep!! It worked wonders for carlys sleep!! We try to have her eat some rice and just introduced some applesauce around 6p.m. and she is out by like 7:30 and stays asleep till about 1 and then is out back out till 6..I hope you guys have the same luck!!
ReplyDelete