Cereal: Round One and Two

The moment every mom waits for has finally arrived: cereal time! Our pediatrician recommended that we wait until the girls were almost six months before starting on cereal, so I was excited to see how they would react. Let's just say that our first try was, um, less than successful.

First, I laid out all the bowls and spoons, the bibs, the burp cloths, then got the high chairs ready and mixed up the cereal (much runnier than I thought!) for the girls. I placed the girls in their chairs, and things were going well so far. Caroline seemed very excited to try her cereal and eat at the table like a big girl:

Claire, too, was ready to go and waiting on her chance to eat with a spoon:


This was about as good as it got...Claire did manage to get the hang of the spoon in her mouth, but about 2 minutes after I had the girls in their chairs, Caroline had a meltdown and began crying and screaming. Even though Claire seemed to be enjoying her cereal, watching Caroline get so upset then made Claire upset as well. So, I had two crying and hungry babies, so I just moved them back to their bouncers and resorted back to the bottle.

I figured out that the cereal wasn't the issue; it was sitting in the high chair! For some reason, the girls do not like anything hard on their backs. They will sit on the couch or against me without a problem, but they would NOT sit in these chairs. They kept sliding to the side, so I'm thinking some of it is just that they don't have enough muscle control yet and it's uncomfortable for them.

After reading online that this is all just for practice, I told myself this morning that I just have to try again and maybe use the Bumbos instead. I was nervous about that, too, though because the girls aren't too fond of these either. Paul suggested that we need to have "Bumbo conditioning" and just make them sit in their Bumbos for 30 minutes a day. I'm not sure we'll use that approach, but I did regroup, put the girls in their Bumbos, and tried again.

I am happy to report that round two went much better. Caroline did not lose it today, and kept smiling when I'd give her a little spoonful of cereal. She didn't seem as interested in the spoon or in the idea of eating, but I was happy that at least she let me try to get some in her mouth! Most of the cereal ended up on her chin, but at least she is getting used to the idea!

Claire really lapped up the cereal and was tracking my hand and the spoon and would cry for more when I was feeding Caroline. I think she has the hang of it a little more than Caroline, and I probably got a good 10-15 spoonfuls in before she wanted out of the Bumbo. She also liked wearing it on her chin more than swallowing it, but hey, you gotta take any progress you can!

For now, we'll use the Bumbo until they get a little bigger, and then I guess we'll try the highchair again. We're heading to the dr. in a week anyways, so I'll see what advice he might give then. Until next week, we're keeping at it!