It's common practice to wait three days between introduction of new foods to a baby. The reason is if the baby has an allergic reaction, you're able to identify which food caused it. It's also common practice to abandon this practice with second and third babies after your first born had no reactions at all. Being the fourth-born in my family, I'm quite sure my mom was giving me whatever she had on hand at the moment.
Still, we're sticking with it for now. Sydney had a finger serving each of carrots and bananas. She seemed to like it at the time. Sydney went crazy for her first full meal of solid food, and she enjoyed her second solid food: blueberries. I blended up some organic New Jersey-grown berries and stirred it into her cereal. The only down-side was the crib-staining spit-up. When our CSA share included carrots and peas, I was optimistic. First we tried the peas: boiled them for a few minutes, chopped them up, and... rejection. She managed to eat some, but clearly did not enjoy it (see the video below). Her reaction to the carrots was pretty much the same. The good news is that she was not allergic.
Why the rejection? Babies have sweet-tooths. Humans are hard-wired to seek out carbohydrates & sweet foods because they contain more easily-accessible calories. Calories are units of measurement for energy. Energy is good. But so are peas and carrots. And they go together nicely, as Forrest Gump once pointed out. Sydney did enjoy her bananas and plums, and, again, no allergic reaction. I'll be putting together the first real recipe for Sydney soon: combining carrots with a date to give it a bit more flavor. More to come!
good observations. as you know the reason why they have sweet tooths is because of the mother's milk and also i believe they only have their sweet taste buds developed, it's basically a defense mechanism.
ReplyDeleteour 4 year old used to eat pureed veggies but now she doesn't like them (no matter how i serve/cook/disguise them).
i hope you have much better luck (and patience) with Sydney.
Yes, I forgot to mention about the sweetness of breast milk - thanks!
ReplyDeleteI have been patient with Sydney's food discovery process so far. I hope I can continue being patient :)
good observation about how we parents adhere to the "guidelines" a little more stricter with those first borns. though there is really no harm about waiting 3 days in between foods so no need to make excuses for it! on the other hand, how many people do you know that have allergies to vegetables? most fruits are safe too - the fruits you might want to wait on are citrus and strawberries.
ReplyDeletelooking forward to reading more!