Munchkin Meals: Challenges

I’m linking up today (and the first Thursday of every month!) with Brittany at A Healthy Slice of Life for her Munchkin Meals! It’s so nice as a mom looking for adventurous, nutritious new foods to introduce to my little guy to have this as a resource every month. I’m always so impressed by the healthy meals that other mamas are creating for their babies! Take a look, and you’ll see what I mean!

The last time I posted Munchkin Meals, we were just starting our little guy (almost six months old now!) on some foods. He has taken to it so well, and we’ve tried several of the basic foods, and are starting to become a little more adventurous.

We typically start out the day with either rice cereal or a fruit. We have a gorgeous, HUGE pear tree in our backyard, that has produced more fruit this year than we can consume, and our little guy just loves it! Both our pears and our apples this year were just the juiciest pieces of fruit ever! And I love the homegrown appeal too.

Big old pear tree!

Pureed pears for breakfast.

Look at all that juice! (Yes, I was so set on making sure I got pictures for the post that I forgot his bib. Whoops!)

We aren’t doing a lunchtime feeding yet, but we have started doing two meals a day, so he has dinner. He has mostly been getting either a fruit (if he didn’t get one for breakfast) or a vegetable for dinner. I made a pear-pumpkin combo that he really liked! But yesterday we tried something new: quinoa! He did so good with it, even though I didn’t puree it. I am impressed with this little guy’s eating skills.

This is the small portion that I gave him. He ate it all!

It does take him longer to chew it and swallow, so it’s a lot slower-paced meal than the purees, but he does so good! Chew, baby, chew!

I think he does so well with the chewing, because he has been taking his enzymes on a spoonful of applesauce since he was three weeks old. He has to take these before every feeding, breastmilk or foods, so I always nurse him after each feeding (and for a total of seven times each day) to make the most of these enzymes! Thank God for health insurance, because these little suckers are expensive!

 

“Just a spoonful of applesauce helps the enzymes.. go down..” (Mary Poppins reference. Hehe!)

We have also introduced a sippy cup with water, and he can drink from it like a pro too!

Trying to do it himself…

He drinks great, as long as he gets some help tipping it up!

So far, feeding our little guy has actually made things a bit easier than made any new challenges. Now that he is eating foods, we put his daily amount of salt mixed in with whatever he is eating instead of having to make a two ounce breastmilk or formula bottle to put the salt in. Not having to pump and make a bottle has made things much easier in that aspect of his needs. However, I think the biggest challenge we will face with our little one’s diet is getting all of the high-calorie, high-fat, and high-protein in each and every day. It’s so important for his growth. I grew up in a home where my father was a diabetic, and therefore, we always had low-cal, low-fat, low-sugar diets, so this CF diet is a completely different way of thinking about food for me. It’s going to be tough at times to prepare foods, especially as he grows and starts to eat what we eat as a family, that have the full fat for him, but yet a normal diet for the rest of the family. But with everything else, it’s a learning process, and we have a great dietician at his CF clinic that I know will help us along the way! And thanks to Munchkin Meals, I find tips from other moms for foods that are naturally high in these things that our little one needs to give him the healthiest start possible!

Thanks for reading! Any suggestions would be so appreciated!

 

 

 

 

 

About these ads

---