Jacob's First Food

On March 3rd, we started Jacob on solid foods. He is 5 1/2 months. This may be the first baby with which I've approached solid foods NOT for the purpose of him sleeping through the night. I actually had no expectations for him and was not in a hurry for him to get started at all. (After all, he does NOT have problems gaining weight!) And the funny thing is, since he started, he HAS slept through the night. 12 hours in a row for the past 4 nights. (I don't know that it is directly correlated to the food, though, because he has also discovered that he likes sleeping on his tummy and that could be making him sleep longer, too.)

He first tried sweet potatoes. With all the others, we started with rice cereal. But that is so boring and bland I wanted him to try something more interesting. And he liked it. He actually opened his mouth for the spoon. He had been watching us eat intently for the past few weeks and he knew exactly what to do. He didn't even spit it out.

Since then he has tried several other foods. He wasn't fond of peas, but got used to them and I think he'll eat them mixed with other things. He also wasn't too happy with the applesauce the first-go-round but liked it mixed with oatmeal. He really liked carrots and squash the best. Knowing this boy, our grocery budget just went out the door! 

All this came after our trip to the University of Vermont Medical Center the previous Friday for a bronchoscopy to check that his breathing problem really is only tracheomalecia. We got up at 5 am, left the 3 older kids with a babysitter and drove the hour drive. We went through all the paperwork, got an i.v. in him and everything, and then the anesthesiologist told us she didn't feel comfortable doing the procedure since he had been sick with a fever and cold the week before. Because they would have to go down his throat for the procedure, there was too much of a risk. 

So we still have no more definitive answers, and will have to go back in another month or so to get the procedure done. His breathing and reflux haven't gotten any worse but they also haven't gotten better. We really want to find out now if there's more to it, so we can make any necessary "repairs" before he gets too old. This happy guy didn't even cry the entire time the nurses were poking him until right as we were leaving when he finally realized just how hungry he was. He is so easygoing and such a fun-loving little boy!