Julia Ellen is such a delight at mealtime, especially after dealing with picky eaters for the past 10 years. I finally figured out (yes, a slow learner) that baby food is not good to feed babies. The rice mush and pureed veggies set up a train wreck down the road when they won't eat anything that has texture. Giving babies and toddlers a wide variety of foods cut in small pieces leads to much better eating habits down the road. Julia Ellen, despite only having 4 teeth, eats a plethora of foods, including cut up and steamed veggies, eggs, oatmeal with raisins, chili, and pizza. Unfortunately, having that last item for supper has kept her up at night the last two times we partook. My guess is that the salt content, even in homemade pizza, is so high that it makes her really thirsty and she started screaming at 10 pm. She drank about 2 cups of milk and after lots of cuddling and an attempt to have her sleep with me, finally settled down and slept at 11:30, way past my bedtime.
If I could time travel back to 1998 and was making that first bowl of food for baby Will to eat, I would throw away all the jars and boxes of baby mush and feed him pasta and peas, eggplant and pizza, for a few bleary night wakings doesn't begin to compare to the endless battles over getting five children to eat what is on their plates.
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3 comments:
Good plan! Most of my children never ate any baby food.
Thank you! This totally affirms the strategy that I stumbled onto with my second. Granted my first is only two, but I see the signs of a picky eater and and kicking myself for buying into the "Gerber Conspiracy". At 10 mos, my second is already eating a more varied diet than the toddler. *sigh*
Thanks for sharing your wisdom!
Only one of my three children ever at the jarred baby food. And he only ate it for a couple months. We jsut moved straight to "real" food....cut up or mashed up. They were just fine, and quite healthy. I think baby food is a marketing scheme ;-)
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