Chow Time! First solid foods

This week we entered into yet another area of parenthood we know nothing about - solid foods! The doctors tell you to wait till 6 months to introduce solids unless your kiddo is draining you dry. Well, I have to say the last few weeks I have felt like a mommy-mart with a 24hr drive thru window. While Brady used to be a champ at sleeping that stopped a few weeks back.  He began to wake up at all hours, 12am, 2am, 3am or whenever he darn well pleased, with these ongoing, marathon nursing events. Too tired to keep up with that schedule and maintain sanity at work the next day I began co-sleeping with him after his initial late night wake-up so he could just latch on whenever he wanted rather than deal with the wrath of trying to put him back down in his crib. I figured half sleep was better than no sleep at all.

This week a light bulb went off - ta da! Perhaps it is time for some solid foods! After some quick research we found that most kiddos start out on rice cereal so it was off to New Seasons to get the pantry stocked. Our first round was last night - and guess who slept from 8pm to 4:30am! (For those of you non-parents that is what we parents with little ones call a successful night of sleep - my how life changes!) Now that we have started down this path we have realized how many questions we have - do we do this at every meal? How quickly do we ramp up the solid food in-take? When do we introduce other foods? How do you measure the size of a meal? Is this in addition to the current supply of breast milk or do you start to taper off on the milk and replace with solids? Etc. Thankfully I had a doctor appt today and my OBGYN clued me into the "What to Expect The First Year" book that has it all outlined in a matrix for you. Whew! Now we can just go back to enjoying this new experience with our little man, who is already starting to take control. Here are a few photos from tonight's dinner feast!

I can already see it starting now. Our headstrong little guy is letting me know who is boss in this relationship. Even though he can't speak I'm pretty sure those eyes are sayin "I've got this mom, back off!"

Clean up in aisle five! We've been prepping Huckster for this very moment. We've been telling him that we know it's hard now, and the house is louder than usual but just wait. You're gonna love this new addition to the family once solid foods come into play - and so it begins. I have a feeling puppy is going to need to go on a diet in the near future.

While Huck was as thorough as possible it was inevitable. Brady was going to need a full blown bath after his do-it-yourself dinner. I foresee lots of bathing in our future - that rice cereal gets sticky when it starts to dry!