10 and 3/4-ish Month Update

So there's a lot that's been going on. A lot.

Greta's First Christmas

I got pneumonia over the holidays and missed the first two days of school after break.
Then the "polar vortex" started in just as I was wrapping up my work at my old job. (Oh right -- I changed jobs). So my last few weeks were incredibly rushed, since I had even less time to wrap up than usual.
Then Ben got sick the week during my last week at my old job.
Then on Greta's 10 month birthday and my last day at my old job, Ben and I both started throwing up. I got better pretty fast, but Ben couldn't keep anything down for several days. This was, keep in mind, the weekend that I was transitioning from one teaching job to another. If I had been staying at my old job, it would have been the week before a 2 week vacation. Instead, it was an insane transitional time in which I was finishing up grades, cleaning out my old classroom, and setting up my new classroom and meeting my new students.
Then we had another round of polar vortex weather and school was cancelled for three more days.
Then last week, I finally had a full 5 day week with my new students.
Ben still has pneumonia.

So I haven't updated in a long time, but I don't want to wait until 11 months to write an update. Why? Because she is changing so fast I can't even believe it. It's like I have a new baby every week.

Where do I even start?

Greta has Teeth

Good luck trying to get a photo of her teeth. This was the best I could do. You can barely see a tooth on the bottom -- just don't confuse it with the thing that's at the top left . . . that's a cheerio. 

Her first tooth popped out on New Year's morning! I was feverish with pneumonia (didn't know it at the time -- I went to the doctor later that day) and Ben was exhausted and lying on the couch at Casey and Brandon's house. All of a sudden, I looked in her mouth and saw a white thing. When I felt it, it felt razor sharp! It was so surprising and sudden. She hadn't even been behaving strangely the day before or anything. I always thought that the worst part of teething would come right as a tooth was breaking through, but Greta has been "teething" for months and the times when she is actually cutting a tooth haven't seemed much more intense than the other times she has seemed to have teething pain along the way.

Yes, I say times (plural) because she has three teeth now! The first one to come through was her bottom left front tooth. Then her bottom right front tooth. Now her top left front tooth cut through yesterday and the right top front tooth isn't far behind it. It's exciting to see! I love her toothy-toothless grin!

Greta is Crawling

She started crawling the week before she turned 10 months old. She has been "army crawling" for awhile, but then she started crawling on her hands and knees -- with her tummy above the floor. It's fun to watch -- such a "classic baby" move. She is definitely louder and more vocal when she crawls that way, although if she's on carpet and has a pacifier in her mouth, she's almost as stealthy as when she army crawls.

Greta is Pulling Up

She started pulling up shortly after she started crawling -- I'd say maybe within the first few days after turning 10 months. At first, it started with her pulling/pushing up on me while I was video-taping her. All of a sudden, I noticed that she was standing. I had a hand under her armpit for balance, but she'd basically gotten herself into a standing position on her own. A few days later, she'd pulled up on the sides of her playpen.

Since then, she pulls herself to standing anytime she can. Furniture, people, playpen . . . basically everything in her world is just a prop for pulling up. She sometimes makes poor choices -- for example, we have to be careful when she tries to pull up on furniture that swivels or the handle to the drawer of the oven. We recently bought her convertible car seats that she will be transitioning into soon and she had to be monitored closely when they were unboxed on the floor of the living room -- uninstalled car seats make for dangerously unstable pull-up devices.

Greta is Cruising

She doesn't cruise a ton. She mostly cruises along the sides of her playpen. Few furniture pieces are the right height (remember, she's under the 10th percentile for height) and the right distance from each other, so there isn't a great way to get around the house by cruising. Nevertheless, it is not uncommon to put her in her playpen and see her pull up and begin a circuit around her playpen, chatting away at the outside world as she does so.

Greta is Standing

Just for a couple seconds at a time, but she's definitely doing the "Look Mama! no hands!" thing. She will push up off of me until she is kind of in a "downward dog" yoga position. Then she will straighten herself upright and look super proud and adorable before she loses her balance and falls back down again. It's awesome!

Greta is Interactive

Okay, so she's always been interactive. But it's just . . . different now. It's like being around a totally new person in the last few weeks. For example, she has totally become a bath fanatic in the last couple months. She loves bathtime,  splashes gleefully and is sad when she has to get out of the tub.

