Every parent has different thoughts on starting babies on solid baby food. There are so many things decide about it. When? How? Rice cereal? Multigrain cereal? Gerber? Beechnut? Small organic brands? We decided to play it by ear and when Aaron started getting hungry between bottles at shorter and shorter intervals we decided to start him on baby food at 7 months.
It hasn’t gone well.
It’s surprising. I thought Aaron would take to starting baby food like a duck takes to water since he loves eating any random thing that comes close to the proximity of his mouth more than any other baby I have ever seen.
He CONSTANTLY has SOMETHING in there.
See?
I blame myself.
I got him started at the tender age of 10 days.
And he STILL is very fond of Rhino ala mode.
What he does NOT like is baby food.
It started out well. He SEEMED hungry. He was certainly into chomping on his plastic bib.
After that?
Not so much.
This was the most pleasant look he gave us.
It was an UTTER fail.
And it shows NO signs of looking up.
After I got him cleaned up, I went to change the laundry over and discovered he had been snacking on Jonathan’s hiking socks.
At least he had the decency to look horrified at being caught. (Small comfort that it is.)
At the end of the day, we’ll keep plugging along and trying different foods and brands to see what he ends up liking. Until that day, I see a LOT of THIS in my future.
Sigh.
Good Lord, could he BE any cuter?!!? That face!!! And, who can blame him? Baby food is nasty. Can’t argue that. Although the sock makes me wonder. :)
This brings back such MEMORIES! I had a great plan of how I thought it should go. My son, on the other hand, has his own plan. He wasn’t interested one bit with that food.
OMG, he is so friggin’ cute!!
Not all babies like food right away. Sarah didn’t. Stella, on th other hand, just gobbled it up and wanted more, from the very first taste. Try something milder and with a smoother texture maybe? Bananas mashes with a little formula, or with water. Then so 1/2 banana 1/2 avocado, etc. They are both mild-tasting and smooth (not grainy like apples and pears) when mashed.
Good luck!
Maybe baked cinnamon apples and prunes all mashed up? another easy one is sweet potato, baked and mashed.
I know for breastfed babies it isn’t as important to start solids RIGHT at 6 months or whatever…is it more important for formula-fed babies? Maybe you could hold off for a few more weeks if he seems satisfied by the bottles, and try again later. I agree with the suggestion to just keep trying, though. Bananas or sweet potato or avocado are all smooth and mild-tasting. I personally didn’t like pears as a kid at all! So maybe Aaron is just expressing his opinion of that particular food. :-)
He remains the most adorable baby in the history of babies. Seriously.
Other than mixing the cereal with breast milk I have no ideas, but he is just adorable!!!
He is just so cute!
How long has he been on solids? Emily didn’t like them at first either. But now she is eating “real” food and loves her vegetables.
I love the pic of you and he where you are kissing the top of his head. Beautiful!
Hahahaha! Aaron is so darling munching on all those non-food items. My little guy wasn’t all that interested for a while either so I gave up for a while. Now we’re back to it and I can’t shovel it into his mouth fast enough. He still finds little scraps of paper or bits of napkins more appealing but at least he’s figured out food is good. Also, when munching he prefers my chin to my nose. I love that picture.
Well, one of my four couldn’t BEAR the metallic spoon in her mouth. Maybe Butter Bean is in that family too. And “they” say it takes a bajillion times for them to like something anyway. Mild fruit or oatmeal mixed with something familiar like formula or breast milk (I forgot which he’s doing). My first 3 were all eating at 4 months like pros. Number 4, who is one month behind your lil guy JUST started eating at 7 months… go figure. So just keep trying. When he’s ready, you’ll know. But then NONE of us are telling you anything you don’t already know! lol
Thanks for sharing the pics, he is JUST precious!! All my kids are brown eyed as thy come, I love looking at your lil ones baby blues… WOW!
My oldest grabbed a pickle as his first food, at five months, and was always happiest eating food he could hold by himself. Rice puffs, rice, peas, soft cubed root veggies I over-cooked… if he could grab it himself and shove it into his gob, he ate it. My middle child? Refused all food until he was nine months old. To each their own.
