When my 20-year-old niece was a baby my mom handed her a strawberry. My sister told Mom that strawberries are unacceptable for a baby Nicole’s age. Mom replied that she gave me strawberries when I was that age. Patti pointed out that I had a lot of skin related allergies when I was little too. After that exchange there’s no way I could forget that berries are on the list of foods not to feed before age one. It confuses me why some Stages 2 and 3 baby foods are made with berries.
The recommendations about peanut butter have changed a lot over the years. When I first started paying attention to peanut butter recommendations, we were to wait until age three to introduce it to children. Then the powers that be decided that age one was sufficient. WIC will not give us peanut butter yet even though Emily is one. Emily has already had her first peanut butter by accident in the form of peanut butter crackers. She’s OK.
Hot dogs and pose a choking hazard. We need to cut them up into manageable pieces for our children until they can handle them whole. Jessie is three and will not eat a hot dog unless it’s cut up. Emily will eat hot dogs whole, but refuses them completely if they’re cut up.
When our second foster placement arrived the CPS placement worker told me that the emergency placement house couldn’t get Gemini to eat. I looked at this darling girl and said the words corn dog to her and she felt safe. She ate the corn dog without incident. I was not planning on letting Emily have corn dogs for a while. The day of her birthday party I found her on the floor happily eating Jessie’s corn dog. So much for my plans.