Discouraged with Solids

Hi,

My kids are teens now, but we started with rice cereal made with water. They were big nursers so they got plenty of nutrients that way. When you try the banana again, try using a really ripe one. If we used ones that were too green my boys didn't like them. May have given them an upset stomach or something.

Hang in there, you will still probably get to make your own baby food! Especially if you don't give him much of the store-bought stuff, cause he won't know that there's anything else except home-made!

K. Z.

i think its really weird that you said that because i was thinking that bananas that are mashed by me are to potent or something for my son because he did the exact same thing gags until he would spit up etc etc..but when i tried the jarred bananas he loves them i dont understand that..;but anyways try apples (applesauce) babies tend to take to that easier than bananas..try the bananas again in a week

Here are the things we started with:
avacado
sweet potatoes (used a preasure cooker then food processor)
frozen spinach (thawed and put through the blender)
peas (steamed and put through blender)
mango mixed with prunes to help keep him regular (blender)
peaches (blender)
pears (blender)

I'm sure there was more, but that's a good place to start. Good Luck!

Generally doctors suggest starting with veggies since the taste is bitter. Up until this point babies haven't had anything sweet. Sometimes if the infant becomes hooked on that sweet taste, they will be more hesitant to eat veggies. Just a thought.

Perhaps try steamed carrots or sweet potatoes mashed into cereal. Perhaps just put about a tablespoon or two in the cereal so the new taste isn't overwhelming. Infants also like other soft foods like yogurt, apple sauce, cottage cheese (once able to down semi-solids).

My little guy didn't like bananas, either. He absolutely loves green beans and peas. He slowly got used to pears, but still doesn't like the fruits, like applesauce. Their tastes will change with time, so don't worry.

At this age I would not mix things together.
Just give him a taste of mashed banana.
Does he have any teeth?
Scrape some apple and give him a taste.
Or applesauce.
Mashed potato or squash.
Use a hand baby food grinder to pulverize canned green beans or other cooked veggies.
Hope this helps you.

FEED ME I'M YOURS by Lansky will give you TONS of ideas

Bananas gave my little boy gas, I started him on peaches. He also liked pears, and apple sauce. Hope that helps.
L.

Hi, I followed the recommendation of the doctor and started with veggies. Which was a very smart choice on our part. She did really well. I don't know if you know but you should give a different food every 3 or 4 days. So that if they have an allergic reaction to a food you know what food caused it. I also wanted to tell you that when you are making your own baby food I found that if you add a little water and put the mixture in ice cube trays and freeze them it makes it a little more convenient. Then you only pull what you need out instead of making the food everytime he needs to eat. Good luck!!

I made my own baby food as well for my daughter (now 3yrs.old) and I had luck with pureed peaches, pears and apples. As for veggies sweet potatoes worked b/c I combined them with the pears and it made a great combination. Also you might look into getting a potatoes ricer (find them in cooking stores/hardware stores) because they really help with the texture of the food!
My son is 5 monthes and I'll be starting him soon!
Good Luck!
(27 yr. old SAHM as well with 2 kiddies!)

Bananas area a strong flavor so you may need to try something a little more bland - squash, carrots, peas. Also, how thin are you mashing them - you may need to thin it out with some formula/breast milk to make it a very thin mixture - buy some Stage 1 baby food jars to get an idea of how thin - it should pretty much run off the spoon.

I started my son on veggies first. He loved squash. He couldn't eat bananas at all because they gave him a horrible stomach ache! He is 7 and still can not eat them. I was excited to start him on solids too! Good Luck!

You might try mixing baby applesauce with his cereal. Most kids seem to like this.

We did sweet potato, banana, and avocado before we did any cereal. But I will say with homemade baby food, you'll need to be very careful about the texture. I thought my baby didn't like sweet potatoes, but it turns out I had made it too thick and that's why she was gagging and pulling faces. When I thinned it out more with breast-milk, she liked it much better.

Hope that helps!

Sweet Potatoes were a hit w/ my son. He just loves them and everything else pales in comparison. I made them myself. It's easy: just pop the potato into the microwave for a few minutes (don't forget to puncture the potato so it doesn't explode on you) until soft and mash w/ a little water to get the consistency you want. I used a food processor to get it nice and smooth but a fork works too. Don't need to add anything (no salt of sugar) just spoon and serve.

Hi D.,

I agree with the avacado suggestion. My son LOVES them. It took a little while, but now that his one of the main things he likes. Some days my son really likes solids, some days, not so much. But much to my banana-loving husband's chagrin, my son didn't care for those either. Using the four day wait rule, I've tried bananas, rice cereal (but this stopped him up for 4 days), oatmeal cereal, avacado, carrots, zuchini, and prunes.