And your little boy is seriously beautiful. Well done!! ;)
HI Loralee,
I have had the gammet when it comes to starting solids, but my little guy, Caleb behaved exactly as your Aaron is when I tried to start him on solids. He absolutely has not allowed us to put ANYTHING in his mouth! He is really good at ejecting anything you manage to get int here too. But food he can feed himself? He is all OVER it! As Joy says above, anything he can feed himself, I betcha he does great with. My son loves the fruit that comes in the little plastic bowls from Dole or whatever, esp. the apples. Aaron is the same age as my guyu, I’ll bet he’ll eat whatever you fix for the rest of your family, just softer, and cut up small, just right for his little fingers. Good luck! He is really beautiful!
Ugh, we started Chase on food at 4 months. I thought I was going to lose. my. mind.
Fear not, he will catch on. It is a battle of the wills, prepare thyself.
My second baby started baby food/ rice cereal at 6 months and never liked it. I’m not an alarmist, but the pediatrician wanted us to see a “pediatric food specialist”… really? Seriously? Anyway, we took him in and they watched us try to fee him and then crushed up some graham crackers and goldfish and watched him some more. They said… he’s fine… just doesn’t like the texture of pureed food probably. Skip it and go straight to steamed veggies, cut small and bananas, peaches, etc cut up small. Apparently he has quite the refined pallet! Now he is 2 and eats everything!
Dude. He is seriously one of the cutest babies I’ve ever seen.
Adorable kiddo. GORGEOUS eyes!
Ya know, my kids never really liked the taste of FRUIT (in baby food format). They preferred all the vegetables over any kind of fruit. Maybe you could start him with something veggies instead? The way I saw it, it was probably the only point in their life where they would ask me for vegetables so I gave them every single kind I could find. HTH.
I had one that didn’t like baby food — that puree was just too thin, and the cereal totally tasteless. He wanted chunkier, more delicious things. So I steamed squash or carrots or whatever it was and mushed it up myself with a fork. Thicker and chunkier and suddenly YUM! His eyes lit up. And he gobbled away.
I see some advice from someone above suggests precisely the opposite — so have fun with this!
Also, that third picture? Looks like a professional photo and surely should land him a modeling contract. :)
That Butterlump is afreakingdorable. My Xander hated baby food. So he just went from the breast to human food at about 15 months.
Smooshable and yummy, he is.
My kids loved the food things that look like big pacifiers, but are a nylon bag that they can chew on. They chew and suck on food (you can put anything from crackers, to chewing biscuits, to fruit in them), without worrying if they will choke on the larger chunks. Aaron looks like he’s a chewer so you should try one! (You can find them at Target or Babies are Us.)
That’s one good lookin’ kid.
my older daughter wasn’t much for baby food either. we tried and tired for a while and then just went for simple table foods. She skipped baby food and started eating soft things off our plates. I bet Aaron is ready for yogurt and soft bread!
Oh my goodness he’s getting so big and he’s so adorable! My daughter loved “rhino” too! It also took her a while to like baby food. I have many of those unhappy faces too ;). Wishing you the best of luck with the introductions ;)
Let me just start saying he is so flippin’ adorable. I just want to pinch those cheeks.
My daughter never liked baby food. For a while there was this gerber breakfast, it was peaches and some sort of cereal pre-mixed in a jar, that she would eat for a while, but that was about it. She just never liked it. It got a little better once we were able to give her real food. She finally started really taking to food at about a year and a half and has been great ever since.
just had to comment on how adorable your little guy is!! The pictures are wonderful! We have some hilarious video of my now 3.5 yo eating applesauce for the first time! Oh the faces they make. She went on to eat broccoli and just about every other fruit and veg known to man. Of course that only lasted until she was about 2! Now I have to entice her with a popsicle of course!
What a beautiful baby you have.
That’s it. I’m calling the urologist tomorrow regarding a vasectomy reversal. Don’t tell the pre-menopausal babe. That Aaron, he’s just about as cute as they come. And, I’m willing to bet, based on my experience, that it won’t be long till he eats you out of house and home. Boys.
