We are doing Earth’s Best rice cereal and baby food along with Gerber baby food. They are all organic and all available at the good old SuperTarget. I have found the organic food to be pretty reasonably priced. I considered making my own but the regulations on baby food are super strict and since we are going organic I figure we’re good. Who really has the time to make their own? Not me. More power to you if you do, but I’d rather spend that time with my little peanut any day.

Mind, this was before having much affordable organic stuff and I was really nervous about just what got put into their systems. The bonus was, both my kids were really into how actual food tastes versus the whole processed/sodium/nitrate/fructose bombs that almost anything was at the time.

Oh, I don’t know if baby docs point this out now but don’t give him grapes/blueberries/apple skins at all until he’s got most of his chewing teeth.

As for foodI highly recommend the Earth’s Best brand. It does cost more but if you compare the labels the nutrition is much, MUCH better than any of the regular name brands, plus it’s organic and all that jazz. Lydia almost never ate an entire jar in one meal so they ended up being close to what the others cost. In Austin I could get it at a few grocery stores, now that I am in Madison there were only a couple that carry it (she is all table food now though) so you might have to get it at Whole Foods where you are. Other than that table foods are great and encourage you to eat better as well, just squish and let fly. Just stay away from the big no no’s (honey, nuts, etc…) and wait 3 days before introducing each new food the first time. I would also avoid anything that you or your husband are allergic to for a while just in case. We go with the what she eats she eats and what she doesn’t she must not need right now theory, as long as she has a good variety offered every day. Try not to get into a rut early. Keep trying out new things and also repeating things he ignored before. He’s not ready now but frozen fruits and veggies are the BEST once he is. I don’t even thaw the peaches or blueberries, and if we get the little wild blueberries I don’t even have to cut them up.

I could talk about this shiz all day. Hope I helped.

We just switched to a regular rear facing car seat from target. She doesn’t fit that well, and the older one didn’t either at first but they get used to it and learn to fill it better.

I’d be more concerned about the 22 pound limit for rear-facing. They’ve got to be rear-facing until they’re at least a year old, regardless of weight, so I’d be worried that he’d be over the 22 lb limit before he turned a year old.

Also, FYI, a 40 lb toddler can go in a backless booster seat w/ a regular seatbelt. And those things are cheapo - like, twenty bucks. So whatever you get now is probably going to be your last big car seat expense.

I wonder how long that’ll be…

RE: the car seat, those Britax ones do look nice. The big thing for us has been the usefulness/utility of the latches on our car seats — we’ve had to take them out and re-install them a dozen times or so (transferring to grandparents’ cars, taking them out so that they could go with the kids on field trips at daycare, that kind of thing) and for at least one of them, I wish we could have played with the straps before we bought it, just to see how easy it would be to manipulate. Eventually, you won’t be able to do all the strapping-in in the warmth of the house, you’ll have to do it in the car when it’s freezing cold and the kid is squirming under you and not cooperating with the whole strap-in process. Don’t know how to really test for that beforehand, but at least be thinking about it when you check out the seats…

He’s a real cutie, btw.

No advice on the food, other than the obvious, which is keep offering even if he doesn’t seem to like it. It takes a bajillion tries, and those babies is fickle, so… yeah. And I’m all for grown up food, mashed up. I’m pretty sure that kids who only eat chicken nuggets and hot dogs are mostly a result of parents who only offer chicken nuggets and hot dogs. The Bug is fickle, but eats a surprisingly varied array of foods for a child with such picky (non-cooking) parents.

Re: the car seat: The height limit is sort of iffy. Really, he has outgrown the seat when the top of his head is within an inch of the top of the shell. Legs hanging over the bottom is not a safety issue. So if HL has long legs and a stubby torso, he could be okay for a while yet.

As far as a new car seat, yes, we love our Britax. They’re not cheap, but I think they’re worth it. You’ll want a convertible, since HL will have to face the rear until he’s at least a year old. We have the Marathon, which is good rear facing up to 35 lbs and forward facing up to 65 lbs (The Bug is likely to outgrow it height-wise long before he reaches the weight limit).

The Marathon is a bit big, though…

My SIL swears by the Alpha Omega, which will take you all the way from rear facing infant through forward facing infant and on to a belt-positioning booster for a kid 40-100 lbs.

And if it had been an option when I was shopping two years ago, I’d have taken a good look at the Combi Zeus Turn. 360 degree rotation without having to remove/reposition the base? Woo hoo! And I’ve heard good things about Combi car seats. Uh-oh - rear facing only to 22 lbs? What are they thinking?