Yesterday Scott had ‘solid’ food for the first time. Until now he only drank milk (breastfeeding and baby formula), but after almost 6 months it was time to introduce him to something different. We bought special rice cereal for him, a kind of rice congee, a mix between liquid and real solid food.
At first Scott was looking a bit bewildered at the spoon, but he soon figured out that he could suck on it and get the food in his mouth. He seemed to like it, but felt that we did not give him the food fast enough. He became irritated because he was hungry (he always gets hungry when he sees food, and demands food right away) and because he could not keep on eating as fast as he would while getting his bottle.
During the night we gave him a bottle as usual, and this morning we wanted to give him rice cereal again. But after a few bites Scott got very unhappy with the speed of eating and started to cry loudly. He refused to take another bite. The only way to stop his crying was to give him his familiar bottle, which we finally did. Within seconds he went from inconsolable crying to a broad smile, as if he was trying to tell us: “See, I always win!”.
It seems it will take a few days before he will get used to being fed with a spoon. Maybe we should give him some more tasty food (mashed vegetables or industrial baby food from small glass jars, for example), but then the chance is that he does not want to drink his bottle anymore. We’ll see, raising a baby is not as easy as I thought – but it’s a lot of fun and I enjoy (almost) every minute of it!