If you put out cheerios on her high chair tray, she has started experimenting with what will happen when she hits the tray, pushes the cheerios around, kicks against the end of the tray, surreptitiously extends her arm with a cheerio in her grip and then lets the cheerio fall to the floor. She enjoys pushing down on the edge of a cheerio with her finger and watching it catapult across the dining room in the opposite direction. Her favorite has to be when you point to a cheerio and then open your mouth wide. She laughs, picks up the cheerio you selected and offers it to you for you to nibble from her fingers. The best, though, is when she does the "fake out." She offers it, but then witholds it at the last moment, just as you're about to gobble it up from her fingers. The maniacal laughing as she does it is hilarious, but also a little concerning.

She is also very destructive. If you create a tower of blocks, for example, she will come over from across the playpen and, with great determination, knock down your blocks. Not only that, but she will enthusiastically hit at the blocks, spreading them as far apart from one another as possible, so that it is clear that there is no longer any organization or structure to the blocks as a group. She seems to take this work very seriously -- so seriously, in fact, that I've started to wonder whether she has a "No Building!" rule that she feels she is constantly (*dramatic sigh*) having to enforce with us.

She's also started to mimic us. For example, Ben has been having to use an inhaler for his pneumonia. When he does, she looks at him with great interest and waits as he holds his breath after inhaling. Then she scrunches up her face and makes an exaggerated "sniff."

Greta is Eating More "People Food" -- Slowly but Surely

Despite being nearly a year old, Greta still balks at most "big kid" foods. She just never really latched onto the idea of finger foods. She loves Cheerios and puff snacks, but rejected cut up avocado or banana. We've been most successful with small pieces of bread products -- for example, if we go to a restaurant, we'll give her small pieces of bread or scrape the salt off the crackers and let her try those. Recently, we tried giving her strips of toast with a thin smear of almond butter and that was fairly successful, although messy.

As far as spoon foods, she still loves all her typical baby food purees. Everyone told us that the pureed stage wouldn't last long, but our kiddo seems to be an exception. We have also started introducing some homemade purees and other soft foods. For example, we've given her cassoulet (including some shredded chicken, but excluding the sausage and bacon . . . seemed to love it the first day, but very fussy the second day), a few different soups (in the last week, golden potage and red lentil mulligatawny . . . pretty successful), and lasagna (not a hit). We're still working on trying to get her gradually more interested in a greater variety of foods. But she's growing and gaining, so we're also not really worried about it.

Greta eating cassoulet -- her first "big people" meal.

Greta has New Carseats

As mentioned earlier, we bought convertible carseats for Greta. She hasn't totally outgrown her infant seat, but she's getting close, so we decided to bite the bullet and buy her seats while there was a good deal.

Britax Roundabout -- Cybex Aton 2 -- Chicco Nextfit

On the left is the Britax Roundabout G4 which she will ride in when she's in her grandparents' car or when we are traveling.

On the right is the Chicco Nextfit, which she will ride in when she's in our car.

In the middle is her infant seat (Cybex Aton 2) for comparison. Doesn't the infant seat look tiny? Neither of the convertibles look huge until you look at them next to her infant seat.

Greta has More Hair

Enough said. Look at this adorable bed head during breakfast!

9 Month Update

A visit from Grandpa Dan at Thanksgiving. 

Greta's Thanksgiving Meal: Sweet Potato with Chicken, Apples, Apricots, and Cinnamon

I completely blew past Greta's 8 month update. A few days late turned into a few weeks late and all of a sudden she was 9 months old. So I am starting to write this ON her 9 month birthday even though I know I won't post by the end of the day. (Merry Christmas, I'm posting it a week later...)

In keeping with her development over the recent weeks, Greta totally surprised us by sleeping her birthday away. I came home around 4:45 and she had just gone down for a nap. At 8:45, we woke her up to feed her and give her her meds, softly sing her happy birthday, and then put her back down to bed. We have no idea what her night is going to look like, and that's actually pretty typical lately. I have been forgoing pumping in favor of nursing and so our routine is more unpredictable than it used to be. (By the way, that night was a disaster.)

As predicted in my last post, she stopped calling me Mama within a couple weeks, in favor of longer strings of Baba, dada, thatha, and mama (but not like the word -- just babbles). She babbles and just recently has started some waving-type gestures. She can stay in a seated position for extended lengths of time, although she very occasionally still face-plants into the carpet or falls backwards. We tend to avoid this by putting pillow behind her or sitting behind her on the floor and spotting her. 

That Boppy pillow is an awesome invention. 