My sister gave me the book Super Baby Foods. We are trying to follow her recommendations. The author is a bit eccentric, but she has some good information in the book.

D.,
The only baby food my daughter didn't like was bananas! We tried first with the vegetables - peas, green beans, squash - and she loved them. For fruits, she loved apples and pears. As a side note, now she loves actual bananas!
Good luck!

Whatever you do, don't give up on the bananas. It may take up to 6 or 7 times or more to get a baby to accept a new food. They can become picky if you don't keep at it. The gag reflex is also normal when beginning a new food. It doesn't mean he doesn't like it.

Hi, D. --

The advice we followed when we first started our daughter on solids was to begin with the most bland foods and work toward the sweeter or more tart. That way, your child isn't predisposed to always expect things to be sweet.

For us, that meant that we started with peas and green beans and worked toward carrots and then various fruits. Whether because of this or not, our daughter is a veggie fanatic! She's 3.5, and she prefers to drink water and eat frozen string beans (even I think that's crazy ;)!) over having salty or sugary snacks. She does drink some orange juice, but we've never routinely given her the boxed juices and other super-sweet stuff that many kids today are hooked on (plus, of course, that stuff is often sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, which is in almost EVERYTHING these days).

Now, that's not to say that we don't have sugary treats like ice cream or chocolate or other things, from time to time... just that the extra sugars and salts are not a part of her general intake and are reserved for real treats.

Anyway, there are many foods you can try as you go along that will make excellent puree. But I would start with the veggies - soft peas are wonderful! Remember, these new tastes can seem very extreme to an inexperienced palette. I LOVE bananas and applesauce, but I can see how such sweet tastes might be overpowering for a little kiddo.

I wish you the best! I always love to hear about people who really think about the best nutrition for their kids and are willing to put in the extra effort. We're health-conscious eaters, but I wasn't ambitious enough to make my daughter's babyfood. I give you a big high-five for that!

Take care,
H.

How about unsweetened applesauce, mixed with cereal? It's been eight years, but this worked with my twins - and the apple taste isn't as powerful as the banana one.

As others have said, I followed the advice of many to introduce veggies rather than fruits initially. When finger foods became possible, frozen peas were a favorite, and one of my 9-year-olds still asks for some of them from the freezer!

We were told by our pediatrician and several other mom's to start with vegetables, not fruits. I guess if you start them on fruits first, they have a harder time liking the vegetables. Bananas were not a favorite in our house until we bought the jarred kind. The texture was WAY to think for my little girl. She had such a hard time swallowing them! I would try some sweet peas first. That's what we were told to do. You could even try sweet potatoes, carrots or another of the sweeter vegetables. It may take Adam some time to really like solids other than cereal. If you haven't already, you can make his cereal thicker to get him used to the texture. Just give him some time, he'll get it eventually.

LOL... I totally understand and you may be right to give it some time:) However if you want to start transitioning into more adult solid foods make sure you are changing the consistancy as well... making it thicker as you proceed. It will help when introducing different textures. Doesnt like bananas huh? thats new for me! my kids loved them. HOwever they also like no sugar added applesauce too. Start with mixing it with his cereal to get used to the taste and if that is good.. give him a spoonful of just the applesauce. If he is already on jar baby food, you can puree things like chicken, squash, carrots, pears, peaches, make maked potatoes ... thin them out to start if you doesnt like the thickness. sometimes that is the base issue. At least you will be introducing the taste and ajusting the textures to fit his needs. Take your time with intrucing them though and watch for reactions to food allergies. Hope this helps.
Good luck and if you need anything, please email me as well.
Take care
D. H.

I've always read that starting them out on the green, not-so-sweet veggies is best. Then, introduce the rest of the veggies and then fruits -- so they don't get a taste for the sweet stuff until they've tried the others. It worked with both of my kids...and they are still pretty good fruits & veggies eaters! :)

try sweet potatoes, or squash. my son hated the bananas too. we tried making our own baby food and he hated it all. then we tried organic bottled food and he loved it. weird i know. but now that he's older he loves his bananas!!!

I just started my daughter on real food, too. After a few unsure bites, she really liked sweet potatoes. I baked them, but for some reason they didn't get done so I boiled them and used a little of the cooking water to help it all puree in the blender. I made 3 potatoes and froze single serving portions in a muffin tin (then transferred them to a ziploc). I put one in a bowl in the fridge the night before to thaw it, then put the bowl in a hot water bath in a bigger bowl to get it to room temperature. She gags if her rice cereal is cold, so I try to get her food a tiny bit warm.
Good luck!!! Hang in there, I've heard of several little ones who preferred veggies to fruits, so keep trying.

