Dear Emily writes to ask:
Dear Auntie Leila,
If you're ever up for it, could you tackle how to transition from the little baby–nursing often at night bit–to the next stage (big baby)? And also introducing solids? I gather that you are a huge proponent of nursing, and I am too; I worry only that I go too far that way.
Love,
Emily
I think this is a good question to get me started on, funnily enough, cleaning your kitchen! Because it's how you think of mealtimes in your home that has a big impact on how you keep things orderly.
Ah, order.
It's such a balance, isn't it? And honestly, what makes it hard to be Auntie Leila (who has only one qualification, having gotten 7 persons beyond this stage) is knowing where you, dear reader, are on the order/disorder scale.
I happen to be equally ordered and disordered, I think. The result is that my house is sort of clean and neat, my day sort of has a schedule, and I am often up for chucking it all to do something unplanned.
But some people are very disorderly. And some disorderly people nurse the baby whenever (talking about an older, sitting-up baby), and get frustrated with how much more disordered having a baby makes them, and then they get impatient and stop nursing altogether.
Some people are, truth to tell, overly orderly. It drives them crazy that babies need to nurse whenever, and they are so motivated by their vision of a perfect house and life that they can't abide any uncertainty, so they stop nursing altogether.
I lied about the last of the outdoor pictures. I think I really didn't feel well! But this weekend was a great one to work outside and take some pictures. |
As you read this, you have to know where you fall on that scale, take what helps, and ignore what doesn't. I'm only giving you my experience and observation! Take it for what it's worth!
The books by the experts are helpful to a point, because they do provide a lot of information about a baby's needs, but not so much about the whole project of running a household along that fine line between rigid cold perfection (fortunately an unattainable goal) and chaos (all too attainable, alas).
{Can I say that I haven't read those books in years, so don't be upset with me. The one I like is this one, and I am linking here to an old edition because I don't trust the (unread by me) newer ones.
New baby books always assume that you are racing out the door to work, and I don't believe in that. Even this old one has a little of that going on, but the information is valuable and presented just how I like it — detailed and with pictures! And after all, this is a baby. There have been babies for a long time. The newer books aren't necessarily better than the older ones.}
I love that now I can see out my window. Remember this? |
Anyway, we're going to try to get a little different perspective here, because well do I know that if you are there with a little baby (not to mention a few toddlers strewn around and, just to thoroughly addle your brain, a pre-adolescent or two), you might not get the big picture!
The big picture is that you aren't just meeting this little one's calorie requirements, you are integrating him into family life and helping him grow up! You are starting the project of being surrounded by wonderfully interactive friends — your children — who enjoy eating with you and who love the family table.
I love how Emily worries that she might “go too far” in nursing the baby. It can hardly be done. Oh yes, there are some fat sedentary nursing babies, even though nursing advocates will tell you it's not possible. But when we speak of human beings in any context, we have to speak of that 80% who are doing basically fine.
So here I'm not talking about that small percent of babies who need to somehow be convinced there is more to life than nursing. Nor am I talking about that small percent who are allergic or underweight or have medical or psychological issues that require you to consult with a real expert and, above all, to use your God-given smarts to do what is required.
I'm just talking about your run-of-the-mill fabulous pudgy sweet baby who has started crawling, sitting up, looking around, and chattering. You have figured out that he will nurse at more or less predictable intervals of an average of two hours. You have noticed that because he goes three hours without nursing during his nap, the feedings are more like every hour and a half in the morning. It's a rhythm and you've got it down.
At three or four months the doctor has suggested solid foods. Hopefully you just ignored him! The reason he has said that is that he suspects you will try anyway, and he wants to get his two cents in. After all, very few women continue nursing after 3 months! But you don't need his permission to keep breastfeeding the baby!
There is a very simple test: is the baby contented, happy, thriving, developing, growing on a satisfactory curve for him? (In other words, you compare the baby's growth to his very own personal curve, not to the curve of that elusive creature, The Average Baby.)