Greta also is on the verge of crawling. She can "army crawl" pretty well, but she isn't crazy fast. I still feel comfortable with her being out of sight for a moment or two, even when she's not in her playpen. The playpen, by the way, is an amazing invention for folks like us who don't have gates. 

Her inability to crawl causes Greta great frustration. She has been more impatient and difficult to please. She wants to crawl SO badly. Unless she is in a very mellow mood, it is difficult to keep her happy. If you put her down to explore on her own, she's frustrated that she can't crawl. She will do push-ups and wail in frustration as she bends and straightens her legs and arms. Every now and then, she will manage to get up onto all fours -- with her knees bent below her. But once in that position, she struggles with what to do next and eventually cries in despair.

It's actually pretty painful to watch. I wish I could teach her how to crawl, but my attempts at doing so usually end with her face-planting and me feeling terrible for having helped her into a position she couldn't maintain. So no more of that -- baby will have to learn on her own. 

She's getting very good at eating puff snacks or cereal. It's so fun to watch her eat them -- it's a vaguely familiar action that is similar to when she puts other items in her mouth. But when she eats the cereal she does it casually and purposefully avoids eye contact while she puts the snack in her mouth --- almost an affected nonchalance. Interestingly, she's not great at chewing yet, so we haven't given her any finger foods that can't be dissolved in her mouth. She's eaten a wide variety of purées, though -- everything from fruits and veggies to legumes, meats and nuts. 

First time eating multi-grain cereal. 

She wasn't a fan of egg. She was really disappointed in us as parents when we gave it to her, although she still dutifully ate most of it with a look of pained resignation. 

So all of the above was from last week when I started writing this on her birthday. Today when I'm actually posting this is one week later . . . In the first week since she turned 9 months old, she also started clapping. This is one of her favorite activities now. She will clap with joy and with frustration. One of the most hilarious things to watch is when she is fussing and crying and clapping at the same time. It's amazing how fast they change, these babies. I had never seen her clap at all before maybe Sunday of this week, and now she does it constantly. 

She also started playing peek-a-boo again. On Saturday, I was in Barnes and Noble and she was in her infant carrier that was attached to her stroller so she was facing me. There's a little flap that can be flipped up in front of the baby's face and she started pulling it up and then waiting for me to say "Where's Greta?" and then revealing herself. 

Car seat with cover flap. 

What was fascinating was how much she laughed when she'd do it this time. Back a few months ago when she started playing peek-a-boo, she would occasionally smile or laugh, but more often than not she'd just put the blanket over her face again. It was as if she was saying, "Oh, you found me and that seems to delight you. Well, it's not difficult for me to do this, so I will cover and uncover my face as long as it pleases you, you fool." But this time it was much more interactive and fun and she took much more joy in it. 

What was crazy was when I went out to the car. We have a little mirror posted on the headrest of the seat on which her car seat is attached. I looked back in the rearview mirror to see her ducking her head down to make eye contact with me through our mirrors. Then she lifted the flap of her car seat cover and played peek-a-boo with me in the mirrors of the car. I played with her a little before pulling out of the parking lot, but she still tried to engage me in the game while we were driving. It was SO tempting to play with her. It's so rewarding to hear that tiny little laugh. But I was driving a car and it was hugely distracting. I had always heard that you have to be careful of those mirrors because they can cause a distraction and I had always assumed that they were talking about the distraction of a parent worrying about their kid and watching them obsessively. For me, though, that was never an issue. But this peek-a-boo in the mirror thing is totally dangerous and addictive. Must keep eyes on the road! 

Overall, our Baby G is doing well. This is a great age. It's amazing to me to think that she's spent as much time outside the womb as she spent in it. 9 months is a big milestone!

Who ME?

Yesterday, Greta looked right at me and said, "Mama."

Okay, so maybe she's not really calling me that, but when she says it, it sounds JUST like she's referring to me.

I always thought that babies who said, "Mama" while babbling were doing it more repeatedly. It's always described as "Oh, they were just babbling -- you know . . . Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma . . ."

But this feels different than what they describe. I know that it's still just babbling but it really sounds like she's saying Mama. Yes, it's repeated, but it's like this, "Ma-Ma . . . Ma-Ma . . ." And she does the slightly-longer-first-syllable-slightly-shorter-second-syllable thing too. (Not sure if I can explain that properly, but if you imagine someone flatly saying the syllable "Ma" twice in a row, it sounds different than when someone actually says "Mama," right?)

AAAHHH! So insanely cute!

