Feeding an 8 1/2 month old

Little man is loving blueberries this time of year! He is so interested in everything that we are eating! It is so fun to see him trying new things!

I was a bit of a worry wart when it came to feeding Logan. The first two month I was keeping track of how much he ate, how often, how many dirty diapers, what kind of diaper... It was a bit much, I mean honestly, he was gaining weight and healthy so there was no reason to be so neurotic about it, but I couldn't just let it go. The first thing I would ask when I picked him up from the family was how much he ate, how many diapers! At around 4 month I relaxed! The doctor told me it was fine to start cereals or some purees, he was a big boy and milk probably wasn't enough any more. This is the first time in my life I have questioned something a doctor told me. I just didn't feel like that was right for MY baby. He wasn't hungry all the time, he would go 3-4 hours between feedings, with 1 rarely 2 feedings at night.

This is when I started researching... I spent days upon days of researching. There is a ton of information online about feeding babies! This has been out "go to" site: http://wholesomebabyfood.momtastic.com/  They have amazing recipes and so much information!  We made the decision to wait until closer to 6 months to start solids. Now I do know some babies are not satisfied by just milk until 6 months, some babies seem to need a little help. But for Logan he was thriving on breast milk and I wasn't ready to start him on solids. Chris on the other hand wanted to be sharing bacon, cheeseburgers, and pancakes with him at 2 months... (I caught him sharing bacon at Christmas time... he was just letting him suck on it... but really bacon??) Anyways he would support me but he would sneak him little tastes of things here and there. I briefly thought about BLW (Baby Led Weaning) but I might have a slight (read major) problem with my reaction to choking. (My dads best friend choked to death)We bought some baby rice cereal... All natural organic, and fed that to him a few times. But I didn't really like feeding him something I wasn't making. It made me feel a little better that it was a natural organic brand though. So we started to make our own baby food... I still make some of his baby food but with us traveling to Portland and back every weekend or two it is harder. We do buy him Eath's Best Oragnic baby food, and he gets that when we are traveling. We actually tried a few Gerber's ones but he is a baby food snob and won't eat Gerber foods. With their recalls and all the things they are finding in Gerber foods didn't bother me a bit!

He is now entering that stage though where he doesn't want the puree's he want to feed himself and wants what I am eating. This has been by far the most fun we've had feeding him. He is still nursing but he loves to feed himself! His dad is loving feeding him new and different foods! We don't have food allergies on either side of our families. So the only thing we haven't really fed him are strawberries! And his favorite thing is blueberries! We do squish that a little bit and pull them in half sometimes. He has 4 top teeth and 2 bottom teeth and trust me he know how to use them! It is so funny to watch them chew their food. And get so excited when you set down his plate!

What do you guys feed you babies? And how many of you did BLW?

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Milking It...

 

Any of you breast feeding moms out there ever feel like a dairy cow... Our little guy is breast fed and has never had any other milk besides mine. I work full time so that means I am pumping. Every single time I head back to my little area I feel like the dairy cows. The ones that when you are driving by them on the freeway/highway you can tell it is getting close to feeding/milking time because they are all in a line headed to the barn. I am pretty sure if it was called "milking" and not "pumping" I wouldn't be able to bring myself to do it! This thought pops into my head daily as I have to inform the other people in the office that I will be in the back room and they need to cover phones/front door. I am going to be in the back milking myself... YUCK!

So I am one of those moms whose never had supply problems as long as I pump every two hours... I can occasionally skip a session here or there but while I am at work I have to pump every two hours. Even now that Logan is 8 months and has started eating more and more solids. He doesn't drink very much milk during the day. Maybe 2, 4 ounce bottles from 8am - 5pm. As soon as I walk into that door he wants to nurse and then he'll nurse about 7:30 and then just before bed between 9:00 - 9:30. But for him to have enough milk in the freezer I have to stick to that pumping schedule and I hate it! I get busy and its a pain to stop my projects sometimes multiple times to pump!

This fact alone has made me consider weaning Logan. But there are 2 reasons I am still doing it. Well two other than the fact that is was perfectly made for MY baby. The first one being that I am afraid of what is put into our foods today. I am afraid of recalls and feeding my baby something that might make him sick. Have you looked at an ingredient list lately. Very few foods have all natural, whole ingredients in them! Most of them have lines and lines of things that I can't pronounce and have no idea what they do to our bodies and earth. The second reason... I am LAZY! I don't want to wake up in the middle of the night and have to make a bottle! It is very nice to just roll over and have on tap exactly what my baby wants!

But Logan is getting close to a year and I think at a year or as close to it as possible we will wean him. What do you give your baby once they are a year instead of breast milk. Can they just go to regular milk, coconut milk, almond milk, or do we still have to supplement with a formula?