At Ian’s 4 month checkup our pediatrician gave us the okay
to start him on solids such as rice cereal mixed with breast milk and then
after 5 days a fruit or veggie and so forth every 5 days, introducing a new
food into his diet. I thought okay, this
is going to go well because Isaac was such a good eater from the jump. Well I was definitely wrong! Instead of rice cereal, I opted for single
grain organic baby oatmeal mixed with breast milk. The first 3 times were smooth as ever, he had
2-3 teaspoons followed by breastfeeding and that was that. Well around the fourth feeding, we noticed he
started acting fussy. It immediately
stood out to us because this is not his normal behavior. He is usually a chill, happy, easygoing
baby. That is when it began. Our poor baby started throwing up like crazy.
It was so alarming because I remember he
was napping, and then all of a sudden woke up screaming, we picked him up
immediately and bam! Throw up splattered
all over our wood floors. And it was not
spit up, this was forceful and a lot!!
It happened two times before we were able to rest easy and that is when
I decided to give the oatmeal cereal a break. 
The following week, I avoided any solids and then decided to
try giving him a little mashed up banana with breast milk. We fed him about 4-5 teaspoons of it and then
I breastfed. I was holding him, burping
him and when I thought he was about to burp, bam! Projectile vomit all over me! I was calling, “Jon, help!” “Oh my g…” That
is when a whole bunch of his vomit flew in my mouth! I could not believe it! I was choking up a storm and retching. Have you ever swallowed baby throw up? I do not know if you know this, but I am kind
of a clean freak (I am crazy because I have two boys, I know lol), so instead
of allowing his vomit to get on the couch I sacrificed myself lol. I cannot even describe how disgusting that
was. Not only did it get in my mouth, but
also in my hair, in my bra, in my belly button, yes, in my belly button. When I tell you, it was a lot, it was like
the freaking exorcism lol. We were
shocked and thought that we needed to take him to the hospital because it was
insane! We waited it out and once he got
the entire banana out of his system and was calm, I was able to breastfeed him
a couple of hours later. That is when I
was like, you know what, Ian is not like Isaac and his little digestive system
is just not developmentally ready for solids yet. We waited until he was 6 months and since
then things have been 100% better! He is
able to eat fresh veggies, fruits and oatmeal mixed with breast milk without
any problems thus far. 
I look back at that time and realize a couple of mistakes I
made. I should have gone with my gut and
not given into pressure by older people around me. Ian has a sensitive digestive system and I
knew this because getting that boy to poop when he was around 3-6 months old
was something else. He would go days and
days, up to 11 days without pooping and I had to take him to his pediatrician
to get this addressed. I will discuss
this in another posting, but long story short, people around me told me oh yes,
he would do well with eating solids because it will help him poop. Feed him solids the sooner the better. Wrong, wrong wrong. Never again will I give into that sort of
pressure. When you know your child, you
know. There is nothing like mother’s
intuition. I personally think it is a
gift from God. I also thought Ian was
like Isaac. Well you know what happens
when you assume!
Our little Ian is almost 9 months and while he is doing well
with foods, we are not going to be exposing him to any island food until he is
12 months or older (we love cooking with spice, gotta have that flava!). We would rather err on the side of caution
this time around than putting our guy through that type of discomfort again. Lesson learned! J Oh yes, and I hope to never ever ever have to
swallow vomit again lol!
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