The best part is when she looks right at me while she does it. Yesterday she was playing on her belly and then she'd push up on her arms really tall and look right at me and say "Ma-Ma . . . Ma-Ma . . ." and smile.

Today she would pull off from nursing and I'd sit her upright and, again, she'd look straight at me and say, "Ma-Ma . . . Ma-Ma" and grin all slyly.

But I shouldn't get my hopes up that she attaches any meaning whatsoever. Because in all likelihood, as cute as this is, it isn't even going to last much longer. It's just going to be like the "Hi" thing from when she was around 3.5 months. She did it constantly for like a week or two and it sounded like the PERFECT little sweet "Hi!" and it made me insanely happy. And then she just sort of stopped. I was kind of sad when my baby just suddenly stopped greeting me.  And then the peek-a-boo thing. She did it incessantly for a little while, and then just kind of stopped taking an interest. And then now there's this "Mama" thing. Which she'll probably carry on for a week or so and I will become so attached to the idea of my baby calling my name. And then she'll stop and I'll think she doesn't love me anymore.

So yeah. Trying to walk the line between taking joy in this sweet new thing of hers and trying not to take it personally.

7 Months!

Time is flying by. Greta is already 1 week past her 7 month birthday.

The major updates are that she is a baby on the move. Case in point: I plunked her down on a soft blanket to have her usual floor time maybe 5 minutes ago and she's already scooting around on the hard floor a few feet from where she was placed.

You may remember that on her 6 month birthday, she rolled over from back to front twice in one day.  It was new and different. Now, if I put her down on the floor, I can pretty much be guaranteed that she will have rolled over at least 5 or 6 times within 10 minutes or so. And when she's not rolling, she's reaching and scooting and pivoting and occasionally even doing tiny push-ups onto her toes and arms. No official crawling yet, but she's working on trying to get up on her hands and knees.

She's a persistent baby. If a toy rolls away from her, she works hard to get herself over to it. She grunts and sighs and reaches and tries to use other objects that are within her reach to "lasso" the desired object into her reach. I get tired just watching her.

And watch her we must. Yesterday I laid out a blanket and set her down on it to chill with some toys while I went into the kitchen to start some food for lunch. She still moves fairly slowly and so it has generally worked to leave the room for a minute or two and then come back and check on her. Well, when I came back into the room to check on her, she looked like this:

 

Yes, that's my baby, tangled up in the blanket that I'd carefully laid out and set her upon, playing with a plastic bag. Not my proudest "responsible parenting" moment.

I think because she isn't fast, it's easy to assume that she won't get into stuff. But she's a stealthy baby. She will very quietly get herself into trouble.

At the end of this month, Greta also took her first airplane ride.

Greta on the plane. 

We went to Chicago to visit family and family friends. Greta met her cousin Cora for the first time.

Cora with Michelle -- 7 weeks of adorable.

She also wore matching aunt/niece outfits (sometimes inadvertently) on several occasions.

The trip was a success. We visited with several family friends. We road-tripped to Peoria to see my grandfather and uncle. We visited another uncle, aunt and cousin. It was very busy, I was completely drained without my partner in parenting, and Greta got way off her sleep schedule. But it was incredibly rewarding to see her meeting so many wonderful family and near-family members. 

Although flying with an infant was easier than I'd expected, being out of town and off-schedule with an infant was much harder than I'd expected. I am happy that we won't be doing it again for awhile, as much as I want to see all these wonderful people again soon. 

Other than the mobility, Greta hasn't changed all that much from last month. I think she's focusing all her growing energy into her new activity level. She isn't really any more vocal than she was before, and she's maintained the same levels of focus -- it's just that now she's focusing not on just touching things, but actively reaching them, grabbing them, using them to hit other objects, etc. She continues to be very social and with her stronger core, she will more actively lean towards people in order to listen in on their conversations, smile or laugh. She's become squirmier -- something that I noticed in particular when comparing her to her newborn cousin. Suddenly my baby was the maniac in the room!

She's working on sitting up. If placed in the corner of a couch or armchair, she will put her hands on the arm and back of the seat and sit upright. If she is supported by Ben's legs on her sides, she can sit up on her own fairly well. It's usually falling to the side -- rather than back or forward -- that prevents her from being able to sit completely unsupported. 

Physically, she feels much more robust. This was a change that I noticed shortly after we started solids with her and has continued since then.  All month long, I've been feeling like my baby has suddenly gotten huge. I was surprised when I took her for a weight check and she'd gained less than a pound since last month (although the previous months he'd only gained 3 ounces, so I guess I shouldn't be too dismayed). I feel like it's all muscle, though! Strong, active baby!

