Today, we introduced the baby to her first solid food. I took a ripe avocado and mashed about a tablespoon-sized serving into a small cup, loaded it onto one of her silicone baby feeding spoons, and stuck it in front of her face. She looked at it and immediately grasped the spoon handle with her hands, taking it away from me. Then, she stuck the spoon into her mouth. Avocado bits got into her mouth, and she grimaced and made a funny face. She looked like she was chewing for a bit, generating a lot of saliva, and then spat it out. Well, that was a decent first attempt.

When babies get introduced to solids, they will oftentimes play with the food, grab it, throw it, spit it out, put it in their mouth, move it around, and spit it out. Everything she did was normal behavior. This is how babies explore the world around them and “experiment” and learn. We just have to keep trying to introduce her to the same foods a few times, then rotate in new foods to get her exposed to more and more things. I want to do do both purees and baby-led weaning (as scary as that sounds) so that she can learn some independence and also how to handle food and utensils on her own. Each day will be a mini adventure for all of us.