ARE THOSE EYES EVEN REAL?!?!!
My goodness. He’s beautiful.
oh what a cutie! He is just ADORABLE. What lovely eyes! Have you tried the Sprout brand organic baby food? My son loves it. His favorite is peaches and brown rice.
Those pictures kill me–THOSE EYES!
So don’t do baby food. Skip it. Let him eat food off your plate, or the same healthy things you eat. My kids go straight to table foods at around 8 months. I cut up soft foods and let them feed themselves: fruits, veggies, curry, stew, beans, chicken, you name it. I think babies are smarter than we give them credit, if they don’t want to eat, who cares? He’s still getting a bottle. He’ll start eating when he wants to.
Hey my grandma who is 94 to date used to put peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in her babies cribs so when they woke up and were hungry they could just eat that and go back to sleep hahhaaaa!
Can his eyes seriously get any bigger? So freakin cute!
I used to cook up a whole lot of veges (potato, pumpkin, brocolli, cauliflower, sweet potato for ex) and mash it all up and freeze it in 1/4cup portions. Neither of my kids had much bought baby food. They also both like cold canned spagetti.
Hey! I have a 7 month old as well & she is the SAME.EXACT.WAY. She WILL, however, eat YoBaby yogurt & their 3 in 1 meals (found in the refrigerated section … but I’ve only been able to find them @ Wal*Mart). She’ll also eat potato smushed out of a french fry. :) And THAT.IS.IT. Good luck!
That picture of Aaron with the hangar in his mouth looks like a print ad! I second the idea about the handheld feeder with the net, my older son loved it and it will take the worry out of him chocking while he is getting the hang of eating. My youngest is 6 1/2 months. He doesn’t like the spoon (except to bang on things) but he’ll eat almost anything off my finger, so that is our spoon!
My same age daughter was never a huge fan of purees. She tolerated them until she was able to hit her own mouth with food. She self feeds already. My son? Totally would NEVER have self fed at this age, nor was he even remotely ready. She’s ridiculous. So now she just eats soft foods that she can gum.
Maybe he’d like that instead? I mean, it looks as if he’s got the chewing part down pat.
Loooooove the sock photo.
I haven’t used baby food for 16 years. My kids go from bottle to table. I yank the bottle at twelve months and the formula with it, if they have mastered the eating thing, if not, formula stays and moves to the sippy cup. I think Baby food is a waste of time and energy. Just my thoughts. But I have successfully grown twelve babies without baby food.
I’m sorry, did you write something? Because all I could see was edible baby and feeling my uterus sobbing.
SO ADORABLE
NOMnomnomnomnom. [in response to the baby, not the subject matter]
In the 3rd picture, are those chopsticks? OMG that is the most hilarious photo ever! Just the look on his face! :)
So, so cuuuuute.
OMGOSH this post made my heart melt! He is so gorgeous, and very amazing photo taking skillZ lmao.
Have you tried feeding him the baby food off your finger? I hear sometimes that helps…maybe give it a try? Or put some on your nose hehe :D
Oh, and Nolan didn’t like “warm” fruits, he likes things cold. lmao :D so many its a temperature thing? I have no clue.
But he sure is mighty purdy :)
If you have a food processor, it’s really easy to make your own baby food, (that will tast lots better than store-bought) you just need to steam or bake any fruits or veggies and then puree them, then you can freeze them in ice cube trays for servings that are just right. It’s also really easy to mix foods that way too, like apples and sweet potatoes. A great website is http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/ Good luck!
And? Your baby is SO CUTE!
Both of my kids hated HATED baby food. Hated it. Did I mention they hated it? Canned, jarred, frozen, fresh… didn’t matter. They hated it. Fortunately, they are power teethers (my daughter has 14 teeth, and she’s 13 months old), so we went right to table food. Bonus: it’s cheaper!
He’s so cute… you can’t be mad about those wasted jars of baby food, can you? ;)
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Good job Thank you for information
your baby very cute
SO adorable!
Pretty sure my friends gave [organic] avocado to their son as his first food. Supposed to be less allergy potential or something. GL!
clearly he is waiting to be fed tomatoes. duh. :-)