Before I became a dad, I had no idea what babies were supposed to eat.
When my wife and I first found out we were having a baby, we checked out several parenting books from the library to arm ourselves with information.
I learned it’s recommended you wait to serve certain foods to kids because of food allergies. Other foods you wait to give to kids because they are choking hazards.
With our first child we did everything pretty much by the book(s).
We waited until she was six months old, started with rice cereal and oatmeal. Then we on to easy to chew foods like bananas and avacados, always waiting a few days before introducing new foods just like our Pediatrician told us to do. We put foods that would normally cause a choking hazard into a mesh feeder so our baby could taste the flavors of different foods (mmmm…beef stew), but not have to worry about choking. Finally, we held off feeding her foods that could cause severe allergies, like honey and peanut butter until she reached the appropriate age.
Everything went smoothly, we felt like we did a great job introducing solid foods to our daughter while also determining she did not have any food allergies.
After our second child Henry was born, things happened in a different sequence.
When Henry was about a year old, I found him elbows deep in our kitchen trash can. He dug out a partially eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich from the trash can and was eating it.
That was the day we found out that our son was not allergic to peanut butter.
As we begin to feed our little Maggie solid foods, one can only imagine what we will get ourselves into. Don’t worry though, I’ll keep you posted.
Happy Parenting!
-Pete