It was pretty fun to get Ellie ready to take her first “bite” of solid food yesterday. We taped it, so you can see for yourself the hilarity. There’s also a picture below.
Monthly Archives: June 2012
Development and Four Month Checkup
They said it was true, but we didn’t believe it in the beginning: time really has flown by! It’s hard to believe Ellie is four months old already. We just went in for her checkup this morning. She is in the 80th percentile for height (25.25 inches), 50th percentile for weight (13 lbs, 15.5 oz) and the 50th percentile for dome circumference (40.4 cm). The doctor said everything looks great and she seems to be developing normally – yay! When we did the immunization shot today, Ellie didn’t cry AT ALL! We couldn’t believe it and we were so proud.
Here is a video of her rolling from her front to her back all on her own. She hasn’t quite done the back to the front yet:
And here is a video of her playing with some toys:
Solid Foods
Ellie has been very interested in us eating our food, she holds her head up very well, and doesn’t slump over when sitting assisted, so when I was at Whole Foods today I picked up some rice cereal. Based on my knowledge of food and how whole grains are better than white starches, I went ahead and got a whole grain brown rice cereal. I compared two options and went with the one with less ingredients. That may not be a very scientific method, but I don’t have a better one.
When I got home, I started doing research on how to introduce solids to babies and am finding some very fascinating information. First off, most resources, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, are recommending babies not be given anything other than breast milk for the first six months. Okay, check, I’m on board with that. Here’s an article for more information if you’re curious: http://www.babycenter.com/0_introducing-solid-food_113.bc
Next, I read on one blog that babies first food shouldn’t even be rice cereal. This blog, (http://www.foodrenegade.com/why-ditch-infant-cereals/), states that babies don’t develop the enzymes to break down starches like rice until their molars are in. It said the food that babies need in the beginning is fat and then fat soluble vitamins, such as those which come in traditional baby foods. This blog stated the first food to feed your baby is organic egg yolks and the next thing should be raw organic grass-fed calf livers.
I wonder what Michael Pollan would say?
I found this article, which also suggests skipping the rice cereal: http://wholesomebabyfood.momtastic.com/solids.htm
I know a lot of you out there know a lot more about food than I do – any tips???
I also know a lot of you also have done a lot of research on transitioning babies to solids and would be very interested to hear more – please help advise!
UPDATE 6/26: So when we went to the doctor today we learned a bit about foods. He said the American Academy of Pediatrics changed their recommendation of starting foods to doing so at 4 months. He said there was speculation previously that starting this early led to higher risk of allergies, but they now believe that is not true and that delaying solids could be a bad idea because of the lack of iron babies get from breast milk. We asked about rice cereal versus vegetable baby food and he said the main reason they recommend the rice cereal is because it’s fortified with iron, something babies need right now. He said the green vegetables also have a lot of iron, so if we prefer we can start there. Hope this information is at least helpful to someone else:)
Father’s Day Fun
Ellie has been such a fun baby, really getting vocal and chatty lately. She’s discovered her inner lungs and sometimes just screams for fun. She also sometimes screams for not fun, but those are pretty quick to solve now since she’s gotten into a pretty consistent routine. All this fun makes it so difficult for me to think about leaving her and come July that is exactly what I have to do. I know a lot of moms encounter and overcome this challenge, but that is of no consolation to me. She’s just such a love I can’t imagine wanting to be around anyone else all day; no offense my fellow Blue Nilers! We did find a wonderful nanny that we’re excited to have care for our little bundle of joy, Diana. Diana is such a sweetheart and really adores Ellie and loves holding and talking to her. She’s very artistic too and so we look forward to lots of fun play time and creativity, which brings me to my second fun thing to share.
We had such a great time on Sunday for Father’s Day. It was really special to celebrate Brian and his amazing dad-ness! Molly [Featherstone] and I put together a pretty fun plan. We each got the guys a bike trailer
The other thing we did that I’m actually even more excited about is we made salt dough hand and footprints for the dads. It was ironic because when we were in Long Beach last weekend, I thought of the idea to do Ellie’s foot and hand prints in clay. When I got back and chatted with Mols, she had already been researching the salt dough idea! Here is a link to the recipe we followed in case you’re interested in doing this in the future: http://www.theimaginationtree.com/2010/10/salt-dough-handprints.html
On our way back from Woodinville, we went to the Barking Dog to grab a quick bite and Ellie was so happy as we were leaving to go home. Here’s a quick video clip of her enjoyment:
The Last Two Weeks
We just got done with another spurt of craziness: getting the house on the market and nanny interviews are the main 2 endeavors. Also not in the video, we just spent a couple of days on the Washington coast and LOVED the cute hotel we stayed at, The Adrift. We also fell in love with Astoria and I will post soon about the book I found there. Here’s the quick video with Ellie and I:
Thompson Peanut 