Every Baby is Different!

Back in my days as a WIC counselor, I would give the same feeding advice day in and day out and I couldn't understand why, month after month, few people seemed to listen. I figured out during my pregnancy that every pregnancy is different, and I am now learning that when it comes to infant feeding, every baby is different.

The textbook advice, and recommendation by the AAP, is that infants are exclusively breastfed (meaning no solid foods of any kind) until 6 months of age. This was of course my goal, and I'm still struggling with accepting that this might not be best for my baby.

Jacob, or as my mom calls him "Herdy-GERDy man", has pretty bad reflux that we have been medicating since his one month check up. We have been in and out of the pediatrician's office each time it gets worse, and at our most recent visit, the doctor recommended starting cereal.

"GERDy man" is growing very well and is otherwise healthy, but no mommy wants to see their child spit up and choke on every feeding... so oatmeal it is! I of course made it from whole oats rather than the baby oatmeal and that was the EASY part... getting even a 1/2 a teaspoon to stay in his mouth was the hard part!

Not so sure about this....

Oh mommy!

Homemade Baby Oatmeal

1/2 cup of Whole Quick Oats
1 cup water

Instructions:
1. Place oats into a food processor and grind to a fine/almost powder-like consistency
2. Boil water on stove top.
3. Stir in ground oats and cook for 1 minute.

Refrigerate up to 4 days. Thin 1 teaspoon of oatmeal with 2 teaspoons of breastmilk or formula to serve. You can increase the oatmeal and decrease the milk or formula as your baby grows.... but this is where we are now =)

Happy feeding and Good Luck!