It seems like Eva has hit so many milestones lately that I have to do many posts to fit them all in. This one is mostly for the grandparents, who miss out on these milestones because they are far away :(

We started Eva on solid food about 1 month ago. She had seemed interested in it for awhile, but I really wanted to give her tummy time to develop so we didn't risk allergies or digestive problems. She was about a week and a half away from being 6 months old when I started. We didn't have a high chair yet, so I improvised by using the exersaucer at first. This got much too distracting for her, and she wanted to play and jump around, so we eventually moved her to the corner of the couch so she was supported. This worked well, but she was pretty messy which was not so good for my couch. We got her a booster-seat like chair that straps onto our kitchen chairs....we like it because it folds up and travels well. We took it on a road trip this past weekend.

Her first solid food was rice cereal. Eva was very eager and interested in trying it, but as soon as it was in her mouth she looked at me like "what IS this mom?!" She looked pretty surprised by the flavor.



A few days later, we tried avocado as her first fruit. I read that avocado's are really easy on baby's tummies and make a great first food. They have really good fats in them (omega) and it seemed to me to be a fairly bland fruit. (By the way I call it a vegetable in the video, but I found out later that it is a fruit...go figure). Here is her reaction to it.....she was NOT impressed:



When avocado was a no-go, we tried banana. This was received much better. Her initial reaction is a look of disgust, but she tends to do that will all new foods....I think she is just trying to figure out this new flavor in her mouth. She continued to eat her banana (without gagging or puking!), so that was her first successful fruit!



Since then, Eva's repertoire of food has expanded to include: rice cereal, banana, carrot, sweet potato (she LOVES sweet potato), green beans, barley cereal and applesauce. I didn't try new foods with her in any specific order...I've heard start with all the veggies and then fruit so they get used to bitter before sweet, I've heard do all the yellow veggies, then all green, etc., I have one friend who is getting her baby used to ALL the cereals first before anything else (barley, rice, oatmeal, wheat)....but I just switched it up. I waited 4 or 5 days before trying each new food, so I could make sure she didn't get an allergic reaction, but that's about it. I wanted her to have a variety right off the bat, and now I can make sure she gets a cereal, a fruit, an orange veggie and a green veggie in her diet everyday, and I've only introduced a handful of things so far. I'm sure you've seen my post on homemade baby food, and how ecstatic I am about it, so I can hardly contain myself when I get to try a new food. Today is the first time for peas....can't wait!