Lately I’ve gotten a ton of questions over on Instagram about how we introduced Jett to solids, what he eats in a day, his favorites from Trader Joe’s, etc. So today I’m sharing everything from how we mixed feeding him purees with Baby Led Weaning, what we started with at 6 months, to what he is eating now at 9 months. I’m also sharing my Trader Joe’s shopping list for him, so keep reading!
6 MONTHS:
Just before Jett turned 6 months we introduced him to baby cereal because he was showing signs that he was ready for food. Those signs were him constantly being hungry despite drinking SO. MUCH. MILK. at daycare and breastfeeding a lot on the weekends. He was also starting to show interest in our food when we were eating. The very first time he had cereal, he was so into it even though we made it with way too much breast milk. As the week went by, we started making it with less breast milk so it was more of a thick mixture and he seemed to like that way better. After a couple of days eating just cereal, we got Jett some purees to introduce him to different things. One puree that we would feed him consistently was pears or prunes. Typically we would mix the pureed pears in with his cereal to keep him from getting constipated. At daycare, they used apple juice mixed with the cereal to give it a little bit of flavor.
The same week that Jett started to eat cereal, I also got him some teething crackers so that he could learn how to chew. Baby Led Weaning sounded great and I love the idea that your child can eat what you eat, but in our case doing it right off of the bat just wasn’t realistic. He wasn’t very good at eating at first and tried to suck on everything since he was so used to breastfeeding or bottles at daycare. We also got him puffs and yogurt bites so that he had a variety of snacks and he could practice chewing with all of these foods. This was KEY to getting him to chew foods before swallowing without choking! Every baby is different but that is what worked for us.
Only two weeks after he started eating cereal at lunch time, he started eating cereal for breakfast as well. His appetite just kept getting bigger and bigger! Three weeks after starting to eat solid foods, he would have cereal for all three meals plus a fruit puree at lunch and a veggie or fruit puree at dinner.
After a few weeks of eating cereal or purees and working on chewing with puffs and teething crackers, we started to try solid foods little by little. I was so excited we could finally introduce Baby Led Weaning and let him try so many new things!
7 MONTHS:
After I was finally comfortable with Jett’s ability to chew, he started eating waffles or pancakes torn up into little pieces for breakfast or lunch. He was still eating cereal at this time and also eating 3 meals a day.
This time period of him eating food made it kind of awkward to go out to eat. He had just learned how to sit up so he wasn’t super sturdy in high chairs at restaurants and usually made a huge mess no matter how hard we tried. If we wanted to go out to eat, I would just bring a variety of foods to make sure that he had something to eat. I would also bring a bib and one of these spoons. For the cereal, I would measure it out and put it in a Tupperware and then just ask for warm water at the restaurant. That worked the few times that we did it!
8 MONTHS:
By the time Jett turned 8 months old he was eating a lot of new foods. We introduced him to yogurt, so many different vegetables, turkey meatballs, chicken nuggets, cheerios, sausage, you name it. There were a lot of foods that he liked from the get go but some that he took a while to warm up to. I think part of it was that he couldn’t grasp some slimy or slippery foods and would get frustrated because he was so hungry. One example was strawberries! He LOVES them now (9.5 months) but at first he wasn’t a huge fan. When I would crush up cheerios and roll the strawberry slices in them, he would eat them because he could pick them up. After a week or so of that he got the hang of picking them up and loves them.
During this time he started eating less and less pureed foods. I would feed him pureed pears every once in a while if I thought he was getting constipated. I also always keep jars of vegetables in our pantry in case he doesn’t like whatever solid vegetable we give to him for dinner. He typically just has fruit during the day so I always want to make sure he has vegetables at night.
Since Jett started eating less purees that meant I could go back to shopping at Trader Joe’s- hooray! I don’t like to do 2 grocery trips during the week because I already commute 2 hours a day so being able to just go to TJ’s is amazing. Every week I buy new things there that Jett can try and he’s liked almost everything!
9 MONTHS:
At nine months Jett rarely eats purees. We are also starting to teach him how to drink out of a straw so that I can make him smoothies at night or on the weekends for breakfast or lunch. We have a lot of go-to items that I buy weekly at Trader Joe’s for him but he also gets introduced to new foods on a daily basis. Below is a list of our Trader Joe’s must-haves that I buy weekly!
1. Chicken Drummellas (Trader Joe’s Chicken Nuggets)
2. Home-style Pancakes
3. Turkey Meatballs
4. Spinach & Kale Bites
5. Whole Fat Greek Yogurt (he only likes the Strawberry one)
6. Blueberries
7. Strawberries
8. Watermelon Spears
9. Eggs
INTRODUCING NEW FOODS:
Throughout the entire journey of him eating solid foods, I’ve tried to give him new foods every other day. He gets pretty much the same foods at daycare but since it’s recorded on an app I know if he’s had a new food at daycare and if he has, I won’t offer him anything new at night in case he has a reaction to whatever he had that day. The reason I only like to let him try one new food a day is because if he had a reaction to it, then it would be easy to pin point the problem food. I also gave him peanut butter early on in his food journey. I would give it to him every other day as a little treat and to make sure he wasn’t allergic to peanuts. We’ve never had any issues luckily.
JETT’S HIGH CHAIR
In the beginning and up to about 8 months, we fed Jett in his Bumbo seat. It has a handy tray but we should’ve gotten a high chair sooner. Honestly the reason I waited so long was because I couldn’t decide on a high chair that was affordable, so I finally just gave up and went to IKEA on a weekday when Jett had to stay home from daycare. We actually love the Ikea chair and I would highly recommend it! If I would’ve known it was available on Amazon, I probably would’ve just bought it from there even though it’s more expensive. It beats having to go to Ikea on the weekend- ha!
SHOP THIS POST:
I know I can’t be the only mom out there who is horrible at printing photos. Jett is almost three and all I have are a bunch of polaroids scattered about. Even though I’m bad at printing photos, I found a simple way to keep select works of art that I think it pretty genius. I also started to keep some of said polaroids in it as well as Christmas cards, Santa photos, etc. I’m telling you all about it in today’s post!