Table Foods Update

Just wanted to give an update on Ethan's attempts with finger foods. The day after our breakthrough, we had a bit of a setback. I fed him banana pieces with a fork, he gagged, he vomited. I mashed up the banana to a puree consistency, he gagged, he vomited. I gave him a puff, he gagged, he vomited. I took his temperature. 102.5. Between the fever and the congestion, he stuck to nursing and his bottle the rest of the day. For Friday-Sunday, I added back purees but stayed away from table foods until his congestion eased up. (That's not entirely true because on Sunday morning at worship, I gave him a bit of my bread, thus giving him his first Eucharist. He grinned and gobbled it up!)

By Monday, he was back to a slightly snottier version of himself, so we tried again with the peas via fork. Success! I even added some grated organic mild cheddar cheese to the meal, and he absolutely loved that! Tuesday and Wednesday, he ate scrambled egg yolks, peas, cheese, and a bit of bread. I also gave him a tiny piece of my chicken on Wednesday night, and he liked that up until he gagged on it (but it had been thoroughly cooked in the slow cooker to be shredded for BBQ so it was probably just too dry for him).

Today, I was feeding him peas with a fork and cheese by hand, per norm. He then reached out and grabbed some of the cheese from me, but he just played with it and almost immediately dropped it. A few pieces later, he reached out again, and this time he stuffed it in his mouth. I handed him another piece, and he popped it in his mouth! I handed him a pea and he squished it. But a few bites later, he plucked the pea off the fork and into his mouth. I placed a pea on the tray, and he picked it up and ate it. He finally figured out how to feed himself table foods!

I tentatively tried putting several peas at once on his tray so that he could feed himself as he liked, but he decided that just meant it was pea playtime. This evening, after he finished his yogurt, I put a few puffs on his tray to see if he could ration those himself. While he picked up several at once, he did a good job of only putting one at a time in his mouth. Just when I was about to declare him capable of feeding himself independently, he put two in his mouth at once and promptly began gagging. Oh well.