Rob,
I always fondly remember an incident in our La Leche League group a couple
of years ago.  A mother was very anxious about her 5 month old twins.  How
would she know when they were ready to start solids?  Her doctor told her
to begin with a certain type of baby cereal and add something else at such
and such a time. But she would see other mothers letting their babies pick
up and eat Cheerios.  Those were not on her doctor's list.  What should she
do?  At 6 months her babies were still not too enthusiastic about the
prescribed foods.  We talked about this a lot in our group, and also had
the mother read a very nice little LLL pamphlet, "Your Baby's First Solid
Food," (#105a, 1993), which helped somewhat, but she still agonized over
the conflicting messages she felt she was getting.  Then, after the next
meeting (June) we had a potluck picnic lunch outside, with all of us
sitting on blankets on the grass.  This mother's 7 month old daughter
crawled across the blanket with great determination, grabbed an entire
French bread, and began to chew on it.  She was not about to give it up,
either!  And as we all laughed along with her, this mom at last understood
that her babies were now ready for exploring all kinds of wonderful new
foods!  (However, we had to stop this baby from sampling the mushrooms
growing in the grass).

Anne Altshuler, RN, MS, IBCLC and LLL leader in Madison, Wisconsin
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