2004-04-11 - 4:41 p.m. - Cycle day:

Well, now I know why she's been so restless lately. In just the last couple days, M. has figured out how to sit up on her own, crawl forwards (for real this time) and pull herself up almost to standing. As a celebration of her new grown-upness, she had her first "kid" food today - about two bites worth of mashed banana. She seemed more interested in the spoon than the food, really.

I'm sure we seem even more like the crazy hippie family when we tell people that she's seven months old and isn't eating solids yet. The Peggy O'Mara book (Natural Family Living) reassured me that we haven't been depriving her, though. It said that babies can happily and nutritiously go to about a year (at least) on breastmilk alone. The book also gave some good tips on how to start her on foods, too. I planned to just go the cereal route like everyone else (although I was going to make my own with brown rice, because I'm obstinate like that), but O'Mara suggests starting with fruits, then vegetables, then eventually moving to grains. Which makes sense to me. Start with the easiest stuff to digest and build up from there. Our doctor suggested starting cereal at 4 or 5 months because, he said, "there's typically a drop in iron at about that age." Well, I was reading that the supplemental iron in most cereals can actually inhibit the absorption of iron, so the fact that most babies start eating cereal at 4 or 5 months might be a symptom rather than a cure, I think. Besides, what food could I give her that would be as safe and healthy as breastmilk? I was feeling guilty because one of M's playmates (who is two days younger than she is) has been on solids for months and is now eating bowls and bowls of cereal a day, plus fruit and veggies and teething bisctuis. But then his mom figured out that he seems to have a wheat allergy, so I don't feel so bad about holding off.

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