disney with a 7 month old (food related)

[dumbo_buddy]

this might belong in the dining section but i think the family section might be more geared for the info i want.

dh and i are going to disney the last week of january with our son who will be 7 months at the time. i am starting to think i'm CRAZY for doing this as our little guy is very...high maintenance! colic & extreme reflux (vomits 50+ times a day) makes it hard to do just about anything. but, we have to keep on living and introducing our little guy to new things. and, i need a disney fix!

anyway, have you had success with any restaurants with babies? i want to do a character dining and since the crystal palace will be closed we're thinking of chef mickeys (haven't been there).

also, he'll be starting solids by then and i hope to make my baby food. have you brought your own food with you? or should i just use jars for the week? i know baby centers are great since i'm nursing so i'll be sure to use that. i'm just wondering about the solid food he'll be eating. by then i can't imagine he'll be eating all that much solid food but i still need to give him some! (too bad it's too early to give him a mickey bar!!!)

if you read this long post, thank you!!! i'm getting anxious about the trip. part of me thinks we shouldn't go (plane ride, crying baby, puking all the time, etc etc) but i just need to get out! kwim??

 

[mjkacmom]

I had a reflux baby, and solid food made his issues SO much better! I started early (at the advice of my pediatrician), 4 months, and solids weighed the liquids down. Just want to give you hope. However, now that he's 11, all of his friends' parents know that, at a party, he gets only one soda - he's thrown up at a couple, and in someone's brand new minivan! He has never been to the chinese buffet and NOT thrown up. He's going to make a big fool of himself when he starts experimenting with alcohol!

 

[dumbo_buddy]

lol! note to self: keep ds away from the chinese buffet.

we started him on cereal a week ago (at 4 mo) and he is very uninterested. i hope he will start to like it so it will weigh everything down!

 

[kwitcherkicken99]

We took jar food for the week we were there with our 6 mo old. Packed disposable bibs, spoons, cups, etc. That way, once she was done eating, we were done (and it made more room in the suitcase on the way home).

Good luck.

 

[2binak]

We took jar food for the week we were there with our 6 mo old. Packed disposable bibs, spoons, cups, etc. That way, once she was done eating, we were done (and it made more room in the suitcase on the way home).

Good luck.

We ordered jarred food (Earth's Best organic) for our 8.5 month old DD from a grocery delivery service. She didn't eat table food (excpet puffies & cheerios) until she was 10 months old so jarred food & bottles were her only source of nutrition while we were at WDW.

We also used disposable bibs, take 'n toss spoons & cups, but we kept the dirty spoons in a ziploc and washed & re-used them. Same with the cups. In fact, we still use the same spoons & cups we bought last Fall! They are recycleable though so if you do want to toss them after a meal, you can feel better knowing they can be recycled.

 

[LoveBugs]

We took our daughter at 7 months and it was great that she was actually eating by then. It kept her busy during our meals. The two things I would recommend are puffs and those mesh feeders. Letting her feed herself was huge for us. The puffs kept her busy while we waited for our food and then I gave her a mesh feeder stuffed with fruit for suck on/gnaw at while we ate It was a mess but well worth it.

 

[MSSANDRA]

Had a major reflux baby and solids did help.
Don't forget to carry extra cloths for you into the park as well as you little one.

However at 7 mo, he really did not eat a lot of solids. Ceral helped. AVOID high staining food at all cost. Can you say blueberry stains in the carpet!

Really, even though solids do help, we had a lot of major messes, so you may want to limit the food choices to ceral, apple sauce etc while in the parks.

 

[Cinderellabride]

We went last year with our almost 6 month old who had bad reflux, but it was getting a little better by then. We will be going again this year with our 7 month old who also has reflux, but not as bad as his brother did. In my experience the solids and sitting up help a lot with the spitting up. I would not expect your baby's reflux to be as bad then as it is now. I was actually unable to breastfeed and ended up thickening their bottles per recommendation of the doctor, and that helped a lot, because the more solids they have in the their tummy the better it stays down.

Don't worry that he is not loving eating yet, some babies take more time than others. My son who is just about 6 months now (will be 7 months when we go) is not loving eating baby food yet either. Even if he is not eating a lot by then he will likely be sitting up and that makes a difference too.

As far as bringing your own baby food. We brought our own, but we don't make our own. I'm not sure how homemade baby food stores, but if it would be easy to store I would do that, otherwise bring some jar food with your or get it from a local store. You could get it at Disney, but you will pay more.

 

[Cinderellabride]

Had a major reflux baby and solids did help.
Don't forget to carry extra cloths for you into the park as well as you little one.