Now, some babies start getting teeth at three months! And some don't sit up until they are quite old. Babies develop very differently, and that is something you have to internalize. Because when the day comes that your baby has some teeth, sits up very well, and shows signs of being very interested in what you are eating, that is when you can start giving him food!
Some call this weaning, but I don't. And that is because he is still going to nurse, hopefully for a long time! However, approaching this transition the way I'm going to tell you will help you when that day comes and it's time to stop nursing.
He needs to nurse when he's a big baby. It's just that he has other needs too.
For instance, a baby who is getting teeth develops a need to bite on things. And a baby who sits up gets very frustrated when everyone is at the table having a wonderful time and he can't do that too! At least, that's how it was with my children. That baby just wanted to be part of the action.
Also, for me, it was very tiring and disruptive to hold a large, squirmy, grabby baby at mealtime. No matter how committed I am to nursing the baby, I have to take others' needs into account too. I have to be able to eat. My husband has to be able to eat. The older children can't be annoyed by a baby crawling across the table. It isn't fair and it creates this atmosphere of craziness that doesn't help teach them to be calm at dinner, does it?
It's not fair to anyone to simply resign yourself to many months with that one baby or years if you count up all the months with all the babies (maybe a decade!) of unpleasant disorder at the table. It isn't just about the baby. It's about the whole tone of your day changing, more or less permanently, because of the “temporary” behavior of the baby.
I remember once long ago visiting a friend who had a one-year old who literally crawled on the table, messed in the butter, cried to get down, cried to get up, and generally made me crazy.
Finally I realized what was missing!
A high chair!
A high chair is a wonderful piece of furniture.
Now I'm going to tell you a secret that is going to panic you at first, but when you wrap your mind around it, you will discover how liberating it is.
Ready?
It's this:
You may have to do more than one thing in advance to make mealtime peaceful!
It's true!!
Are you surprised every day that the baby wants to nurse just as you sit down to eat? Or that when you are making supper the baby wants to nurse? Or that you can't seem to get supper ready because you are often nursing the baby?
Hmmm….
What about this? What if you got supper ready in the morning (or ready to be ready), rested during naptime (I really have to insist on that), and then made time to nurse the baby an hour before you were ready to serve supper? Or within the hour?
Then, when you are ready to eat, put the baby in the high chair. If he shows signs of wanting a bite of your food, give him some on his tray. If he shows signs of wanting a bowl and spoon of his own, give him some applesauce or mashed potatoes in a bowl with a spoon and go for it!
Some melamine bowls that are just the right size for a few baby foods. |
But the main thing is that baby is sitting up with the family, talking, and laughing along with everyone else. And staying put in his own spot, even if for a short time!
It's not so much the food as the sociability! Before you know it, the food takes care of itself. Little by little, he tells you he wants more. Without even thinking about it, you make the change over from nursing to eating at mealtimes, over a period of months.
At first the time in the chair is short. He gets tired and fussy. If you aren't really caring about the amount of food, but rather just enjoying the interaction, you will be fine with quickly cleaning him off with a warm washcloth you have handy, and getting him out. (I've categorized this post under discipline because I think discipline is a large topic that includes us learning when something is not a power struggle!)
Now, having had his big boy time at the table — during which, note, you have not stressed about what he's eaten because he'd nursed before and is just fine — he will be done with the boring old table and want to get back on the floor with his toys. Maybe he will sit nicely in your nap or nurse again, having been worn out by the effort of acting big. Maybe your three-year old would be willing to make a tower of blocks for him to knock down while you finish up. (Because three-year olds aren't good for more than 15 minutes at the table either.)
Once you notice that he does, indeed, eat a good amount during a high chair session, and that might not be until he's more than a year old, then you have to plan ahead for him to have food that's appropriate for him so he doesn't go hungry. I say this because the idea that he will eat whatever you are eating doesn't always work out, and you have to have a backup.
Don't believe me?
I have two words for you: Steak salad.
So have some baby-friendly food at hand. Make this part of your meal planning, to be sure you have something the baby can eat.
