Starting Baby on Solid Foods

Long before my baby was born I knew I wanted to breastfeed for as long as possible before introducing solids. I have food allergies, and hubby has a milk intolerance so I figured I would do my best to give our little one a shot at not having food allergies or not having as many as I have.

From what I was able to read before hand, and what Little C's doctor said after he was born I knew we would not be introducing solids before 6 months old. I was able to stick to this goal and solids were not introduced until a week shy of 7 months, due to hubby's urging (he has come a long way, but didn't fully understand that babies don't really need anything except breastmilk for the first year of their lives).

As it turned out, our son really wasn't interested in solids. We started with a jar of banana baby food (I know, not crunchy!). Little C took a few bites, like three, and was done. I mixed it up and offered him some peas (also jar food cuz I didn't know any better then), those didn't go over at ALL! I tried feeding him bites of the jar bananas at least once a day for about four days and finally told hubby that Little C just wasn't interested in foods yet.

Around 8 months hubby urged me to try foods again... so out came a jar of bananas. This round went a little better with Little C eating about half a jar after being nursed before hand (I always nursed first because I knew breastmilk was more important than solids at this age). So, for most days Little C ate about half a jar of baby food.

Between 8 and 9 months we also introduced the jar blend blueberries and apples. That quickly became Little C's favorite food. We tried peas again and they were a no go, just like before. Carrots were one of the next foods we tried. I waited a full week before introducing any new foods as I have an allergy to carrots and wanted to make sure Little C's eczema didn't flare up with the introduction of this new food. Sweet Potatoes were introduced during this time as well. The very next day my poor Little C had a rash on his butt where the sweet potato poop had been when I got him up in the morning, and he had splotches of eczema all over his chest, back and arms. That food, though it was well liked by Little C, was not given again for almost a month. (He was also teething at the time so I wanted to try them after the eczema had cleared to make sure that it was the food and not something else that had caused the outbreak.

Around 10 months I introduced sweet potatoes again. This time they seemed not to bother him. About a week later, after eating them several times through the week, I realized his eczema was coming back again. We stopped sweet potatoes completely and will try again when he is older.

One jar blend that we tried was banana, apple, strawberry. Since we had already introduced apples and bananas without an issue I figured a triple blend would be okay since I would easily know if the strawberries were a trigger food. And they were. Horrible red rash on his bum and eczema flared up right away. Strawberries are another food we have avoided all together.

At some point between 9 and 10 months I learned about making your own baby puree's. I had heard about Baby Led Weaning from moms in a crunchy Facebook group I follow, but after further reading, and discussing it with hubby we decided that was not for us at this time (hubby was especially worried about Little C choking on foods).

I started buying, and mashing bananas myself to feed Little C. He loved it! (I had given him a few bites of mashed banana when he was around 8 months, but hadn't thought to feed him those instead of the jar foods). He eats almost a whole banana for breakfast most days of the week now. As he has started getting his top teeth in and learning to chew (he has had his bottom teeth since around 6 months) I haven't been mashing the banana quite so much so he can learn to mash the 'chunks' himself. He is doing beautifully with it!

Remember my Apples post? I made all that apple sauce to feed to Little C for some breakfasts so he didn't always eat bananas. As it turns out he isn't a fan of the chunkier texture of the homemade applesauce. I think I may need to run some through a food processor to make it more smooth. I think he just might eat it like that.

I have 'made' several other mashed, homemade foods for Little C and he has enjoyed most of them. At Thanksgiving I blended some potatoes with breastmilk and some grassfed butter... he was not a fan of their texture either (he was about 11 months then).

Our most recent food introduction was Plum Organics, Plum Baby & Tots Super Greens (Spinach & Apple) Organic Super Puffs. Little C loves them so much I have to keep them hidden in a cabinet or he won't eat his other foods! I like this particular flavor because of the spinach in it since that adds iron to his diet which I've read is important for this age.

With the new top teeth almost in I am looking forward to introducing other real foods to Little C. I imagine it won't be long before he is enjoying all the wonderful things I like to cook and bake! :)

Breastmilk Storage for Donating

I have been breastfeeding my son since he was born in January. I am fortunate to be blessed with oversupply. I didn't realize what a blessing it was until I joined a Facebook support group for breastfeeding mamas and saw how many were struggling with feeding their babies.

In July 2014 I heard about donating breastmilk. I really didn't know anything about it, but I started looking into it and decided that was something I needed to do. I have since donated over 1,000+ ounces to three different babies.

Pumping is a full time job. I do not pump through the night so I can focus on nursing my little one and getting plenty of sleep... which doesn't always happen anyway, but that's the goal! Sleep is important to milk production.

So... I wanted to share how I store breastmilk for donating. Its been a learning process since day one, but I finally have a system that works pretty well.

Here goes...

Milk storage starts in the fridge. After pumping I pour fresh milk into a large NUK 10oz bottle. If I already have a bottle going, I will pour fresh milk into a separate bottle and mix them once they are the same temperature.

Some days I store my pumps in a ziploc bag between pumping sessions because I know I won't have time to wash them right away before they need to be used again. (I typically pump every 3 hours.) If I store pumps in the fridge they are ALWAYS washed at the end of the day. Usually I wash them throughout the day as much as possible, but this is a quick time saver trick you might find handy. If you do this, make sure to get a new bag for storing the pumps the next day.

Here is a picture of how I label the bags. Date, number of ounces, and the time. If you aren't sure of the time you can do just 'AM' or 'PM'.

I use Lansinoh milk storage bags. I have filled them to the max (13oz. a bag), but that can cause leaking and really isn't practical. I have a full time donor baby so I usually put two bottles worth in one bag. Typically that would be 8oz. in a bag (since baby boy drinks 4oz. in a bottle at a time). I also make up 5oz. bags in the evening with 'night milk'.

why yes, that is some homemade baby food in there!

Once I have the amount of milk I need for a milk storage bag I pour the milk from the bottle in the fridge to the storage bag. I have found that they stack better once they are frozen when the bags are laid flat in the door of the freezer.

Once the milk is frozen, I move it into a freezer ziploc bag. I label the bag ahead of time with the month, year and what it is (breastmilk!). Once I have filled the bag I write the number of ounces total so it's easier to grab exactly what I need when taking a donation to a mama (usually I do 50oz in a ziplock, but they can hold more than that!)

When I am ready to start a new freezer bag I open them up like this. Since 8oz. isn't exactly completely flat I rotate the side the top of the bag is on so that the stack stays pretty even and isn't prone to flop over.

Here's the beginning of a freezer bag.

When storing milk I usually put the oldest milk on the bottom and work my way up as I have more milk available to freeze.

This is what 50oz. of breastmilk looks like. To get exactly 50oz. I usually do 5 8oz. bags of milk, and 2 5oz. bags. This is the easiest way for me to do that since the baby I currently donate to usually drinks 4oz. at a time. Of course you could do all 5oz. bags too. Just play around with it and see what works for you!

 

You saw what the bag label looked like at the beginning of the process... well here it is at the end. Once I've filled a bag I double check the number of ounces that is in it and then I write the number of ounces on the bag and circle it. This makes it easy to count up how much milk I have in the freezer.

This is what a full freezer bag looks like. You can see how the bags are opposite on every level to help them stack better.

Those blueberries were picked from a farm up the road earlier this summer!

And finally, what my deep freezer looks like! The oldest milk is in the front and the newer milk is in the back. As I take milk out to donate, I move everything forward so it stays fairly organized.


That's all I have for ya! Hopefully some of these tips help you out in storing breastmilk, whether its for yourself or to donate!