“Experts” say that when you begin introducing solid food to babies, you should do a little at a time and introduce new foods for three days to ensure there are no food allergies or reactions. Breast milk or formula should be served first, then about 30 minutes after the main feed, solids should be introduced. This happens at about six months of age. One “solids” meal of a tablespoon or so gradually becomes two solid meals, then three. Then, at around nine months, you gradually transition from having breast milk or formula first to then having the solid food be the first meal, then breast milk/formula as a follow up. The journey continues until the point that the soon to be toddler is having mostly solids with breast milk or cow milk as a supplement or beverage.

The last two days, Kaia has not appreciated having her smock put on her, nor having her set up in her high chair. She has fussed and cried a lot, but eventually calms down a little when the foods are presented. In the last couple of days, she’s had aspargus and broccoli, whole and pureed, oatmeal, pineapple, and peanut butter. The constant seems to be that she really enjoys the peanut butter. Today, she sucked on a pineapple chunk and seemed to like it. I also filled her teetherpop with water and froze it so she could chew on it today, and she was successfully able to suck the water out of it. I may blend in pineapple to have her eat it that way tomorrow.

The eating journey for a baby is an adventure, but it’s clear that the real solids, like the broccoli florets or cauliflower chunks, scare my nanny. She’s used to only serving purees and has a hawk’s eye on Kaia when she’s gnawing on the florets, hoping she doesn’t choke. I told her not to be nervous; she can’t eat purees forever. Kaia needs to get used to different textures and what they feel like in her hands and mouth. My ultimate hope is that she’s not a picky eater and eats whatever I serve her.

The next things on my list to introduce her to are: tahini (sesame seeds), flaxseed and chia seeds in her oatmeal; spinach, lentils, black and white beans.

After getting the COVID vaccine yesterday, the baby seemed to take it all pretty well. She was still babbling and playing away. Everything seemed fine. That is, until today, about 24 hours later, she became unusually warm, and Chris took her temperature to find out that she had a fever of 103.8 F, the highest she’s ever had. We gave her a cold compress and tried to feed her some baby Tylenol, but she gagged when the first squirt went into her mouth by syringe and ended up throwing up. It got everywhere – all over the baby’s top, bib, Chris’s shirt, my shirt, the pillow we propped her up on, the floor. I felt so terrible for her. She really hates medication, and the syringe is definitely like an enemy to her. After cleaning her up, we ended up putting the baby Tylenol solution into a shallow bowl and feeding it to her with one of her silicone feeding spoons, which she has a far better association with. It worked, though I could tell that she could smell the difference between the spoon with the water vs. the spoon with the medication. We also gave her a bath today, even though today is not normally bath day, so she’d get some indulgence and fun in.

Everyone has talked about the COVID vaccination side effects for adults, but whenever a baby has side effects or a fever, the reaction of course is always different since babies can’t tell you when you aren’t feeling well, and you just have to use your own best judgment in terms of reading them to see how they react. But just going on this, it becomes a little more nerve wracking, and you hope everything works out for the best.

The COVID-19 vaccines have finally been approved by the FDA here in the US, and so while we contacted our pediatrician’s office to see when we could schedule an appointment, they were a bit on the slow side and still had no update for us this week. Chris got impatient and instead, signed up our baby to get the Moderna vaccine at a COVID vaccine site in midtown. As expected, when he took her there this afternoon, the area was mobbed by anti-vax protestors, and they had to exit out of a separate area to get away from the mobs. The nurses all gushed over Kaia and wanted to play with her. She might have been the youngest patient they had come in all day and were obsessed with how cute she was, not to mention how well she took her little jab.

Our baby has handled all her standard vaccinations well; the most she’d ever exhibited was extra fatigue and wanting to sleep more, and eat a bit less. She’d never had any additional fussiness or fever as a result, so we were hopeful she’d handle this vaccination okay. She seemed relatively normal after the shot, but because she got a bit warm when we checked her temperature, we gave her some baby Tylenol just in case. It was the first time we’d ever given her any medication after any vaccination.

In a month’s time, she’d have her second dose and be fully vaccinated for COVID. She’ll also be ready to get on a plane and explore more of the world a bit more safely.

Pediatricians and baby eating experts often say that regardless of when a baby starts eating solids, whether it’s at 4 months or 6 months, the majority of their diet should continue to be breast milk or formula up until the age of 1. Part of the reason for this is that the introduction of solids is simply that — an introduction. The baby will not be having a majority diet of solids for a long time after getting initially introduced. They have to get used to eating non-breast milk/formula. They are adapting to new tastes, textures, self-feeding, being feed from a spoon or from a plate and not through a bottle nipple or mom’s nipple. So in the beginning, the baby will likely play with and throw the food, taste and spit it out. Not much actual eating and swallowing will happen. That comes as a real shock to a lot of new parents who haven’t read much about introducing solids, and so they get really disappointed when the baby doesn’t actually eat and swallow (including Chris). But babies, like the rest of us, need time to get used to new foods. Just the exposure is a good thing in the beginning. Playing with the food, even if it’s just pushing it around the tray or throwing it, is still exposure. They are still interacting with the food, which is good. It’s considered a win or a “mini meal” if they have just the equivalent of one teaspoon of something, and then eventually, one tablespoon of something. So as you can imagine, introducing solids, whether it’s in whole food form or via pureed food, is going to take a crap ton of patience. The more I have thought about this, the more I have realized that introducing a large array of foods in different shapes, colors, and sizes, takes a LOT of time, energy, and patience; thus, it’s no wonder that kids end up becoming picky eaters. Their parents just didn’t have the time or energy to introduce them to eating the rainbow. In some cases, the parents are just being lazy (or imposing their own picky eating on their kids). In most cases as I’d assume, though, it’s because the parents were just too exhausted.

Babies have nothing to compare solids to in terms of taste, other than breast milk or formula. So they don’t have any pre judgments about whether mango should be tastier than broccoli or brussel sprouts. So far, we’ve introduced Kaia to avocado, Alphonso mango, broccoli (steamed, roasted, pureed), and asparagus (roasted, and lime (a wedge). She has no reason to prefer any of these things to the other, and my hope is that she will eventually embrace them all. But we just need to be patient and not impose our own judgments of these foods onto her.