It doesn't have to be mush. It shouldn't be mush (unless you are having mush yourself). But it can't be steak salad.
I don't even have anything against you spoon-feeding some food into his mouth on occasion, once this meal is part of his caloric intake (as opposed to just a fun interlude between nursing times). I realize that makes me old-fashioned, but there it is.
Some young children just can't concentrate because they have gotten so hungry. You can give them something to hold onto while you get them going with a serving of yams mashed with butter or some chicken pot pie.
Deirdre enjoying being sociable. |
Or maybe this whole operation goes better at breakfast time than dinner. You could spoon feed some yogurt while he eats scrambled eggs with his fingers.
Or maybe at times it works to get him in the high chair while you are making dinner, so that he can chomp on things and chatter to you. Then you clean him up and he's content to play nearby while you eat with the rest of the family.
But don't stress about it or think that a certain amount has to be eaten or all is lost. Know your own child, and trust his body to know him too. Start with one meal at a time, don't give up on nursing before the “meal” until he's ready; but rather do the grown-up foods along with nursing, and put the emphasis on enjoying his presence at the table or with you in the kitchen rather than on him eating a certain quantity.
If you see this next step more as a sociability issue than an eating issue, you will have a smoother time with this transition to eating solid foods.
kort says
wisdom! wisdom, i say!
Rachel says
As the mother of a healthy breastfed 6 month old, I love this post! My boy loves being “sociable” and loves his food. I think it's excellent that I know he is getting all that he needs from my milk, so that I don't have to stress about what he does (or doesn't) eat at the table!
Camille says
As a new mommy, I followed the advice of said doctor and begin jarred baby food at 3 or 4 mos. ACK. The next time around, I took a look at that little guy and wondered why in the world I was trying to feed a baby who couldn't even sit up. It just didn't make sense to me at all. So I skipped it and waited until he was sitting up and fed him teeny tiny bits of whatever we were eating. The first one is the pickiest eater I've ever met. The second one, just shy of 2, will eat anything — sushi, eggplant parm, salad — whatever we are eating he wants. Could be personality, but I like to think it was the difference in the way they were introduced to food.
Bella says
Sound advice indeed, in my experience, especially the bit about getting the evening meal ready first thing. When my children were small I'm pleased to say I quickly figured out that the only other thing that HAD to happen in the day was that we ate again, and so I always did preparations for dinner immediately after breakfast.
Annie says
This is so similar to my own experience with my own nine–and I learned it from my Mom.
magdajhawthorne says
excellent, thank you. having dinner prepped and ready to go way beforehand is just priceless advice. I just figured this one out a couple of months ago myself. I just want to add that this works especially well if your husband works late or comes home at unpredictable times (which mine does) because you just eliminate the whole “when do I need to have dinner ready by for my husband” concern. And I also want to add: don't be afraid to feed really little kids an actual meal earlier than older kids and adults.
We've just got 2 now, 1.5 and almost 4 (one on the way, wish me luck), and I found that having adults' dinner prepped and well along by 3 and then feeding kids a baby and toddler friendly meal around 4 or 4:30 while I finishing up dinner things (and cleaning up! not having to clean up dinner prep dishes after dinner is awesome — just wash up some plates and silverware and you're done!) totally ended the dinner time chaos.
Whenever I make sure to do this I never am faced with that nightmare situation where hungry kids are running around the kitchen with me trying to prepare a meal at around 5 or 6 and wondering how I'm going to finish dinner and nurse the baby and feed the big boy. My overworked husband would walk into that environment and wonder what the heck was going on and start yelling at everyone to calm down — not nice. It was very liberating to realize I could just feed the kids their “real” dinner at 3 or 4 (with vegetables) instead of trying to “tide them over” with a “healthy snack.” The whole switch was a life and marriage saver, everything got so much calmer in the evening.
The kids still enjoy saying prayers and sitting at the table with us for a little while for adult dinner and by then they are also starting to get a little bit hungry again and usually eat whatever big people food is appropriate for them (an evening snack, I think of it), but, as Leila says, I'm not stressed at all about what they eat because I know they had already had “real” dinner (or had nursed).
