Random Feeding ?s

lelekay

Henry's pedi suggested we start feeding him cereal twice a day, and also do veggies once a day with the second feeding, eventually leading to fruit (once we introduce it) and cereal in the morning, veggies and cereal in the evening.

When you are feeding your baby two different foods in a meal, how do you do it?  Do you serve all of one, then all of the other?  Or a few bites back and forth?  We've been doing all of one, but then when he gets full, he doesn't want to eat much (or any!) of the second food.

Also, if you do give all of one then all of the other, which one goes first?  He's only had sweet potatoes so far for veggies (HUGE hit, by the way!), and I've been giving them first, then the cereal.  Thoughts?  Suggestions?

Overall solids have been going very well.....he already starts to lean in and open his mouth even when I'm just prepping the food!  This kid has an appetite on him!  But then when he's full, boy, is he ever done!  Wants to be done NOW. And lets you know it! 

 

Oh, and carrots.  I just read an article about how you shouldn't feed your baby carrots prepared at home due to possible high nitrate levels?  I guess commercially prepared carrots are screened for nitrates, so they're okay.  Huh?  Anyone heard this?  Should I not worry about this and make carrots anyway (that's what I'm thinking...seems like paranoia to me, but maybe I'm totally wrong?)?

redshoegirl

I've found this site to be pretty useful for advice and ideas, and it's also fairly conservative if you're worried about how or when to introduce things. 

When we introduce a new food we do it by itself so they can get the full experience, but after that we generally mix veggies together. You can certainly mix veggies/fruit with cereal and offer it that way - there's no need to serve it separately, and mixing flavors and textures makes food more interesting (think of a casserole vs a plate of just one thing).

Since we had so many problems with cereals constipating Will and Dash, we never did multiple cereal feeds with them. There isn't a huge nutritional benefit to cereal anyway, so if you want to shake things up a little you can also just offer a larger serve of fruit or veggies by themselves. Just thought I'd throw that out there in case you were wondering.

If it helps, our meals something like this (I know my dudes are older, but thought it might be useful):

Breakfast = wheat cereal mixed with fruit and sometimes yogurt since they're old enough

Lunch = mixed veggies, currently mixed with a little fruit since they're on a hunger strike and the sweet fruit entices them more

Dinner = mixed veggies and a little meat, and also currently some fruit again

Oh, and I hadn't heard that about carrots, and we regularly prepare them for Will and Dash. How much would they have to be eating for this to be a problem? A baby serving size is pretty small.

inamra

I'm of no help cuz we're doing solids only once a day due to his red eye issue and we're still only giving him one food at a time for several days in a row to catch any possibly allergies.

lelekay:

Oh, and carrots.  I just read an article about how you shouldn't feed your baby carrots prepared at home due to possible high nitrate levels?  I guess commercially prepared carrots are screened for nitrates, so they're okay.  Huh?  Anyone heard this?  Should I not worry about this and make carrots anyway (that's what I'm thinking...seems like paranoia to me, but maybe I'm totally wrong?)?

But this! I didn't know this! So I googled and found some info but they say that nitrate poisoning is extremely rare and the AAP apparently only recommends avoiding homemade baby food of certain veggies (like carrots) for babies under 3-4 months old (so I guess if they're older than that, it's ok?). *whew* I got scared for a moment there because I made homemade carrots for B but he barely ate it because he hated it and I haven't had a chance to try again since then...

rwright5

Right now he gets cereal and fruit in the morning we just mix it up in one big bowl and at lunch he gets a fruit and a veggies (we have just started adding some meats this week) and with that we just go back and forth between each one but if its something he really does like we get a little of each on the spoon to hide whatever it is he doesn't really want.  At night he just gets cereal in his bottle but MH had been known to mix at little veggies or meat in with it too.