Introducing... Baby Food!

Xavier is a preemie, born 6 weeks early, so our pediatrician recommended waiting until 6 months to start him on baby food.  Right around 5 and half months, Xavier was taking 55-60 ounces of formula a day.  The kid couldn't stay full and it was wearing on me to constantly have to feed him bottles all day!  So we decided, with the assistance of our awesome day care, to try him on baby food a little early.  We started giving him rice cereal mixed with formula, but it was so runny and such a mess!  He took to the spoon pretty well; he mostly just wanted to suck on it.  We called the help line at our pediatricians office and they recommended we start with stage 1 foods twice a day and mix in 3-4 tablespoons of oatmeal cereal because it's a little thicker/more nutritious than rice cereal.  The thicker food made it easier for Xavier to eat and made it nicer for momma come clean up time.

We started him on apples and some other fruits.  He loved them.  Then we tried vegetables and he loved those too!  After a couple weeks of trying out stage 1 foods with no problems, we, at the recommendation of our pediatrician, started feeding him stage 2 foods.  We still feed him twice a day and mix in the oatmeal cereal.  We sometimes will let him taste some of our foods by dabbing our fingers in his mouth, but for the most part, we only feed him pureed baby food.  This kid loves to eat.  He has taken everything we feed him, squash, green beans, stinky peas...  Day care only serves organic food (Earth's Best brand), but we only serve him non-organic food at home.  We want him to get used to all kinds so his body doesn't build a preference to only organic food.  He has no preferences yet.  Just eats everything!  *Knocking on wood*