6 Months

We are overdue for an update! Greta's 6 month birthday was over a week and a half ago and she's changing so much these days she feels well on her way to 7 months old. Before I forget what happened between months 5 and 6, I'd better write her six month update!

She's getting bigger, but slowly. She's pretty well on-track when it comes to clothing (she outgrew her 3-6 month clothes around her 6 month birthday), but her measurements seem to be slowing down a bit. At her 6 month checkup she measured 25.25" in length and 13 lbs 11 oz in weight. This puts here in the 24th and 9th percentiles, respectively. She carries more of her height in a long torso, which explains why she's still outgrowing her clothing "on-target" despite being on the small side overall.

Even though she's comparatively quite small, it feels like she's getting bigger all the time.

I have heard often of parents mistakenly thinking that a baby has outgrown his/her infant car seat if  the child's feet reach the end of the seat. If Greta is in the bottom quartile for height, I can't imagine how quickly some parents must give up the infant seat unnecessarily. We still love ours!

There are three main (and major!) changes that have happened since her 5 month update.

Food
As mentioned in a previous post, Greta's first solid food was on Labor Day. We started with brown rice cereal and added squash a few days later. Since then we've been introducing something new every few days. So far (as of 9/28 at 6 months, 10 days old) she's had the following:

Grains
Brown Rice Cereal
Oatmeal Cereal

Fruits
Pears
Peaches
Bananas

Culinary Vegetables
Squash
Peas

Botanical Vegetables
Carrots
Sweet Potato

She's generally a really "good eater." We were at Ben's parents' house today and they were shocked at how much she was eating. (She seems to spit out a lot in my opinion, but I guess I don't really have any points of reference.) The only thing she hasn't seemed to like is the peas. We'll try those again when she's a bit older. To be honest, I don't really blame her. The texture of the pureed peas is much more . . . gross. I'm guessing we'll have better luck when we try them as a finger food.

Rolling
The second major development is that she's rolling a lot more now. It happened for the first time back in the fourth month, I think. Then toward the end of the 5th month, she started rolling here and there. It would always be a total surprise, though. Most of the time she'd look very much like she was going to roll, but then she wouldn't.

Fake Out -- A time when Great looked very much like she was going to roll, but did not. 

Then, at other times, I'd look down at my computer and up at her again and she'd have rolled over.

The first time she rolled from back to tummy was like this. I described it with some pictures in my Sept. 8 post. At first after that I thought she wasn't able to do it on her own -- that she'd pulled herself using the bar and it would be awhile before she could do it without grabbing onto something. But shortly after that, she started doing it here and there -- perhaps once a day from tummy to back and every other day from back to tummy (on average, of course -- it's not like she had a schedule). That stage lasted about a week.

Then on her six month birthday, she went all out.

She rolled over from tummy to back twice in one day. And acted like it was no big thing.

And ever since then it's like she leaped forward in her mobility. She will casually roll onto her belly and play for a bit, then roll onto her back for a bit, etc. While I can't say that I'm surprised by it anymore, I am still really impressed when I see her roll -- and shocked at how relaxed she is about it. The other day, I even saw her roll twice in succession (as in she rolled from back to tummy to back as though it was one move). We haven't seen her roll in order to get places yet, but I think that's coming soon.

Right now, her rolling seems to be mostly in the pursuit of toys, in which she has taken a more active interest.

She still enjoys examining them, but she picks them up herself now and passes them from hand to hand, rather than having them hang above her the way that she did when she was a four-month-old. It's weird how subtly some things change (the way that she plays, for example) versus the things that seem to change by leaps and bounds (like this whole rolling thing).

Peek-A-Boo
Speaking of things happening quickly. Greta has started playing her first game. About a week before her 6 month birthday, she started playing peek-a-boo with us. I was on the phone at the time and Ben got my attention to show me that she was playing peek-a-boo with him. She was holding a small blanket over her face and then pulling it down after being asked, "Where's Greta?"

This was a huge shock to me, as I could probably count on one hand the number of times that I had played peek-a-book with her. And I think they were all probably way back when she was 4 months old or younger. As I learned, Ben's parents had been playing some peek-a-boo with her more recently, but to our knowledge this was the first time she'd ever initiated it herself.

Building our suspense on the first evening she played peek-a-boo with us. 

It. Was. Awesome.

