Xander Week 33 - The Solid Food Adventure Continues
May 1, 2007
Well, we have worked our way through every Gerber Stage 1 food we could find - and quite a few of the stage 2’s as well. Xander is eating well, though he’s not really demanding more of anything yet, so we’re still working on about 1/2 a container per meal, which is fine. We’ve also tried some more exciting foods, such as teething crackers (like the one in his hand in the picture) and Zwiebak toast. The teething crackers seem to entertain Xander for about 5 or 10 minutes, though he does an excellent job of coating himself with cracker residue. The Zwiebak toast is definitely off the menu for a while - though his face is pretty funny when he tastes it.
Last night we tried turkey with rice. Although the face was pretty entertaining, it was the hand gesture that had me laughing - he actually stretched out his arms with both of his hands open in a “stop” gesture in front of his face. I don’t think Xander understands what the gesture means, but that didn’t make it any less funny. I just wish I had been able to snap a picture of his reaction. I think turkey is off the table for a few weeks at least 
We’ve also started experimenting with sippy cups. Since Xander uses Avent bottles, I bought a few Avent sippy cups. He mostly likes to chew on the spout. Last night I tried some of the Gerber apple juice in a sippy cup - after he chucked the cup across the kitchen for the third time, I got the hint - no apple juice please. We’ll keep trying with the sippy cup, but I think we’ll stick to water…
About a month ago I started experimenting with rice cereal for Xander. At first, we were only giving him a few teaspoons about 3 times a week. Xander would tolerate us poking that spoon into his mouth for about 3-5 minutes before he’d had enough. This behavior didn’t really suggest that he was ready for solid foods yet.
So, we’ve tried peaches, prunes, peas and applesauce. Xander wasn’t thrilled with the peas, but I think that was because they were a bit thicker in consistency than the other foods, and he isn’t used to that yet. So, every night (usually before his bath) we’ve been giving Xander about half a container of the Gerber Stage 1 baby food. We do have a food processor, and could make our own baby food, but since I’m already struggling with laundry, dishes, house cleaning, cat care, baby care, and a full time job, I’m not really ready to tackle that project as well. Also, I like the Gerber packaging - the food that we’ve been buying comes in little plastic containers with a resealable cover, so we can put half the food into a bowl, and put the other half in the refrigerator for the following night - very convenient.