Solid Food

Just recently we started Kyton on solid food. He’s been a casual solid food eater for a little while now, but now it’s regular.  Everyone has a different idea on when to start, and what foods to feed, how, and in what order.  To be completely honest, we are still figuring out what works for us. 

At first I wanted to go with the ‘whole food, self feeding method.’  Basically you give the baby large chunks of the food that you are eating.  The idea is that the baby can self feed, and eat as much of as little as they would like.  They can also select the foods that appeal to them. 

In theory this sounded great, but not in practice.  I gave him chunks of apples and carrot.  The problem was that he would gnaw off a hunk, then cough and gag on the piece of food.  I was a nervous mom, and couldn’t do it anymore. 


So we switched gears completely to the traditional pureed baby mush. 

Baby mush works fine, except that Kyton gets really really upset when we have food, and he does not have the same food.  If you can’t tell by his size our kid LOVES food! I talked to a friend who does the whole food method.  She assured me that it is normal to gag every now and then.  When we sit down to eat dinner, Kyton wants what we are eating. 

Two nights ago I gave him a piece of asparagus. (Asparagus was our dinner.)  He ate it, and did great.  We broke it up a little bit into bite sized pieces, that he could easily swallow.  He self fed, and begged for more.  Last night he self fed pieces of butternut squash and pears. 

After hearing from other moms on the many uses of the mesh feeder, we used it this evening with butternut squash. 

I think that we are sort of doing a hybrid of chunks and baby mush… really we are still figuring out what works for us. 
 
What are your thoughts on baby food?  What works (worked) for you?

I Heart Faces: Oh So Silly

I’ll admit, I normally delete the silly pictures that end up on my hard drive.  We wanted to wait until 6 months to give our boy solid foods, but he begged to try some banana…. so I let him chew on one.  I was amazed at how much he actually ate, and I love this silly picture.

 

See more at:

Kyton’s first kiss

  Renee crawled over to Kyton and sweetly kissed his forehead.  He gazed into her blue eyes and smiled.  

Our baby friends had a picnic at a park yesterday, and Kyton got his first kiss from a girl his age.   Here are a few other pictures from our time at the park.

The two red – headed boys


I love his sly look

We were so fortunate to have great weather, especially after our park play date the previous day was rained out!

Another sly look.

Savannah and her parents



It’s been so nice around here.  This time of year I enjoy the Florida weather, but still miss the cold and snow a little. 

Baby Yoga

Kyton is still doing Yoga.

I know that all babies can do this,

but you have to admit

 

… it is still amazing!

 

Hooray for sleep!

I love this image for a number of reasons….

because I think he is SO cute. 

Mostly I love this image because he is back to normal in the sleep department.  He is back to going to bed at 10 PM and waking up around 6AM. We are relieved.  Thanks for all of the advice.  We think his messed up sleep was a combination of vacation, and the introduction of solid foods.  There were a few nights that he didn’t want to eat, but it was obvious that his belly was hurting him.  On other nights he just woke up, and thought “hey, I’m bored.  I wonder what mom and dad are doing.  Food?  Yes, please!”  Dylan laid on the floor by his crib a few nights and gave him the pacifier when he woke up, and it was obvious that he was not in pain.  After 30 minutes, he was back asleep for the night, and Dylan was back in bed.  This only lasted two nights.  Thanks for all of the comment advice here and on facebook.  We are much happier people to be around now that awe are back to getting our sleep. 

Kyton sleeps from 10 pm to 6 am.  In addition to his nightly sleep he usually take a 1 hour morning nap, and a 1  to 1.5 hour afternoon nap.  About half of the time I can get him to take a 30 minute evening nap.  That is a total of 11 hours of sleep a day.  He is a fairly happy guy, and it just seems that he does not need a whole lot of sleep.  I read a journal article saying that one characteristic of gifted children is that as infants they need little sleep.  Pretty much every gifted teacher thinks that their kid is gifted since there are so many characteristics.  I am not about to label my 7 month old child gifted, but it is nice to think of that on the days that we wish he’d take a longer nap.
By the way, I was able to work out the feeding and pumping for Kyton to take my gifted class.  I made a few phone calls until I got the answer I wanted to hear.  The support on both the sleep and feeding issues were such an encouragement.  Thank you!

Linking with Shell

Playing with grandma

I’ll admit, I have a problem.  I take a ton of pictures, and I love them all.  I am always a little relieved that  my clients are the ones that ultimately have to decide what to order, because it’s so hard to choose.  Yesterday I posted one image from my mom reading to Kyton, but only because that was the rules.  Here are the rest of the images.  I especially love the light, and how the book acts as a reflector illuminating Kyton’s face.

I Heart Faces: By the Book

The minute my mom opened the book Kyton squealed with delight.  We’ve been reading to him from day one, but now that he can see the pictures it is so much more fun.  On this particular occasion he LOVED the book.  He was giggling, smiling, and kicking with glee as my mom turned each page.  The teacher in me hopes that m boy always enjoys reading this much!


I had such a hard time picking, there were so many pictures I loved!

Kyton’s a workin’ man

Kyton has a huge first today.  One that not many babies can claim at 7 months old. He put in his first day of work, well more like his first hour.  Kyton is well on his way to stardom as a model.  He was fantastic.  It was not an easy shoot, and the conditions were less than ideal for a 7 month old baby, but our boy rocked it.  He actually was only photographed for 15 minutes, and we were done.  I guess all that practice in front of the camera paid off!

After the shoot we took a few pictures since it was Kyton’s first time at the beach.   (These pictures are ours from after the shoot.)

Kyton is 7 months old!

I want to push the pause button on life, and keep my boy at this age forever. 

Dylan and I constantly look over at each other and say  “Did you see what he just did?” 

“Look at him, he’s so cute!” 

We are totally in love with our little boy. 

He is a ladies man, and loves to talk and smile at anyone who will smile back. 

He’ll stop playing to look over at us smile. 

He has this sweet happy expression that comes across his face when we kiss his cheeks. 

I can’t believe how blessed we are to have such a perfect sweet little boy. 

He has a big day tomorrow, but more on that later. 

What do you think of the new blog header?  I am going back and forth between keeping it simple, and thinking it is too plain.