It’s 5:30am … a muffled monitor beside my bed is ringing with the sound of our daughter waking up (and by ringing, I mean loud cries) yup she’s usually my alarm clock when I don’t have it in me to wake up before her. I make my way into her room for her morning milk, give her a quick feed and hope that she will go back to sleep for a little while longer.

Just as I sneak out of her room and get ready to take a shower, I can hear our middle one calling from his room:

“Mama… mama… I wanna get up… I wanna go downstairs.”

Cue the coffee and chaos…

I quickly change his diaper and bring the two boys downstairs for their breakfast, it’s one of those mornings and I haven’t prepared anyone’s breakfast ahead of time, so I’m scrabbling to get everyone fed and ready to go for preschool. Our oldest tries to grab a few things for him and his brother out of the fridge while I’m getting the milk ready and a blueberry and yogurt landslide spills out of our fridge and on to the floor. Our daughter’s morning nap is already over so she’s now awake and crying for breakfast too. My plans of making her purees today are out the door well before we are. Luckily, I’ve learned a thing or two over the years (well, kind of lol .. motherhood is messy and that really hasn’t changed) and I  now have a cupboard stocked with Love Child Purees ready to go for mornings just like this.

Before we had our daughter, I was fairly organized when it came to our morning routines and introducing our babies to solids. With our first; I made all of his baby purees on my own and was very careful about trying each food one-at-a-time for a few days before introducing something new, this was the common practice three years ago, but things have changed a lot since then. While I tried to keep to a schedule that I thought was “right” at the time, it all became very stressful for me and I found that I wasn’t very creative with his meals as a result. With our second, I was the same way, I wanted to follow the exact same schedules with him as I did with our first and I was so adamant about making all of their baby food on my own.

Well, when our daughter (our third baby) was born, the logistics of life with three little ones three-and-under made it a bit difficult for me to stick to these ridged schedules and meal prepping plans. While I still make a lot of our daughter’s purees when I can, I am so happy to have found a brand of baby food that we love and that has also inspired me to think outside the box when it comes to being creative in the kitchen with our baby.

Love Child Organics is a Canadian brand that was developed by parents wanting to give their children healthy and nutrient rich foods. Packed with nutritionally rich fruits and veggies, Love Child Purees were exactly what I was looking for when I realized that I would need some help in my kitchen preparing food for my daughter. Love Child has helped me to think outside the box when it comes to introducing our daughter to a wide variety of foods because they are so creative when it comes to making blends that are both nutrient rich and filled with a variety of different foods. Their blends have also inspired me in the kitchen when making some of my own foods for our daughter as I’ve realized that superfood blends with a mixture of both fruits and vegetables are such a great way to ensure that she is eating healthy, but also trying a wide variety of foods.

How we Introduced Our Babies to Solids

With all three of our little ones we started very simple; a cereal of some kind and fruit.

We learned over the years that starting with an oat-based cereal worked best, especially when it came to issues like constipation. This time around we tried Love Childs Oat & Chia and most mornings I would mix that with water and one of the Simple Firsts Fruit Purees like Apple or Pear.

When we first introduced our daughter to solids we started with just dinner and breakfast, she wasn’t really hungry for solids at lunch time just yet and her naps usually overlapped with lunch time, so nursing her before an afternoon nap worked well for her up until about seven-months.

At around the seven-month mark, we did notice that she was showing signs that she wanted to join us for lunch. Things like reaching for the food, making faces that resembled eating or crying were definite signs that she was ready to add that third meal to her day.  One of the things that we make a big deal about in our house is trying to eat most of our meals together as a family. This usually happens at lunch and dinner so she learned very quickly when it was time to eat and wanted to be a part of it. Soon after that we also started including her in “snack time” at our house. Her favourite snacks are the Pat-a-Cakes and Love Ducks.

As she became more comfortable with new foods, I still introduced them one or two at a time as I am still weary of allergies, we started to give her the mixed blends for lunch and or dinner. What I really like about Love Child’s Superblends  is that they include fruit and veggies together as well as some uncommon fruits or veggies that I might not have thought of trying otherwise.

Introducing solids to our babies has been a different experience with every child and to be completely honest, it makes perfect sense that this was the case because every child is so different. For example, both of our boys loved avocado and our daughter refuses to eat it (for now that is). That’s the thing, their tastes do change and evolve as the get older too. My only advice is to keep trying new things, even if it seems like they don’t like it at first, they might change their minds in a few weeks, months or even years. Our two-year-old hates carrots, but I still leave one on his plate every day and hope that one day he might not spit it out. You never know, it could happen.

xo

Vanessa 

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