However at 7 mo, he really did not eat a lot of solids. Ceral helped. AVOID high staining food at all cost. Can you say blueberry stains in the carpet!

Really, even though solids do help, we had a lot of major messes, so you may want to limit the food choices to ceral, apple sauce etc while in the parks.

All good points. I would add bring changes of clothes for you and the baby. With my first we actually used baby blankets as spit up rags because of how much he spit up.

 

[dumbo_buddy]

thank you thank you thank you!!

i will definitely bring extra clothing for all of us. i usually wear about 4 shirts a day now and ds gets changed a million times a day!!

i think we will just do jarred baby food as bringing homemade from home will be a pain to transport.

at 7 months, can babies eat those puffs? they don't choke? what can you put in a mesh feeder?

also, where is the best place to get disposable bibs, etc??

thank you all. it's nice to hear from others that have dealt with reflux. and great to hear that it gets better!

 

[DisneyCowgirl]

We had what the doctor called a "happy spitter"--threw up at almost every bottle feeding without any sign of discomfort. Took him to Disney anyway!

It got better and better, so I'd be hopeful that at 7 months yours will be a lot better too.

Instead of disposable bibs, try this--get two binder clips and tie them to the ends of a piece of ribbon. Use the clips to clip a napkin from the restaurant on like a bib.

Once they are sitting up and making chewing-type motions, those puff things work great. The dissolve and mush up in their mouths.

 

[dumbo_buddy]

Instead of disposable bibs, try this--get two binder clips and tie them to the ends of a piece of ribbon. Use the clips to clip a napkin from the restaurant on like a bib.

great idea! DH and i were just talking about how we should come up with a way to stick the burp clothes around him since bibs are worthless for the amount of spit up that comes out!

 

[Cedarmom]

I have a just turned 8 month old.

Just wanted to add to the chorus of 'the spitting should be better by then'. She threw up all.the.time up until about 5 months and then it just kind of went away. I realized one day that it had been a week since we'd given her the reflux meds, and we never looked back.

In the last few weeks, dd has started eating the puffs and cheerios. She also likes Baby MumMums. Those really dissolve easily if puffs are too much for your ds by the time you leave for the trip. Actually, the mummums got her over the gag reflex and allowed her to start eating her cereal/veggie/fruits without throwing up.

Good luck! I'm sure you'll have a wonderful trip.

 

[2binak]

great idea! DH and i were just talking about how we should come up with a way to stick the burp clothes around him since bibs are worthless for the amount of spit up that comes out!

Have you tried the bibs that have pockets at the bottom? DD spit up quite a bit when she was an infant. She didn't have reflux so maybe she was a "happy spitter" too. Anyway, the spit up would just run down the bib and onto her and us so the bibs were quite useless. I realized after her spit up days were over and she was on to table food, that we should have just used the bibs with a pocket. We now use Bumkins bibs to catch all of the food that doesn't make it into her mouth. They're lightweight & machine washable.

DD started eating puffies at 7 months old. She started on baby food at 6 months & table food at 10 months. The puffies dissolve in their mouths so there's not much chewing really involved.

The disposable bibs have pockets and can be bought at WalMart, Target or BRU.

 

[MommytoaSweetie]

Our second is currently almost 8 months and she's a huge fan of food! She'll eat purees I make (or jarred if we're out), but definitely prefers "real" food. We started baby food at 6 months and by 6.5 months she was loving puffs, cheerios, biter biscuits, soft cooked pieces of fruit like pears or banana pieces, avocado pieces, etc. At almost 8 months, we've added toast, bagels, rice cakes, pieces of bread, etc. She loves chewing on something she can hold while we're feeding her the puree. Anyway, my point is that it depends on the kid how much they'll want to eat but I'm sure you'll know what to bring when the time comes to pack. For me, I'd load up on puffs and cheerios - we set out a few on a disposable placemat or Tiny Diner (our favorite) and mealtime can start with more peace. Our oldest was on table food exclusively at 9 mos and I'm thinking our second will follow suit, and THAT makes things so much easier!!

 

[thebeesknees]

I used the mesh feeders and my son loved them. You can put almost anything in them. We did bananas, cooked carrots, apples, etc. The mesh is so small that even the apples did not pose a choking hazard because he gummed it and basically "vampired" it. All that would be left was this shriveled up stuff because he would suck all the juice out of it! Kept him busy while the rest of us were eating, too. The gerber puffs are great, too. They dissolve much easier than cheerios, so we actually used those first until he got used to chewing a bit more.

 

[dumbo_buddy]

can babies eat the puffs if they don't have teeth yet?

(can you tell i'm a first time mom??)

 

[thebeesknees]

Yup - those little gums are hard!