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Boris started eating baby food recently. In the three years since Hamlet had it, it's become a lot more complicated.

Oh, not the food itself. That's still the same unpreserved goodness; there are even a few organic alternatives. Complicated is the question of whether to give baby food at all.

The idea is that, since breastmilk or formula is still the only real source of nourishment your baby should get for the first year of life, it's perfectly acceptable--and even preferable--to give him the same foods you're eating, within reason. Slightly overcooked rice, for instance. Lightly toasted bread. Or pieces of fruit in the Baby Safe Feeder. The idea: let him play with it, get used to the different textures and flavors as well as utensils. It's much more radical than the advice I got  for Hamlet: to puree our dinners in a baby food mill.

And yet so tempting. Hamlet is a picky eater. He loved baby food; it was the real thing he disliked. So Mommy guilt kicked in when other mothers, on a popular parenting forum I visit, suggested that "baby-led solids" could head off pickiness.

At the same time, I still have trouble with the idea of going the non-conventional route with Boris. He cluster feeds in the evenings; a solid dinner, one he eats rather than just plays with, seems to be a necessary part of the equation. And there remains the worry about choking, even on mushy rice or a too-large piece of gummed toast.

At any rate, I do need to brush up on when to start the different types of baby foods, and I intend to take it slow, at Boris's pace--he's my last baby, so I'm in no hurry for him to grow up!