I’m really particular about how I introduce solids to my babies. I do one food at a time and wait on high-allergen foods until my babies are older. I figure by being so careful, if there is a reaction I will easily know what caused it and by waiting until the kids are older, their little bodies will better handle a reaction.
With the girls I started with rice cereal then oatmeal then vegetables and fruits. I then began adding in “higher risk” foods like citrus, berries, eggs, dairy, and soy. I waited until after a year to do wheat, 18 months to do nuts and 2 years to do shellfish. At some point I stopped paying attention (other than the nuts and shellfish) and just gave the girls whatever. I think it was somewhere around the 1 year mark, after I introduced wheat.
With Doodle, though, things are going much slower. The process of doing finger foods has left me struggling to get new things introduced every 3-4 days. He has not yet had any dairy, citrus, strawberries or wheat. Because he hadn’t had wheat or dairy, his first birthday cake was a challenge (but a delicious one, here’s what I ended up doing!)
But now that we’ve passed the one year mark, it’s acceptable for him to have cow’s milk in a cup. His doctor okayed him to try anything aside from peanuts and shellfish (the wheat thing is all my own!) And I feel like it’s time to just open up the culinary world to him.
But I can’t. I just can’t do it! For some reason I just can’t do it, I can’t just hand him a pile of food and let him have at it. I don’t know whether it’s because he’s my baby or because he might be my LAST baby or perhaps because despite him being bigger than the girls at a year, he seems so tiny and fragile compared to them now.
I know I HAVE to do it eventually, I can’t wait forever, he can’t go to college eating only a small list of pure foods. So I decided I need to start introducing those last few “concerning” foods. Tomato, strawberries, oranges, pineapple, yogurt, cheese, wheat. But why is it giving me a panic attack? What is causing me so much stress? Why is it so hard?