I wish I had found your blog 4 years ago. Thanks!
Anne says
My husband and I started doing this too. When my first was just under a year we decided that spending dinner time with a tired fussy baby trying to climb out of his high chair was getting nobody anywhere. Now I feed the kids (2.5 and 9mo) at about 4:30 and my husband and I eat dinner after the kids are in bed around 7. Because we do believe that family meals are important we have family breakfast, when everyone is fresh and cheerful. So much more productive!
polly says
Such good advice! My own little guy cut teeth at 4 months but literally didn't want a morsel of food until he was 8 months. We still let him sit at the highchair and fool around, but food wasn't something that concerned him until about 8 months (incidentally, right when he started crawling!) and then he was–and remains, at 3.5–a vacuum cleaner. He breastfed exclusively for a long time and was plenty healthy–and then once he started crawling and eating solids he actually got slimmer, and has stayed slim, but I think he's got the tall/skinny build of my mother's family–so I just make sure he eats good foods and plays and is happy and I don't worry much about the 'charts.'
I also give him a snack, even now before dinner. Because he's not a snacker in general, he's hungry by suppertime! To ward off the crankies I give him healthy choices–apples w/ peanut butter, carrots with hummus, milk and a mini pumpkin muffin, etc. Then he still eats a great dinner and is fun to have at the table.
Anitra says
We did the rice-cereal-at-4-months thing, and it worked really well for us – our daughter was already sitting up well when supported and interested in food. She took right to the cereal! But if she hadn't, I would have tried once or twice and then waited for a few weeks before trying again.
She has loved food since we started offering it to her, and she didn't actually cut teeth until she was almost a year old. Once she could handle more than mush, I just tried to make sure that our meals always included something she could eat (sometimes in a pureed form, but often not). At 2, she certainly has preferences, but will generally eat whatever everyone else is eating.
priest's wife says
hear hear for the highchair- our baby is 14 months old and now we finally have a highchair- she had been eating in the exersaucer- not very sociable
Kathleen T. Jaeger says
Okay, I just want to say that I enjoyed your post. And I didn't know if I would keep reading because I am no longer nursing & so this doesn't apply to me. But the writing is engaging & I love the idea of the big picture. Some of these thoughts would have helped some of the stress of those early days of motherhood. But.the idea of all of us sitting down at the table to eat together was a strong purpose in me and carried me through without this great advice at that time. I worked hard to get us to sit down and eat together.
At lunchtime, I would get the children's plates completely ready before calling them for lunch so that we could all sit & eat together. This means that I would get to eat, too. Which was vital for a pleasant atmosphere in the home for everyone. From early on, we taught the babies to sit in the high chair even after they were finished eating at the table. This skill for them is helpful when we would dine out of the house whether at a restaurant or at someone else's house. And really transfers to sitting still at the doctor's office or in church. It is a good skill for children to learn.
The advice of knowing whether you are disorderly or orderly; the big picture of sitting at the table and that most of the time we're dealing with 80% of healthy babies, that the old books are as good as the new, and to listen to our God-given instincts and insights into our children: all of these resonate with me. Thanks for sharing.
Kathleen
Breanna says
Very good advice because, as the brilliant Ellyn Satter says, “meals are about more than eating”. I always figure that if the Gospels are so careful to tell us about not just one but several meals that Christ shared, that there's something deep about sharing food that we'd do well to preserve.
And yes to high chairs! If nothing else they keep the baby where you can see them while you cook, and they can mash peas to their hearts' content without overwhelming their fastidious sister who likes to line up her food (I have two opposite-personality kids).
Patty says
I know I've told you this before, but my doctor would LOVE you. 🙂 Thanks for such sane posts, as always. You make life sound so… well, not easy, but doable!