I can definitely attest to that. I have been makng my daughter's food for the past 2 1/2 mos & absolutely love it now. In the beginning the same thing happened. We started w/ cereal, then bananas mashed, however she did not like the bananas. What I eventually did was pureed the bananas, consistency of the cereal, then she ate it w/o gagging. I think in the beginning it is a texture thing/ food consistencies being too thick. Try puree the bananas & as he gets a little older then increase the consistency. Trust me it makse a world of difference. Now my baby eats everything from puree, mashed, & chopped. Don't give up & good luck.

Hey D.!

Mine loved butternut squash, pears, and peas. Maybe a mild flavor would be an easier transition.

M.

We decided to stick with only organic stuff (at least for a while) and we started with avocados, at around 6 months. My daughter loves avocado, just mashed up and with a little breast milk or water. When we tried bananas, she ate some but then after the initial feedings, she didn't like them. (Someone theorized that it was because bananas are binding, which might be true...) Since then we have also tried butternut squash and carrots, both of which she likes, as well as mangoes. Keep trying, I'm sure there will be something. Avocado is especially good nutritionally--give that a try. You might want to check out the Super Baby Food Book (http://www.superbabyfood.com/buy.html) because it has lots of good tips about making batches of food and freezing them-- tons of helpful info. We're doing it differently than the book, and planning to start with fruits and veg., then go to grains, then protein, but however you do it, just keep trying new things. (I was surprised that our daughter didn't like bananas, but I assume some day she will.)

My little ones loved avacado!

Applesauce worked great for us and then a week later I introduced pears. I then switched up and tried carrots and then green beans. This way my son wasn't hooked on the sweetness of fruit or having too much of one color of food.

Sweet potatoes. You can even put a tiny little brown sugar in em and they mash so easily. I would mash one up and fill an ice cube tray, freeze it and then pop them out and store them in a freezer baggie. My son LOVED them.

Applesauce is usually a good place to start. It's just trial and error. Just try to re-introduce the bananas at a later date....D.

I have a 6 month old girl and i started bannanas first at 5 months and she hated them,which i thought was unusual until i stated talking to other mom's. She loves pears, peaches, green beans,sweetpotatoes. Applesauce was another she was not crazy about. I did the same i got so excited for her to start eating foods. Let me know what others say.

Hi D..
My son is also 6 months & we started him on solids at 4 months. He too loved his cereal. I think the first food besides cereal he tried was applesauce & he seemed to really like that. He seems to like most everything, except pears (I think maybe the grainy texture turned him off). But I didn't introduce banana right away. If I were you, I would just try something else for awhile(squash, sweet potato, applesauce or pears are all great starter foods) then come back to banana later & try again. I make most of my own baby food too & it is fun (except when they don't like it), but most of the time they do.
Here is a website that our pediatrician gave me & I have found helpful: http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/
I hope you are not too discouraged. Don't give up. I find that Mamasource is always a great source of help & encouragement. :)

My son's first food was squash. I actually tried the vegetables first and then added fruits. Just hold off the carrots for a little while because of the nitrates (I believe that's why). Bananas are a mystery. One week my son loves them, the next he hates them. One week he wants to bite right from the banana, other times he wants them mashed. I am not a big fan of microwaving, but you could microwave the banana for about 45 seconds and then mash it. Sometimes my son will eat it that way, but not raw. Have you read "Super Baby Food" by Ruth Yaron? If not you should, it is great and you can flip through and read areas of interest rather than the entire book. She's a mom, so she know how busy we get.

I started my son with sweet potatoes. He has yet to turn away anything.

It can take a while for a baby to become accustomed to the taste of solids. Is the food you are giving him free of little chunks? It's possible he doesn't like the texture if it isn't.

Good luck!

They could just be too chunky for him. My daughter has been on solids since 4 months and she still gags sometimes if I don't get the consistency right.

D.,
Definitely don't be discouraged. My daughter hated bananas when we first gave them to her. Now she loves them. Sometimes it just takes a few tries (or even up to 18 tries!). We got some great video of her eating them though; the faces she made were priceless! I used the book called Mommy Made...and Daddy Too! After cereal, they suggest starting with acorn squash. Instead of only sticking with introducing veggies or fruits, they recommend introducing foods on a grain, veggie, fruit cycle (and then a veggie, fruit alternation since there are more of those to introduce). The recipe section of the book tells you how to make the pureed food as well as the best month to introduce it. It has worked well for our daughter, but every baby is different. It takes a lot of experimentation, so keep pressing on! I've made all of our daughter's food and there have only been a few things that she didn't take to right away. The only thing she still spits up regularly is butternut squash, so we just avoid that. Just keep trying! You'll find something he likes. Also, with the bananas, make sure they are VERY ripe. He may like them better that way.
A.