Mommy Babble - Feeding Baby

There are a lot of things that we take for granted in life. We learn things as a very young child and we forget that we had to learn them. Learning to eat for instance is one such thing. How could this possibly be so difficult? The baby opens its mouth, you stick the spoon in with the food, and the baby eats the food. What's so tough about that? I'm learning that that is not where things begin.

Sweet Potatoes: Jensen learning to eat.Yesterday was my second attempt at feeding sweet potatoes to my son Jensen. We had started him on rice cereal on his 7-month birthday but he never really took to that. After consulting other moms we've skipped ahead to single strain veggies.

This is roughly the sequence of events for our second sweet potato feeding.

1. Set highchair on plastic tablecloth.

2. Strap struggling child in 5-point harness of highchair. With left hand, push safety button on highchair tray then quickly pull lever to release locks while right hand attempts to hold child's arms up at a safe distance to avoid pinches. Shove tray in place and hope for the best.

3. Put large bib over baby's head and roll his sleeves up to his armpits, knowing it won't help. As an afterthought, roll your sleeves up too, knowing it won't help. Note to self: next time mom needs a bib too.

4. Take 2.5 oz container of baby sweet potatoes from cabinet and put half into a baby bowl. Take 6 baby spoons from drawer and have a seat in front of baby.

5. Load up a small amount of food on the first spoon and make flying motion to baby’s mouth while attempting to avoid babies reaching hands. Baby will win and take the spoon from you. Accept this fact.

6. Quickly go for a second spoon and while baby is mouthing first spoon shove second spoon into babies mouth and pull out across his top lip leaving food behind.

7. Load spoon again and wait for next opportunity while baby plays with first spoon and food bubble on lips with fingers. At the first sight of an opening shove the spoon in there again. Baby will likely swipe spoon 2 on this attempt.

8. Load spoon 3 and make lip-smacking sounds to baby attempting to coax him to lick his lips and swallow. Take next opportunity to thrust more food into baby’s mouth and clean up his chin with spoon. Baby will drop spoon 1 on the tablecloth and grab spoon 3 before you can escape.

9. Load up spoon 4 and wait. Baby is now looking at pictures on the wall and shaking spoon treasures. Sweet potatoes are sliding down the baby’s arms, smeared on the highchair tray, and dripping out of baby’s nose.

10. Hover spoon 4 near baby’s head. When he turns away from pictures slip spoon into mouth and head for a reload before baby realizes what happened. Baby drops spoon 2 and spoon 3 then shoves fingers from both hands into his mouth to play with the intruding sweet potatoes.

11. Continue loading spoons and outwitting 8-month old baby until bowl is empty. Wash baby’s face and hands while he turns head rapidly and clenches fists. Change baby and mom’s clothes. Celebrate that .25 oz of food has gone down into your baby’s belly and forget about the 1 oz of food that escaped.

12. Repeat process tomorrow and hope for better result.