Bethany says
I'm so glad you answered this question. I'm like Emily–really committed to breastfeeding and hesitant to do anything other than nurse the baby. My almost-six-month-old daughter just started to have a teeny bit of solid food this week. And I was a little unsure of my decision because I didn't give her food for a strictly nutritional reason, just a social reason; she truly seemed to want to do the same thing as the rest of the family at dinner. Thanks for your words of wisdom as I think about this new stage of my daughter's life with our family.
Anne says
Highchairs! I have two. One for the two and half year old (because it's cumfier for him to sit there than at a table where things aren't the right size for him) and one for the 9month old too.
I just started my nine month old on solid foods and she LOVES it. She wants to eat 3-5 “meals” a day in her high chair but still nurses at all her usual times too!
My question is about cleanliness. I change her clothes every time she eats because by the time she is done (despite the bib) she is covered from head to toe (sometimes including her hair) in soggy cereal, etc. and there is just no wiping it up. She needs a whole new outfit. Often including her onsie. Yesterday I thought, “ok, fine. For the next few weeks she will just go through 3 sets of clothes a day (make sure she eats breakfast in her jammies!).” But today she ate in her highchair 5 times! Surely there is a better solution than washing 5 outfits a day!
Any advice?
_Leila says
Well, Annie, you know me, and you will know how much it will grieve me to say this in November, but clearly there is only one thing to do.
She must eat naked from now on!
Anitra says
What kind of bib are you using? Once I found Bumkins bibs, life got a lot cleaner for us. Basically, you want a large, flexible, waterproof bib, with a pocket to catch spills. It won't work perfectly, but it will keep life a little bit cleaner.
Also, realize that when you get to things that aren't watery mush, messes get a lot easier to clean. (ie. Cheerios, finger foods, even thicker “mush” like greek yogurt is a lot less likely to get everywhere, since it sticks to the spoon so well.)
kate says
You could change the size of the bib. There was a stage (mine are 10 and 7 now) when I used a large dish towel (30″ x 30″ approx.) or a smallish bath towel. Tied around neck and tucked in around torso and legs completely.
And like the other poster said it will be different soon when they are eating firmer foods.
Melissa @ Anxious for Nothing says
LOVE these bibs:
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/701797…
Hallie says
Thank you very much for writing this post! Exactly the moment I am in. The advice that swirls around about avoiding certain foods because of allergies has been making me reluctant to let my eight-month-old try bites of things we're eating. Maybe I should relax a little on that front since he hasn't had a bad reaction to anything yet. This was helpful!
Rosie says
Lovely post! There is a also the Sears' Baby Book (and all the Sear's books for that matter)–a great resource for info. on your baby.
_Leila says
Hi Rosie,
I have linked to the Sears website before for their help with nursing issues. I don't agree with everything they say on childcare in general, but they do have some good information there, if you use your common sense!
mel says
We are in this stage now with our fifth child (7 months old today!). This laid back method is the best…we regard feeding at this point as purely entertainment for him. Smooshing, tasting, smearing around, maybe a little makes it in his mouth here and there…good stuff!
emily b says
I was away from the computer for two weeks and look what happened–I missed Auntie Leila's thoughtful (and insightful!) response to my question! I love it all–the old books reference, emphasizing sociability over quantity of food, and I also appreciate that this falls into the “orderliness” category. There are some things that must be done to maintain order and allow peace to flourish! (This, alas, has taken me a while to grasp.) And while I didn't start out using a high chair (my first mainly ate while sitting in our laps), as we have had more children the highchair has become our dear friend. 🙂 Now our baby (13 months) loves it and her older brothers and sister do as well–the lucky one gets to help feed her yogurt at breakfast! Happy Thanksgiving, Leila. The pictures of your dinner are beautiful. I am thankful for your sharing of wisdom and insight (and I recommended your blog to a few harried moms with whom I spoke this holiday! We all need to tap into the collective memory, restored!). Take care.
_Leila says
Thanks, Emily. I love hearing back from the people who write to me, I really do!
Don't worry, we're all on a learning curve, and the important thing is to enjoy the delight of discovering new ways to be happy and content!