Ryleigh has not been a big fan of solids. We did the fairly standard introduction of solid foods. The first week was rice cereal mixed with breast milk at breakfast. She hated the rice cereal. I can't blame her--it sounds gross to me, too. Week 2, I switched to oat cereal for breakfast and a pureed fruit or vege for dinner. The oat cereal was a tiny improvement over the rice, but not much. The purées didn't go over well either. I began to think Ryleigh wasn't ready for solids. So, I vowed to keep trying, but not bother with lunch until she was showing more enthusiasm for solids.
The enthusiasm has never really emerged. Ryleigh is such a contrast to RJ--at that age, I couldn't pump enough solids in him. But, Ryleigh just seems to be content with mostly nursing. She's still growing, so she is far from deprived. And, I keep telling myself, "Food before one is just for fun." But, I still get frustrated.
I gave up on giving her rice or oat cereal a few weeks ago--I was pumping for no reason, as Ryleigh just wouldn't eat the cereal. So, it was fruit in the morning, vege at night, and a "snack" at lunch, usually some puffs that are similar to a Cheerios, but softer. We continued to fight with Little Girl to get her to eat, as evidenced by this picture of Ryleigh wearing (not eating) her puréed prunes.
As RJ likes to say, "We have a big problem here." But then, we decided to start throwing in a random finger food at dinner, from small bites of banana or apple to avocado or scrambled egg. Ryleigh still doesn't care much about the purées, but she does nosh on the finger food like there is no tomorrow. I made yellow and green squash the other night--Jip and RJ both said, "No thanks!" If Ryleigh had words, they would have been "More, please!" Potato--yes! Tortilla--yes! Pineapple--eh, maybe. French toast (made with rice milk)--yes! Ryleigh is definitely our finger food kid.
Not that it is food, but I'm also proud to say Ryleigh can drink out of a straw, too. Why am I proud of that? Because I was not good at introducing a straw to RJ and he was nearly 15 months before he could do the straw thing.
To end this little mouth-centered blog post, a picture. Not a good one, but a picture nonetheless of... teeth!! Two teeth slowly making their way into the cutest little girl smile. Whatcha think, Aunt Danika, DDS?
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