Her name is Lilah Rose. She's eating everything! I was fully planning on exclusively breastfeeding until she was 6 months old. We've given her rice cereal several times when she boycotted bottles while I was at work, but that was the extent of it. Around the same time her first tooth came in a couple weeks ago (and another tooth st just below the surface!), she would nurse frantically while flailing and screaming until the milk let down. Typically, this took 30-60 seconds. She would proceed to gulp and suck down every drop of milk she could get. She emptied the breast in 5-10 minutes. She would repeat the performance on the other side. After both were empty, she would ball up her fists, screw up her face, and howl angrily and pitifully until I made more milk. Then she'd do it all again. It got so bad that I called the doctor's office and begged to be able to start her on some solids. I got the okay 2 weeks early.
I've been making my own baby food and it's going great. I created a monster, however, by saying, "Mmm!" as I spooned a bite into her mouth. I thought it was adorable and precocious when she started saying it back to me, or would slap her hands impatiently on her high chair, close her eyes, and yell, "MMM!" if I was taking too long to give her a bite. I always laughed and thought, "How great is this? She can tell me what she's wanting! Wonderful." When we were out for lunch at the Wild Rover, this new skill turned around and bit me. I was having a cup of soup and a pub salad, and I had no sooner lifted the soup spoon to my mouth when I heard a frantic noise coming out of Lilah's carseat. "Mmm! Mmm! Mmm!" I looked at her, and she was flailing her limbs in all directions, and looked like she was about to jump out of her skin. I gave her a bite of broth off my spoon and tried to take a bite myself. "MMM!" She was frantic and wide-eyed. I barely got to eat my lunch. She ate all the carrots and most of the potatoes, and a good bit of broth from my soup. What was once the first verbal communication attempt on the part of my child has now become a habit which often results in hunger on my part and her consuming most of my food. The good part is she's not nursing like a crazy person anymore, and she's back to 4 hours or so between feedings as long as she's getting solids. The bad part is I know I'm not going to get much to eat if I hear rustling from her seat and her shouting, "MMM!"
