Tuesday, August 7, 2012

A Love Affair...


Theo has begun his love affair with solid food. Watch out if the cereal runs out before he's full. He gets his cry face on in .2 seconds when it happens.

He is eating everything except a few items that are banned before age one. And in massive quantities.  He likes third helpings.

I have allowed a breastfed baby this indulgence because he has never been a great nurser, and he is under-weight. He grew to prefer the bottle at about three months, around the time we realized he wasn't getting enough and had to supplement. (He had become an insufficient eater because of his food sensitivities, and my milk supply went down as a result.)  That left me pumping about 25 to 50% of the time to keep him from weaning. But a few weeks ago I mostly stopped with the pumping, letting nature take its course. We were down to three times a day, then two, and now this week, one. He's not quite nine months old. Something that started out unnaturally (the bottles) is ending naturally, but I still feel guilty and sad sometimes that it's happening before he's one.

I would be one of those hippie mamas who would nurse her kid until he was two, but so far neither one of my offspring have been interested in going past babyhood. The nursing of eight-year-olds will have to be left to this woman, I guess (ha).

Regardless, ever since starting him on solids at six months I've been relieved to have the extra calories he's been needing available. Fatten up, child. Show me some belated leg rolls.

Here are a couple of shots of the first feed. His mohawk is about an inch higher than this now, just FYI.