Gretchen Ate Solid Food for the First Time

As I mentioned, six months is a big milestone on its own in "baby land." Gretchen can now eat solid foods! Nate and I have decided to take a "baby led weaning" approach with solids, which basically means that we allow Gretchen to explore with solid foods (not so much, purees) and we will not feed her. She will feed herself. It seems to be the most logical and natural way for us, although it will, indeed, be messy. She will eat some purees, but we will not spoon feed her, but instead let her feed herself with her fingers (or maybe a loaded spoon here and there). We skipped rice cereal, because to us, it just seems like unnecessary calories.

Today Gretchen tried sweet potatoes for the first time. We crinkle cut one sweet potato into 4-inch sticks (a quarter of an inch thick) and baked them until they were well-cooked. Here are some photos from her first experience with solids:

Here's Gretchen sitting in her booster seat high chair for the first time.

 Gretchen was getting pretty excited!

 Her dad put a few sweet potato fries on her plate and we left the rest up to her. Here she is looking curiously at the sweet potato...

 Like anything else, she put it in her mouth..

 "Hm..."

 "Look at me, dad, I'm eating real food!"

 "I don't know about this..."

 Her favorite part was probably feeding Jack, our dog. I think that was Jack's favorite part, too. He looks forward to many years of being fed food by Gretchen, ha.

 Those two are going to get into quite a bit of trouble together, I can see...

 "I never promised to be a neat eater, Mom..."

Since Gretchen is still recovering from a cold, she didn't eat a whole lot. Her appetite should come back soon. Next on the menu: avocado! Our little girl will be joining us at the table for Thanksgiving this year and eating her very own "plate" of food.