Parents Remember: Eating Solids is a New Skill

Just as a baby needs to learn to roll over, crawl, talk, and any other new skill, your baby will need time to learn to eat solid foods.

Baby eating fruit for the first time

The newest version of On Becoming Babywise Book Two came out after my first two children were well past the introduction of solid foods. I loved this quote from the book:

“One would think that eating comes as naturally as breathing. Not so for infants. Introducing solids requires a new skill level from your baby…”.

(On Becoming Babywise Book Two page 26)

When I first read this quote in it, I really liked it.

When you first start to introduce solid foods to your child, you don’t know quite what to expect. You don’t know if your child will like a new food or not. You expect there to be some dislike with some foods.

I think something you might not expect is for the baby to not know how to eat food.

Baby has been “eating” milk just fine, is food that different?

I like the idea of thinking of it as a new skill. Just like grasping toys, rolling over, sitting up, crawling, and standing are all skills, learning to eat solid foods is a new skill.

That means it takes time to figure it out. It takes time to get good at it.

And just like other skills, some babies do better at this skill than others.

Brayden was literally eyeballing and grasping for our food starting at two months. That boy wanted food, so by the time we gave it to him, he had been mentally preparing for the day for months.

He was eager. He was ready. He adjusted quickly. 

Kaitlyn, on the other hand, was not that interested. She took some time to get adept at it.

Oh, and as an anecdote, I was reading about what I wrote about Kaitlyn starting foods. She really did not like fruit at all–and she is still that way. She slowly adds fruits she likes. The first fruit she tolerated as a baby was a pear, which happens to be her favorite fruit today.

She also loves grapes, which isn’t a “first” baby food. She likes bananas and apples now. She loves melons–but you don’t get those until about a year old. I just thought that was funny. Okay, back on track.

So as you insert that spoon for the first time, don’t panic when your child spits the food back out. It might take a few times to get it down. But just like any other skill, it will come.

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Eating Solids is a New Skill

2 thoughts on “Parents Remember: Eating Solids is a New Skill”

  1. My 4 month old refuses to eat rice cereal. The first 2-3 days she ate pretty good. Now, she clamps her mouth shut and if I do manage to get it in there she spits it back out. This has been going on for several days. When she doesn't eat the cereal good, she wakes up hungry after we've put her to bed. Any suggestions??

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  2. Elizabeth,If cereal isn't working, there are a few veggies/fruit that are tummy friendly. One is bananas, one avocado, and one is sweet potato. So I would try one of those.

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