We captured it on video, but we don't want to post video here. If you know us in real life, just send Arden an email and we'll send you the link.

I can totally understand why this never gets old when you're the kid's parent. I was so excited to interact with her in this new way. There were so many characteristics that were conveyed through that game that I hadn't seen from my baby until that point -- humor, language, timing, communication. She seems to be experimenting with how long to wait before pulling the cloth away (and smiles more when she builds our suspense with an extra beat or two).

Interestingly, in the days that followed, I learned that although she seemed perfectly capable of grasping the concept of the game if she initiated it herself, she wouldn't play it if you put the cloth over her face. I found that if I handed the cloth to her, she'd put it over her face and play. But if I put it over her face, she'd just lie there, uncontrollably wiggling and giggling in anticipation of you taking it off of her. It was hilarious! At first, I thought that she didn't know that she could take it off if she wasn't the one that put it there. Later, though, I noticed that she'd sometimes do that to herself -- she'd put the cloth over her face and then if she let go, it was like she'd forget that she'd put it there. She'd know it was there (hence all the giggling), but no matter how many times you'd ask, "Where's Greta?" she wouldn't seem to know that she can take it off for the "big reveal."

Last Saturday was particularly amusing. Ben and I were getting ready to leave and Greta was playing on the floor. I was in the dining room folding laundry when I heard the familiar sound of her excited giggles. I went in to find her wiggling and giggling with the cloth on her face -- as though she was just waiting to surprise an unsuspecting parent.  

This is golden. Any second, they're going to come in here all "Where's Greta?" And they'll be so confused, but I'll be right here under their noses. Oh, this is gonna be so good!  

I have to say, she's actually pretty successful with the humor.  I'm laughing!

So many new things!

I think one of my favorite things about solids is that it's like there's a new milestone every 4 days -- and Mama and Papa get to decide when it happens. First time eating pears? Yes, I think we'll do that today!

After the brown rice cereal on Labor Day, we progressed to butternut squash on Thursday and then today it was pears. She had what seemed to be teething pain not too long after the pears, but then while I was standing her up on my lap, she made her "I'm pooping" face and so I think it was stomach upset. When we changed her diaper, we were shocked to see a fully-formed stool. She's never had a poop that could be described as anything approaching "solid" before. I had no idea that after only one week of a few tablespoons a day of solids, things could change so quickly!

Speaking of milestones that we had no control over, Greta rolled from back to front today. She was on her back playing in her gym and just hanging out, stretching on her side and pulling on the arches above her gym.

She was making funny faces at me while she arched her back and stretched, so I tried to capture a picture and this was what I got. 

Ben and I were just chatting while she was hanging out. Ben was on his computer and my view of her was blocked by the coffee table, so I was just checking on her now and then. A few minutes later, I looked over at her and saw her like this:

So Proud!

She really did look amazingly proud. And then she just hung out in tummy time for awhile and smiled at us and looked around back and forth between us as we ooh'd and aaah'd over her hard work.

Yay, baby! Big Day!

Big Day

Today, to commemorate the struggles and successes of labor unions throughout history, Greta ate 4 teaspoons of brown rice cereal.

She's five and a half months today and we decided this past week that we were ready for her to start solids. I'd always assumed that we'd wait until six months, as per the guidance of the WHO, but she just seemed really ready. Also, my supply dropped quite a bit in the last month since I've been back at work, and I've been worried that I can't pump enough for her. Best to get some extra calories in her, since she's already a pretty small kid!

Sure enough, she seemed pretty  ready. She opened her mouth eagerly, grabbed the spoon and held it in her mouth, and made little "mmmm!" noises. Yes, a lot of it still ended up on her chin and the bib, but to be honest I think she consumed 80-90% of what we gave her.

And once we were done she proceeded to have a mini-meltdown. Mama and Papa had teased her with just a small amount of food and now she was SO sad. As soon as I got her nursing, she ate hungrily, which was a relief because I'd worried she wouldn't be hungry. We'll have to experiment with timing milk vs. solids. This time it definitely didn't decrease her intake of breastmilk (which is good), but in the future when she's eating more (we gave her a third of a "serving" this time) we may need to give her solids after nursing, or at other times of day. Right now, she typically is willing to nurse right after a nap, no matter how long it's been since she nursed last. So maybe giving her solids right before a nap would ensure that she'd be hungry for milk after the nap regardless of how much was still in her tummy?

This is a whole new world for us! Any advice is appreciated!