First foods for your EBF'd baby

[HappyMommy2]

What were the first foods you fed your baby, and how old was s/he? 

TIA!

[Dot-to-Dot]

Our first was avocado mixed with breastmilk.  Then banana, then sweet potato.  Then various mixtures of those together.  I'd always planned on doing soft boiled egg yolks in the beginning, but, when it came down to it, it was a hassle to boil eggs and discard the whites - much easier to just mash a fresh avocado or banana or bake a sweet potato ahead of time.

[QuestionGal]

first food with DS was fortified rice cereal.....BIG FAT CONSTIPATING MISTAKE.  He ended up getting prunes as his second food. 

After THAT... he got baked sweet potato thinned with breast milk.

Bananas never mashed that well, they just got slimy

Avocado

Then I made a bunch of purees

apples, peas, carrots, etc

before long he was just eating off our plates, whatever was mashable. vegetable soup was a huge hit. 

DD gets jarred food until I can find the time to gather up the ingredients and time to make homemade. 

[macandcheese]

We're doing BLW and started solids at about 5.5 months. Jude hit all the readiness markers (sitting up, etc.) and was stealing kale and lettuce every time we let him near the garden, so ...

We first gave him some large chunks of mango cut into sticks big enough for him to get in his fist. He's also had strawberries, watermelon, some mushroom, and overcooked pasta. Tonight he'll be dining on boiled sweet potatoes cut into sticks

Here is a photo of the mango experience. I don't know if I'd let him loose with food so readily if it wasn't warm out!

[HappyMommy2]

Adorable!!

[ProtoLawyer]

Avocado.

Some banana, yogurt, butternut squash...meh...

Pulled pork got stolen from my plate and happily consumed. Pretty much since then (7.5 months--he's 11 months now) he's been eating what we've been eating, so long as what we've been eating isn't too salty, otherwise junky, or honey-containing.

[Monarchgrrl]

We also do BLW. DD started at 6.5 months with a slice of avocado. Here's a pic.

Then we introduced banana. Just gave her a chunk to naw on. She wouldn't eat these foods after the initial taste, though. It took a while to figure out she doesn't like mushy texture (yet, anyway). So we tried veggies and she loves them. She also loves whole pieces of chicken, blueberries, green beans, carrots, cheese, and cooked spinach. We're going to try eggs this weekend. Here she is with broccoli.

Edited by Monarchgrrl - 6/21/11 at 4:40pm

[Monkey Keeper]

We BLW too. 

His first taste of "food" was at ~5m when he gnawed on an apple slice. First consumed food was a pancake (homemade) then avocado, banana, and homemade bread. He also loved ww pasta early on.

[katelove]

We did BLW too. First food was mango at just over 6 months. Then baby spinach leaves, then watermelon. After that there were some roasted veges.

[osker]

We didn't do BLW to start, we did purposeful purees so as to offer a greater variety than we eat (sadly enough).  Now that we feel that E has had so many foods that there are few left that she hasn't tried.. she eats off our plates most of the time.

She had sweet potatoes at 5.9 months (nearly six months, we were going to wait til 6mos but she grabbed DW's sandwich one day and tried to chow down!)

She eats EVERYTHING we offer her now.  We're not doing wheat, meat, eggs, citrus and honey still, but that's it.

[MrsBone]

at 6 months, avocado was DS first food, then banana, then egg yolks. I think I made him baby food twice, but he really just went straight to solids at 6 months. I just fed him when I was eating, nothing consistent until about 7.5 months. I never gave him cereal. Oh, and he had 4 teeth at 6 months old, so he was able to eat table food really well from the beginning.

[CookAMH]

Sweet potato

butter

coconut oil

avocado

I made purees of green beans, sweet potato, and soaked brown rice. I'd mix a couple of those, season with salt and butter. He seemed to do better with that than solid pieces at first.

