Eating!

We started feeding Luke rice cereal on July 14. It's been kind of random because he was still pushing the cereal out with his tongue a lot. We tried a variety of things to make it work such as playing around with the consistency of the cereal, feeding him before, in the middle of or after his bottle and with different times. The end result was pretty consistent - he seemed to push out more food than he was eating and didn't seem to really enjoy this new eating thing. So when he fell asleep before we could feed him, no big deal. He was happy and it saved me a hassle of struggling with an uncooperative baby. Monday night was the worst when he was sleepy and I wanted to feed him before he fell asleep and he was angry messy baby and even though I had a firm grip on his bowl of cereal he somehow managed to spill it all over himself, the chair, the floor and me. (How did a few tablespoons of cereal make such a big mess???)But last night I think he FINALLY got it!!! He is actually letting me put the spoon in his mouth and sucking the cereal off the spoon and barely spitting anything out. He's still figuring out his tongue but this is major progress and I no longer dread feeding him. The winning formula seems to be nursing him, giving him a bath and letting him poop before we feed him.
The only downside to him eating the rice cereal is that for some odd reason when he successfully eats before he goes to sleep it has the opposite effect - he wakes up MORE than if he just has milk. For instance, last night he fell asleep at about 9:30 and then woke up at 11:30 to nurse and then again at 5:00 a.m. Normally (on non-rice cereal nights) he goes to bed between 9:00 - 10:00 and sleeps until 5:30 a.m. Oh well, I guess it's just another thing we're getting sued to and figuring out.
Everything is a learning experience for him and for me. And I make sure to congratulate both of us when we master something. Yay us!
I will continue the rice cereal at night for a week and then we'll add another serving of rice cereal during the day for a week. Then I think we'll be ready to try introducing him to actual food! It will be so exciting to see his reaction as he experiences new textures. Go, baby, go!