Cereal

** I should preface this post with saying there are about a million different opinions on cereal floating around. It depends on what book/doctor/family member’s advice you want to listen to at any given time. I started Cade somewhere between 4-6 weeks taking cereal off of a spoon. Our doctor at the time was totally fine with it, but I don’t know that it would have mattered much. Since Cade or Camryn neither appear to have health concerns I tend to parent off of my gut and a good friends advice (Thanks Sandra!). Clearly if there were issues with them or their development I would follow those orders. I held off on cereal with Camryn because she didn’t need it to sleep like Cade did. Actually we were so desperate for Cade to sleep I would’ve fed him dirt if someone had promised me it would work. I’m going off of a mixture of my gut and what I did with Cade to get through these baby months with Camryn. And her doctor also told me to start cereal between 2-3 months and baby food between 3-4 months. It makes my life so much easier when the doctors go along the same guidelines I do! But every baby is different and every one has their own way of doing things, which is completely acceptable. I just don’t want anyone telling me I’m doing it wrong!!!



I’ve been working with Camryn on taking cereal off of a spoon for quite some time now. Actually, my first go round with her and the spoon was August 21. It did not go well at all. I tried again a week later, August 29, and got a little better reaction, but she still wasn’t ready. Then another week later, September 4, I decided it was time for her to start eating it at a regular time every night. Since I was going back to work and trying really hard to get all of us on a routine after a 12 week free-for-all it seemed the perfect time. It’s been a nightmare. She hates it. Absolutely hates it. At first I gave her the benefit of the doubt and thought she just wasn’t ready. After Tuesday night’s incident I’m sure she is ready – she is just extremely stubborn! I mean really stubborn. For a girl who seems so easy going, she looses her mind when a spoonful of cereal enters her mouth.

Last week it was ok, but it wasn’t great. I’m sure most of you have noticed her double chin thing. She has this way of pulling her head down so that her mouth and her chin seem to become one and she growls at me. Seriously, she would growl and spit it right back out. Then somehow she would clench her toothless gums together and not let me get the spoon in. Sometimes I could coax a smile out of her and force it in then, but then she’d just growl again and spit it out. Maddening!

Last Saturday I decided to try the Oatmeal with Banana cereal from Gerber. When we got that for Cade he seemed to really take to the cereal. I thought that would be the answer to our problem. I think it’s made it worse.

Monday night I was in our chair with the ottoman and had Camryn propped up on the boppy facing me. I thought that maybe I should try feeding her in that position. Her head was back so she would have a harder time pulling her mouth into her chin and growling at me. That resulted in a lot of gagging. And I don’t mean the Heimlich Maneuver kind of gagging. I’m talking about the get this nasty stuff out of my mouth, it’s not what I want to eat kind of gagging. I stopped for the night.

Tuesday night I tried the same position but this time I added a bottle to the mix. I thought I could shove in a bite and then give her the bottle and she’d suck the cereal down with the formula. Again that was a disaster. I got in a bite and she started crying and refused to suck on the bottle. She just cried open mouthed for the longest time. I sat her up and told her she was being ridiculous and she just needed to swallow.  But still she cried.  Cade asked me if I knew that talking to her wouldn’t do any good. She cried and got mad and her face turned red and the vein on her head stuck out….Finally I put her back on the boppy and saw the cereal still stuck to the roof of her mouth. I used the spoon to scrape it out and she silenced immediately and went back to sucking on the bottle.

I think this is a slight peek into her personality. Jay thinks it’s just a normal 3 month old. I’m not disagreeing with that, but I’m thinking we may have a stubborn one on our hands.

I’ve tried thicker, thinner, flavored, high chair, no high chair. Anything I can think of. I may have to consider myself defeated with the cereal and move onto baby food. It’s not like it can get much worse.

Did I mention that I had to use the spoon to scrape the cereal out of her mouth?