Thursday, January 5, 2012

A post about feeding: food stuffs

In the beginning, there was the boob.

(Please note -- that is neither me nor Sam)

And breastfeeding was good. It was hard, but worth it in the end, and I was able to pull it off for 7 months, exclusively, until I had to go back to work and begin pumping, which diminished my supply drastically, which mean meant we needed to start supplementing.


And once that 7-month mark hit, this was all Sam was drinking out of her bottle. But soon we discovered that paying for the name brand was draining our bank account, so we quickly switched.


Who woulda thought that Target 's brand was just as good as Enfamil's, and for half the price we were getting double the formula! But soon enough even this cost would be cut, so once Sam was a year old, we were given the green light to convert to the ever-glorious cow's milk!


Now Sam gets milk in the morning, afternoon, and evening, but that's not all! We make sure to have her cup always filled with something, be it water or 50%water/50% juice!


I love Fruitables, too, because they're both fruits and veggies juices, so I know if I'm going to be giving her any juice she's getting a little bit of everything.

But wait, MB -- Milk and juice aren't enough to sustain a growing toddler!

This is true. When we were breastfeeding, it was easy, because that's all she needed. I'm not going to lie - when I was told we could start giving her solids, I was a nervous wreck. I wracked my brain and did as much research as I could because I was convinced I was going to forget to feed her enough or something horrific along those lines. And for this? Gerber was my savior.


We were told we could start feeding her cereal at 4 months, so we started with rice cereal, and it was initially a battle. And then she got sick. And then they told us we weren't feeding her enough, and we should try fruits so that she would eat something. So we did.


I'm not gonna lie -- 1st foods made everything easy.


Even 2nd foods made things a little more fun.


Third foods were OK, but they just started to seem silly. Why dish out extra money for "baby" food when it's really close to what we as adults would be eating anyway? Needless to say we didn't stay on this stage long. The unfortunate thing is now I have to really THINK about mealtime, and it's hard because I hardly think that far ahead for myself! The most I get out of Gerber now is snacks.


Shhh... don't tell Samma they're veggie wheels!


Honestly, I think the Gerber Grabbers were the best invention ever. They're fruit. They're vegetables. They're a smoothie. And they're portable. Portable and DO NOT have to be refrigerated until they're opened, but rarely do I open one and not have Samma finish it. At first it was hard for her to get the hang of sucking through the top so I would feed her with a spoon, but as soon as she started getting the hang of straws she's able to drink right from the pouch. I still hold onto it for her though... she has yet to grasp the concept of not squeezing to the point of having it explode... or maybe she has and she just prefers to make a mess?

So, MB -- you talked about drink. You talked about food. What do you use for vehicles for all of the above?

All in good time, my friends... for now, I feel as if I have inundated you with enough of my nostalgic ramblings.

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