On Monday, February 2 2009, Allie was introduced to solids. Her doctor had cleared her for her first taste of non-milk at her 6-month checkup the week before, but we were snowed in for a week so did not get out to the grocery store for the recommended first food: rice cereal. Per the literature, every new food is to be introduced by itself for 4 consecutive days to check for allergies so Allie would eat rice cereal every day for the next 4 days.
Here she is, happily (and unsuspectingly?) hanging out while I prepared her lunch.
[[image:makan01.jpg:Before Makan:center:0]]
Note: Makan means “to eat”. And of course, please mouse over the pictures for added captions.
First, preparing the food.
[[image:makan02.jpg:Rice Cereal:center:0]]
[[image:makan03.jpg:Dry cereal in a bowl:center:0]]
For the purposes of the very first makan, I used Vin’s yellow bowl, that his mother gave to him to take to college. Just being a little ceremonial I guess :-).
[[image:makan04.jpg:Thawing out breast milk:center:0]]
Mix 5 tablespoons breast milk with 1 tablespoon rice cereal and you get this:
[[image:makan05.jpg:It’s ready to eat:center:0]]
She’s getting a little weirded out here.
[[image:makan06.jpg:Spoon? Bowl? Hey, where’s my usual makan accoutrements?:center:0]]
This is after her first bite:
[[image:makan07.jpg:Zoinks! What IS that?:center:0]]
We had some struggling:
[[image:makan08.jpg:Tak nak! Tak nak! (Do not want!):center:0]]
[[image:makan09.jpg:Maybe if I intercept the spoon..:center:0]]
But after giving it a try she started to get the hang of it and was opening her mouth and eating nicely:
[[image:makan10.jpg:Open wide!:center:0]]
[[image:makan11.jpg:Ahhhh-mmmmmm:center:0]]
We have to conclude that Allie likes rice cereal and is learning to eat, and learning to cope with a spoon. Why? Look she ate all her rice cereal!
[[image:makan12.jpg:Licin! (Cleaned out):center:0]]
The literature said to expect a baby to eat maybe half a tablespoonful of food on the first try. I think the girl might have proven them wrong on that. 😉 She’s pretty happy to start eating, I think. See for yourself:
[[image:makan13.jpg:After Makan:center:0]]
