His first attempt went pretty well if not extremely messy. I thought I was pretty good at feeding infants, I've had a bit of practice with my nieces and nephew, but I found out it's a different ball game when the infant hasn't ever eaten from a spoon before. As a result of our combined clumsiness, I got a significant amount of oatmeal up Charlie's nose. Don't worry. He sneezed it out. And yes, it was just about as gross as it sounds. But by the end of the attempted feeding, it seemed as if Charlie was catching on despite a lingering tongue-thrust reflex, and I think he actually swallowed down a couple spoonfuls.
His second attempt went differently. I had the brilliant idea (at least I thought it was, but it may not have actually been) to start out with feeding him oatmeal using his oral syringe—to guarantee he would swallow some down. I use his oral syringe to give him medicine, and he takes it really well. Any who, I did indeed get 0.5mL of oatmeal down his throat, but after that he didn't eat from the spoon nearly as well.
His third attempt went differently yet again. For the first two attempts, I included his liquid, baby vitamins with the oatmeal, because I thought it would give the oatmeal a familiar flavor. Well, I measure out his vitamins with his oral syringe, which was dirty. So, being too lazy to wash it, I didn't add his vitamins in the oatmeal for this attempt. It didn't go nearly as well this time. Charlie kept scrunching up his face like the oatmeal tasted terrible, which he hadn't done before, and he didn't last as long—I only got to try three or four spoonfuls. His mood may have been a big factor in this attempt, too, because I don't think he was as happy as the other two.
So, to make a short story long, I think it will take Charlie and me a little while to figure out this solid food feeding thing. But we've started out, and it will certainly be an adventure!
