Baby Solid Food Schedule: Fill & Download for Free

Image credit: nypost.comI got a phone call in pre-operative clinic the other day. The nurse hands me the phone and says “they wanted a doctor.” She was sniggering.On the other end was a slightly testy female voice. “My son is scheduled for tonsils and adenoid removal tomorrow, and I need to know how long I can nurse him before his surgery.” I responded with our standard anesthesia policy of “breast milk can be given up to four hours before surgery.”“What about sandwiches?” She asked. “What?” I replied, not comprehending how a breastfeeding baby could down a sandwich.“He generally has a sandwich and chips with lunch.” She says.“Riiiight,” says I, “Just how old is your son.” She paused, “He just started kindergarten.” She replied. Suddenly the sniggering got louder in the background.Now I’m not one to judge, but it must be a serious trust exercise to nurse a 5-year-old boy. “No solid food for 8 hours ma’am.” I said and concluded the conversation. The pre-op nurses completely lost it.I’m not sure when breastfeeding becomes inappropriate. I’m sure I’ll get feedback for this, but if your child can eat a side of French fries with ketchup while he nurses it may be time to wean.

I had an indoor camera at my last house. Not hidden, in plain sight, everyone was aware that it was in the front room for security reasons.I had a temporary sitter for a few months and she was nice enough, but I noticed that when I came home, my 9 month old was really hungry. Like he’d inhale his food. I asked my husband to please feed him right away when he came through the door at 3, but then my husband was noticing the same tendency.I then did one of my least favorite things to do. Reviewing security camera footage.If you ever want to get a sense of how quickly time goes by, get a security camera and try to watch the activities of the day or even worse, the week, at 6–8x the speed. It’s very time consuming, tedious, and packed with repetitive miscellaneous activity followed by periods of no activity whatsoever. I can see why department stores lean away from reviewing security footage for customers for miscellaneous issues.Anyway, I was doing just this, at 6x the speed, and was able to pick out two things. One - the sitter fell asleep with the baby on her lap. Ok - probably something we needed to talk about. But then it happened. 10am came, then noon, then 1pm, then 2pm, then my husband came through the door. The whole time, my child was never fed a lunch or mid morning snack. I looked at other days, and it also happened on at least one other day as well. He was being given his milk, just no solid food.Meanwhile, I was recently given the third degree from my pediatrician that my child had gone from the 75th percentile to the 50th percentile in weight since birth, and started asking probing questions about what I fed him and when. I was baffled at her, if not convinced she was being extreme in her questioning.Seeing my child not being fed was confusing. Did she forget? Was she not used to the new schedule of feeding him 5 times a day? Was she just clueless? She was a very nice person to me AND him for that matter, as I could see on the footage all day as she played with him. Unfortunately, feeding a child solids is a pass/fail concern in my book.I texted her right away to let her know she would no longer be working with us, and explained why. I was relieved to let her go, and fortunately was able to find an amazing replacement for the remainder of the year.Looking back, this was one of a few experiences with childcare that resulted in my decision to work from home or work afternoons.

Oh, so many ...Cloth diapers. The disposable diaper is one of the great inventions of modern civilization. Cloth diapers make it hard to travel, they stain, and once they start eating solids they're disgusting. To salve your conscience about landfill, use compostable diapers - they're not quite as effective and the regular ones, but they're better than cloth.Worry about solid food. For number one, we introduced one thing at a time, cut everything into strips (not too small!) and made puree. For number two, he made such a fuss we just gave him what we were eating.Routine. Number one had a carefully calibrated sleeping and eating schedule, lovingly followed by all his caregivers. Number two slept when we could get him to, and ate when he was ready.On the flip side, things we kept doing:Co-sleeping for at least six months. So much better than getting up in the night. Lets face it, you're not going to be doing much that demands privacy anyway.Baby wearing. Its somewhat physically tiring, but the babies are so much calmer than if you try to put them down its worth the effort. Just don't do it while cooking.Rotate night time feeding. I'm a night owl, so for both kids I did the last feed at about 11pm, and after the first few months that kept them asleep until early morning when my wife did the the first one.