DS, now 26 mo, still eats coconut oil from a spoon!   Hates bananas. He also never had rice cereal, and my new infant won't have any either when she gets to that stage. With her, I'll do a similar approach as DS but probably offer more small chunks more often, repeatedly. DS seemed to struggle with the texture for a while (and we didn't really start till 7.5 mo, and it wasn't until 10mo that he really started eating a good bit of solid food). It'll be interesting to see how my daughter is (only 11 weeks now).  Not much soft ripe fruit will be in season this winter, but I may try pears too that are good and ripe.

Such a cute photo of the broccoli baby!

[expat-mama]

BLW didn't work for us at all. DS wanted to eat but couldn't mash foods in his mouth and gagged and choked! So we started with purees and mashed foods and he loved them!

We started at 6 months with banana, sweet potato, and all sorts of veggie and fruit purees. Started mixing some brown rice cereal in for the iron at around 8 months. Then DS started eating oatmeal and barley and quinoa. We moved up to chunkier foods a couple of months ago- lentils etc. Now DS eats almost everything. We still cut things into small chunks for him. I know some babies can handle big pieces of food but mine still can't- we've had some scary almost choking episodes. So we'll wait till he's ready. 

Lots of people on MDC are anti-purees or very pro-BLW- but lots of babies want to eat, are ready to eat and can only eat purees or mashes. Do what you think is safest and best for YOUR little one! 

Have fun! It's so great when they are enjoying experimenting with food!

[mommy212]

sweet potatoe.. and blueberies. Loved cantaloupe at 8months. Pears, spinach... the usual :)

[Terrilein]

Gosh, we did start with cereal for some reason. I don't remember, but I didn't do the whole trial period thing, so he got avocado, sweet potato, banana, mashed potato, etc. all really quick. We wanted to do BLW, but his gros motor skills just weren't developed enough at 4 months. Once his coordination was good enough to actually get things to his mouth, we switched and he did a really good job eating despite not having any teeth. For a while I still fed him cereal in the evenings because he was such a hungry little baby. Now he's slowed down on his solids and we haven't fed cereal in months. He eats what we eat for the most part and he still nurses on demand.

[somegirl99]

We started offering foods around 6 months but he wasn't really interested until about 8 months.  He still does not eat very much at 11 months.

He can't stand anything mushy or slimy and will not eat anything off a spoon, finger, or out of a mesh feeder.  He doesn't yet drink out of a sippy cup although he has fun playing with it.

We offered and failed with sweet potato, potato, avocado, squash, banana, quinoa, lentils, watermelon, etc.

His first food was purple cabbage, he mostly just eats apple, carrot, sometimes pear (prefers asian pears), sometimes cucumber, sometimes broccoli, and roasted plantain chip (I brush the salt off). 

[Magali]

well since we are sharing pics...here is my dd at 7 months with watermelon.  That was just for fun since she grabbed aunties plate of watermelon.  I started offering her solids on a regular basis at 8 months.  I did strict BLW with her big bro, but am waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more relaxed this time around.  I had a huge hangup with spoonfeeding him lol.  So I tried to spoonfeed her just for fun....and nope.  She has to do it herself.  Our dog is really happy she's started solids.  Me, not so much...what a mess!!!   She doesn't really "like" anything (aside from that watermelon) but I've given her avocado, corn, carrots.. as the a pp said, the usual.

..

[RojoBoho]

I love how many of you do BLW! Most people thought I was strange for that! DD first food was peas at 7 months because she could pick them up easily and mash them with her gums. We then moved on to blueberries and watermelon. From there I forget because she really didn't eat much until after a year old. It was mostly just tastes off our plate for a long, long time.

[illuci]

Forgive me...but what is BLW?

I'm new to all these acronyms. But my daughter is 5.5 months and seems to enjoy the bites of egg yolk I've given her. Mostly just enjoys chewing on the plastic spoon, though.

It's great to read all these suggestions.

[marie33]

Oooh!  I know this one!   BLW is Baby Led Weaning.  I'm pretty new here, too.  I just read about this yesterday and have been trying to find out about it today.  It's a book that basically says to skip the purees and just let them eat food like you eat. I'm really glad I came across this, too.  My DS is 4 1/2 months old, so I 'm starting to think about how I'm going to feed him when the time comes  I think this is the route I'm going to go this time around.  =)