Leah can feed herself

I've been letting her play with her food more. I always put a few Cheerios on the tray - no more than 5 at a time - because I read that more than that is overwhelming to a baby this age and may frustrate her. And I've been giving her a piece of whatever she's eating that she can touch and hold and rub in her hair or throw on the floor or grind up in her palm or squish into her clothes. It's been hard for me because I don't like the mess - and Shafi definitely would have difficulty with this kind of permitted messiness. But I have read and was also told by the pediatrician that this will help her get more comfortable with food and interested in feeding herself.

I guess they were right - because yesterday at dinner she picked Cheerios up off of her highchair tray and put them into her mouth. Not just once, which she has done before. I think she actually ate about half a dozen of them. Sometimes she held them between the tips of her thumb and forefinger and bit them in half with her cute little front teeth and then also managed to put the 2nd half into her mouth. Sometimes she put the whole thing in her mouth at once. Sometimes she stuck half her hand into her mouth in order to be sure she'd keep the Cheerio in there and then she'd practically suck on her fingers as she pulled them out so that no food would follow them.

Shafi and I clapped and smiled. Hopefully that gave her the message that we like her feeding herself. And maybe in the next few days she'll also feed herself more foods.

We've also been much more relaxed about what foods she eats lately. She had pizza for the first time at a birthday party on Saturday. I gave her the end crust to hold and chew on - which she enjoyed. And I tore the rest of the slice into small pieces to feed her. She loved it! We also gave her a little bit of our food at the diner on Saturday at brunch - some tuna salad, some eggs, some breakfast potatoes, and a couple bites of pickle.

As we're giving her more and more foods she seems to be getting less picky too. She's even been eating vegetables and other savory purees. She still doesn't like the stage 3 foods - something about the mix of puree and pieces seems to bother her, but if I separate out the chunks and finger feed them to her she'll eat them.

And she's been eating more "real meals." For breakfast yesterday she had a scrambled egg with some schredded cheese mixed in, a mini blueberry waffle, and some cut up strawberries and blueberries. And today she had instant oatmeal (maple and brown sugar), a blueberry yogurt, and some cut up strawberries and blueberries. And for dinner last night I gave her a range of defrosted items for the first time - a cube of beef stew that I had frozen, a cube of soft cooked apples that I had frozen, and some frozen edemame I had bought. She still seemed hungry after all of that, so I also gave her a jar of green beans and brown rice (a stage 2 food - 4 oz) and she actually ate the whole thing.

"Hmm - this raspberry is too weird" - don't worry, Leah did take to them later:
Leah loves hanging out in a highchair at the diner:

Putting the Cheerio in her mouth:
Successful transfer of the Cheerio from the hand to the mouth:

Eating the Cheerio: