Eventually your going to start your child on solids and move away from baby food.  Around that time teething begins (or is already in progress) and feeding your baby can start to be challenging.  It’s common for your baby to seem not interested in food and there is a lag time before ibuprofen starts to relieve the pain.

Enter sliced grapes.

Why grapes?  They’re cold, juicy, and sweet.  What’s not to love?

Note:  We always slice the grapes to prevent a chocking hazard.

Kraft Macaroni & Cheese

When your baby starts teething, you really focus on ways to comfort your child.  You invest lots of time in teething rings, toys, and ibuprofen.  You may not realize that your baby’s sleep can be drastically affected as well.

Let’s think about it.  How much food would you eat, if your mouth really hurt?

By now you’ve probably started to give your baby some real table food, in addition to bottles, and of course mommy.  I’ve noticed that my son is not eating as much as he used to from all of the above sources.  This means he’s going to be hungry and wakes up screaming for food in the middle of the night.

The solution:  Good ol’ Mac & Cheese at dinner time.

Here’s why:

1) Kids love the flavor (I know I still do)

2) The noodles are soft and very easy to eat.

3) If you let the noodles cool down, they can be clumpy – which makes for great finger food (my son likes to feed himself).

and

4) It’s cost effective.

The bottom line:  Teething babies still need to eat – and parents really need the sleep.

There are times when you have a game plan for a teething baby, and then there are times when that plan completely falls apart.  Yesterday my son was having teething pains and he was hungry as well.  The frozen teething rings were not accepted and for some reason the sassy teething feeder wouldn’t open (could have been frozen shut).  The ibuprofen takes about 20 minutes to kick in and I was grasping at ideas.

Finally, I realized we had some frozen pineapple parts (core, skins, etc..) that I had saved in the freezer to use in a future tropical drink.  I handed my son a slice of the frozen pineapple skin with  and the crying stopped.  He chewed on it for a few minutes and then dropped it.

After the pineapple he took a bottle just fine and eventually the medicine also kicked in.  I just used this method this morning as well to get him to eat his cheerios.

The short:  Don’t go crazy, try pineapple!