I woke up just shy of 7:30 am excited for Malina’s first meal. I was ready for this. I had Eric for backup if I needed any help or assistance with taking care of her or cooking and so I felt calm as I left the room, passing Malina as she slept in her crib, and went to the kitchen to preheat the oven.
Something I’d do different to save myself time in the future will probably be doing as much food prep as possible the night before. That and setting a delay start on the oven.
Malina was awake when I came back in the room and so we started our morning ritual. I said good morning, asked her how she slept, and then picked her up to give her a hug and kiss and told her we were going to go and change her before she could eat. I breast feed, so that can lead to longer or shorter feedings depending on baby. This morning it was a 10 minute feeding, so when she was done at 7:45 I knew I had until 8:30 to have her food ready and still be inside the feeding window.
Everything seems to say offer food after milk, within 30-60 minutes, so baby is not too hungry or tired. The other thing is you want it a decent bit away from the next feeding as well so it doesn’t interrupt it. Malina can usually go two hours first thing in the morning, so 8:30 was a perfect time to have her sit and eat her first breakfast.
The menu I planned and ended up giving her included egg omelet strips cooked in plain butter, baked carrots three ways (olive oil only, rosemary with oil, and pepper with oil), and mandarin orange slices.
I cut the carrots really quickly and tossed them in the oven first, then made the egg omelet. I ended up making one large egg omelet and dividing it between the three of us. Something I learned by the way is that butter is lactose free and thus not an allergy food. So I was happy to be able to add that flavor to our eggs still. Cooking was quick and while I dealt with the eggs, Malina danced and sang with her papa as he peeled the mandarins for us.
Food was ready just before 8:20 and we got ready to sit down together and eat. As per the BLW suggestion, we ate what she ate showing her how to pick up the foods and eat them. Though Malina only had eyes for her papa and how he ate the food, so that’s a thing now.
With everything cooled for Malina we put on her food smock and loaded her into her high chair. She was really excited when she saw her own plate of food being put down.
Of course she went for the eggs first. It was the closest thing and she picked it up right away and shoved it in her mouth. She went through all the stages of enjoyment, grief, and disgust before she shoveled more in her mouth and went through it all again. At one point she gagged and it freaked me out inside while on the outside I tried to act calm and talk her through spitting out or swallowing the food. She ended up swallowing it and then reading for her water. She pulverized the rest of the eggs, but probably only actually ate a few bites of it all together.
I had to move the carrots closer to get her to go for it next. She started with the plain one which she definitely hated more than the eggs and gagged for the second time. Once she got the offensive orange stick out of her mouth she tossed it to the dog and reached for her water again.
Malina is adventurous though and was quick to try another of the carrots. This time it was the rosemary one. The look of enjoyment she had as she sucked on this one was a complete 180 from the disgust of the plain olive oil carrot. I have to admit, the rosemary brings out the sweetness of the carrots and that probably helped the most, but when she was done eating all the rosemary off she had eaten most of the accompanying carrot as well.
This is where Malina called it quits. She was a bit under twenty minutes into her meal and she just didn’t want anything else to do with the rest of it. When I started to take the plate, she half heartedly picked up a mandarin slice I had tried to offer her before and sucked on it a second before tossing it aside (our dog might need to go on a diet in the future). I asked her if she was done now and she reached for me to pick her up. So I took the food away as her papa kept an eye on her and then I came back to take off the smock and clean her up as Eric cleaned up the high chair.
All in all I consider this a great first day and first meal. Malina ate egg, carrots, and rosemary. Three new things and flavors. I will have to offer mandarins and pepper again, but I was so impressed with her and how she dealt with food for the first time.
As always, you are doing great and you’ve got this!
– Erica
Side note: Egg whites are an allergy food. There is no history of food allergies in either mine or my husbands family and Malina has had no eczema since she was born, both are possible precursors to possible food allergies. However, I am not a doctor and so I’d suggest getting your doctors opinion before introducing allergy foods. Our personal plan here is to do one allergy food a week for the next 8 weeks, working through the top 8 allergy foods, and document any signs of reaction. As of this evening posting Malina has had no reaction to the eggs.
Malina’s BLW Food Adventures 