This post is brought to you by our lovely sponsor Plum Organics!  Plum has been a supporter of Cloudmom from our very beginning so we’re thrilled to be spreading Plum’s important message regarding babies and nutrition!

As each of us becomes a mother, we are faced with a myriad of choices.  These choices crop up incessantly and overwhelm us.  What stroller I opt for?  Should my baby sleep with me or in her crib?  Should I seek a schedule or instead follow the rhythms of on-demand feeding?

Babies need rest, nurturing, and nutrition and as moms, our job is to make sure we provide for them the best of all these things.  Among the choices facing us as new parents, deciding which first solids your baby will eat matters.  Why?   Studies show that these first foods can mold habits and influence a child’s on-going food preferences.  And thus, experts advise us to make good choices when our babies begin solids in order to set the course for a lifetime of healthy eating.

Because I believe so strongly in the importance of healthy food for babies (and for all of us!), and because introducing a healthy, diverse selection of first foods proved to be such a challenge for me with my first baby, I am honored to be writing this post today brought to you by Plum Organics®.  Plum Organics recently launched a micro video series hosted by pediatrician and food expert Dr. Alan Greene.  In simple, short videos (love that!), Dr. Greene answers your most pressing questions regarding your baby, from pregnancy, to young babies to early childhood.  His videos leave you knowing what to do.  Regarding food, Dr. Greene advises what, when and how to go about introducing solids to your young baby.  The videos answer your most pressing questions and seek to promote Nutritional Intelligence: the ability to recognize and enjoy good food.  Boy, I wish this series had been around when I was struggling in the dark with introducing first foods to my oldest child.

Introducing solids

Generations of parents were advised to first introduce that rice cereal to their babies.  Such became my experience.  When my eldest child Hedley reach his six-month birthday, my pediatrician advised that we “start solids.”  On the morning after this six month appointment, I got up early, showed, dressed for work, and prepared a bowl of rice cereal for baby Hedley mixed with breastmilk.  When Hedley awoke, excited about this new adventure, I changed him and lifted him into his high-chair.  Within minutes, Hedley was screaming and my pressed blouse had been splattered with muck.  That baby spit out every single bite of his first meal of bumpy mush.  Not knowing what to do, I tried to force little spoonfuls into his mouth, which he had now pressed shut, his cheeks flaming red and shiny and wet with tears.  Hedley was crying, I was sobbing and feeling like a failure of a mom.  My husband ran in asking what the heck was going on.  Our household had one off the rails, all over the introduction of solids to a baby.

In the video I’ve embedded above called Best First Foods for Baby, Dr. Greene advises us to leave rice cereal aside for now and to get more creative and fun with your babies’ first foods.  Opt for tasty, healthy foods like banana, avocado, and sweet potato, he says.

He suggests sitting down and eating the very same food with your baby to make the experience social and fun!  Then, Dr. Greene adds some other pieces of helpful advice.  These ideas really would have worked for Hedley because turns out he loved sweet potato, banana, peaches and pears.  Any of these foods probably undoubtedly would have met with greater success.  Little did I know that these fresh healthy foods — which were tastier anyway and which he liked more — also were healthier.

Take a look at this helpful video and share what happened to you the first time you introduced solids to your baby so that we can get a discussion going.  Did you start with cereals?  With fruits or veggies?  At what age did you introduce solids and what worked for you?

And while you’re at it, check out some of the helpful videos set forth in Plum Organics Resource Center.  We parents need all the helpful, reliable advice we can get.

Thanks so much for reading and see you back soon at CloudMom!

This post was sponsored by Plum Organics®.  CloudMom received monetary composition for this post.  The opinions expressed in this post are my own.