All Things Huffman: real food

It's been a couple weeks since my last post. We've been super busy with lots of things in our life that will soon be blog-worthy! Putting together what will be Ally's new room (decorated in ladybugs), purging the house for our garage sale this May, my workouts, and Jace's first foods. I decided to start with Jace's first foods since the pictures just couldn't wait!

I realize all children are different but I really had no scope of how different. As a comparison, Ally Rae had her first foods at 11 months old. She had met all the basic signs of readiness except for an interest in eating, which is of course the most important! Jace on the other hand, turned 6 months a couple weeks ago and has had the interest in food for probably a couple months now but he met NO other signs and the gut of a 4 month old isn't ready for solid food, so we did the best we could to hold him off. Now that he has 2 teeth and is sitting a little bit on his own (but is army crawling everywhere!), I decided to give in. He's still missing some of the readiness signals but his interest is overshadowing all those! Ryan had to wipe BBQ sauce off his hands the other day (high fructose corn syrup is not an appropriate first food...) and I've definitely pulled Doritos, grapes, bread, and other foods out of his mouth that Ally has left on the floor. It's time.

Here is the info on readiness, taken from the Kelly Mom website :
Side note: I've left out the info on why delaying solids is important but be sure to check that out as it plays a huge role in deciding when to offer your little one their first bites.

"Signs that indicate baby is developmentally ready for solids include:

Baby can sit up well without support.
Baby has lost the tongue-thrust reflex and does not automatically push solids out of his mouth with his tongue.
Baby is ready and willing to chew.
Baby is developing a “pincer” grasp, where he picks up food or other objects between thumb and forefinger. Using the fingers and scraping the food into the palm of the hand (palmar grasp) does not substitute for pincer grasp development.
Baby is eager to participate in mealtime and may try to grab food and put it in his mouth.

We often state that a sign of solids readiness is when baby exhibits a long-term increased demand to nurse (sometime around 6 months or later) that is unrelated to illness, teething pain, a change in routine or a growth spurt. However, it can be hard to judge whether baby’s increased nursing is related to readiness for solids. Many (if not most) 6-month-old babies are teething, growth spurting and experiencing many developmental changes that can lead to increased nursing – sometimes all at once! Make sure you look at all the signs of solids readiness as a whole, because increased nursing alone is not likely to be an accurate guide to baby’s readiness."

We practice Baby Led Weaning so you'll see Jace feeding himself real food. We do not spoon feed or offer processed baby foods/rice cereal but that's a whole other post! ;-)

On to the cuteness!