Introducing solids and the working mom

At Sadie's 4 month appointment I asked her doctor about introducing rice cereal. Our doctor said she didn't have a problem if we started it, normally she did not talk about introducing solids until the 6th month appointment but if we wanted to start practicing with Sadie we had her approval with the caveat that it was strictly for "fun" and that it was always given after she has a bottle so that she is still getting most of her nutrition from formula.

I get up at 5:15am every morning (at least I try!) and we normally leave the house by 7:00am (again, I try, some mornings it's closer to 7:15am) this gets us to day care by 7:30-7:40am and me to work by 7:50am. All of this is with Sadie just receiving a bottle in the morning.

I get off work at 5:00pm. I get over to the day care by 5:20pm (way more traffic in the afternoon than the morning!) we get home by 5:45pm. Sadie has a bath (on bath nights) and a bottle and is asleep by 7:00pm.

Can you tell me when the heck I am supposed to start fitting in just for "fun" rice cereal during any of that?

Let me go a little deeper. Our night time routine is pretty set in stone at this point, Sadie gets nice and sleepy while having that last bottle, I put her down in her crib, and even if she is awakeish she is OUT within 5 minutes. You're telling me I am supposed to keep my tired, cranky baby up and awake just so she can eat, for "fun", cereal AFTER a bottle? No way. I would have to say this is one of the only points I have disagreed with my doctor about.

I thought about just feeding her the cereal before bath, bottle and bed, but after doing a bit of research I decided I wanted to skip the rice cereal stage. We were only feeding it to her on the weekends, so that's not really that much practice. Plus, Sadie never really took to the rice cereal:

"You sure about this, dad?"

"Mom? I do not approve."

(Note: if we had stuck with the rice cereal we were feeding a whole grain option, not white rice, which some doctors compare to "feeding your child a spoonful of sugar".) Since, I decided to skip the cereal, I felt much better about giving her puréed veggies before a bottle since the veggies would be packed full of nutrition. Even after the 1 to 1.5 ounces of puréed sweet potatoes Sadie eats, she had no problem packing away an 8 ounce bottle. Hello, blissful 12(ish) hour stretch of uninterrupted baby sleep!

I read in my Baby 411 book that the goal is to include solids 3 times a day by the time a baby is 9 months old. So with our night time feeding we are covered for another month or so but then I have to start introducing them at another meal.

I get up at 5:15am every day and I am still struggling to leave the house by 7:00am, remember that? (What the crap takes me so long to get ready in the morning?) Does that mean I need to start getting up 15 to 20 minutes earlier every morning? I know it doesn't sound like that much time, but believe me at 5:15am 15 to 20 minutes is a ton of time! I also hear that feedings can start taking longer and longer too, once babies really decide they want to do it themselves, so that 15 minutes could actually be more like 30 by the time we reach this point.

Here is another option, instead of introducing the 2nd meal as breakfast I could make it lunch and have the day care feed Sadie. Or I could still keep it as breakfast and again have the day care feed her as soon as she gets there in the mornings, while still giving her a breakfast bottle at home.

It's situations like this that sometimes make me wish I wasn't working so I didn't have to worry about it. But then the thought of being a SAHM terrifies me like a thousand burning suns, which incidentally is what Texas feels like this summer, and I tell myself to buck up and not freak out about a situation that is not even here yet.

Like most challenges with Sadie it has all been a learning experience and figuring out what works for us and I know when the time comes to introduce solids at a second meal we'll figure it out. In the meantime I will just stress out in my head with Robert giving me the "you're crazy" side eye.

Finally, I leave you with the best part about all of this:

"Still not sure about this, but it sure is fun to get all over my face!"