Feed Me

Monty's pediatrician recommends starting babies on solid foods at six months.  He has a hand out with "helpful" information, including what foods to start with and how much.  He gave it to us at Monty's four month check up.  I put it on the fridge and forgot about it.  When Monty was a week shy of six months I decided to start him on solids.  I went with sweet potato because I'd heard somewhere along the way that that's a good first food and apparently I'm making all my parenting decisions based on information I hear in passing.  So, we steamed up some organic sweet potato, pureed it, and gave it to Monty.  This was met with a modicum of pleasure insofar as Monty didn't cringe or spit it out, so we counted it as a success.  The next day we tried apple sauce.

Then I saw the hand out on the fridge.

You should start with avocado.  And you should introduce one food at a time.  And you should feed them the new food only in the morning.  And you should feed them that food for 3-4 days before moving on to the next.  And you should start with two teaspoons on the first day, four on the second, an ounce on the third day, and two ounces on the third.  It should go like this:

Avocado
Sweet Potato
Apple Sauce
Banana
Squash
Carrots
Prunes
Green Beans

The first six can be interchanged, though you should try to stick to Veggie, Veggie, Fruit, Fruit, Veggie, Veggie, and etc. ad infinitum.

I got paranoid that starting Monty on solids a week before he turned six months was going to somehow ruin his digestive system.  So, I put the purees in the BPA/CANCER CAUSING CHEMICAL-FREE ice cube tray and stuck them in freezer.

A week later we got an organic avocado, mashed it up and gave it to Monty.

Three days later we gave him sweet potato.  Three days after that, Apple Sauce.  I sat down and created a food introduction schedule so that by Thanksgiving he would have a plethora of Thanksgiving-type foods to make things easier.  I swapped out a few of the first six foods and moved green beans up a couple notches even though GREEN BEANS ARE NOT ONE OF THE FIRST SIX AND IF YOU INTRODUCE THEM TOO EARLY YOUR CHILD WILL BE A SOCIOPATH.  Then I put his food schedule on a Google calendar so Kurt could keep abreast of where we were.

We went to Brooklyn for Thanksgiving to see my family and I emailed them beforehand with a list of the foods Monty was eating and a request that they get everything organic and steam them for the shortest amount of time possible in order to retain the most nutrients.

While back in Brooklyn (where Kurt and Monty and I stayed in the room I grew up, just BY THE WAY) my dad dug out a box of stuff from my childhood including a "Baby's Firsts" book.  There are only a handful of entries.  My parents were never the sentimental types, a trait I clearly picked up from them given that we don't even HAVE a "Baby's Firsts" book.  But, under "Baby's First Christmas" my mother, in beautiful penmanship, wrote the following:

"Daisy had candied yams (with rum and marshmallows) and whipped cream."

I was seven weeks old.

So, tonight we're giving Monty a bone in rib eye, mashed potatoes with butter and cream, green beans, and a piece of key lime pie.  And a couple fingers of Macallan 16 year.

"Food schedule".  Really.