Carrots-Making and introducing

We tested out carrots last weekend! WOW, I think this might be the funniest thing we have witnessed since Addison was born. I have never seen such weird faces. For those of you who do not have babies, you probably wont care about this post, except for maybe the picture at the end.

Initial Approach (My Idea):

1. Full nursing period
2. Offered cereal and gave her half the normal serving (which is about 1/3 cup powder now)
3. Offer carrots (about half of an ice cube size)...REJECTED
4. Tried to give the remaining cereal...REJECTED
5. Administered gas drops (not knowing how her sensitive tummy will handle all these new foods, we give drops after every meal with solids)
   

Second and Ultimately Successful Approach (Matthew's Idea):

1. Full nursing period
2. Offered carrots--weird faces at first, but after encouraging words she started to swallow it
3. Offered cereal...SUCCESS!
4. Administered gas drops

No allergic reactions to report as of yet.

Key Takeaways:

• Texture not taste: I think it is much easier to believe a baby has a taste aversion than a texture aversion, but after watching Addison very closely as we give her carrots, you can tell it is the TEXTURE she is uncertain of---not the taste. It makes sense, all she has had are smooth foods--milk and cereal! I think breastfeeding her also makes her slightly more accepting of new flavors (breast milk has slight flavors in it based on what I eat vs. formula--not that one is better than the other, just an observation).
• Expectations: The initial rejection may have also been due to expecting cereal. We fed her cereal and then all of a sudden switched to this new food. It's like taking a drink of water expecting coke or something! Next time, we will offer the NEW food before offering any familiar foods.
• Persevere: Since I believe its mind over matter with introducing foods, we must learn to persevere! If she does not like a food after 3 days of consecutive introduction, we will move on to a new one and WE WILL try again several times until it is accepted!!! Perseverance is key with a baby in general and I think breast feeding has taught me that very fast! If we had not persevered throughout all the COUNTLESS bumps along the journey in breastfeeding, I would have given up LONG ago!

Carrot Making:

1. Purchased ORGANIC whole carrots (its important they are organic so that the amount of nitrates is low)
2. Washed and Peeled
3. Cut into chunks
4. Placed carrots into a pot with water, boiled/simmered covered for about 15 minutes (or until very tender; do not overcook--it causes the nutrients to be lost)
   
5. Drained ALL the water
6. Placed cooked carrots into a chopper to puree and added breast milk as needed to reach desired consistency (be careful to ensure all large chunks of carrots are pureed, mine still had one or two small pieces in it since I used a chopper rather than my food processor. It is ok if there are tiny pieces in there, they can be easily mashed up when you feed the food to baby. I left my carrots a bit on the pasty side since I knew I would add more milk to thin them up as she needed)
7. Place carrots in ice cube tray and freeze
8. After they are frozen, I popped them out of the tray and placed them in storage ziplock bags so that they would store more easily---That is it!

*I used about 5 carrots and got about 6 "ice cubes" of carrots

Serving the frozen carrots:

• In the morning, take cube and thaw in the fridge to prepare for lunch/dinner
• During the introduction I only offered HALF a cube so I would cut it in half just before serving
• Pop in microwave about 15 seconds, add milk to reach desired temperature and consistency.
  
• It's that easy!!!

I am off to make more carrots and now...PEAS!!!!!