Eating is hard work!

I'm sure I've mentioned before that Hannah seems to get overwhelmed if I put more than about four pieces of food on her tray at any one time - well, unless they're cheerios. I tested this yesterday to see if it was still the case, and it is. I was fishing quite a lot of food off the floor, as she reduces her food choices by the simple method of sweeping her arm across the tray so it ends up going overboard.


Breakfast yesterday was a brief return to cheerios, and today she had shredded wheat bitesize. We briefly tried using a spoon with the cheerios, but Hannah didn't seem to have made the mental connections that let her use the spoon. Never mind, something to try again in a month or two.


Lunch yesterday was pasta, mixed with double cream, grated cheese and baco bits to turn it into a homemade carbonara. Hannah didn't eat much of the pasta, but she did manage a few bits, and sucked the sauce off the rest. For afters she ate one and a half slices of melon.

As you can see, pasta can be a bit slippy and needs a lot of concentration:

Sometimes eating is too much like hard work and you need a rest:

But there's always room for pudding!:

For dinner yesterday she ate a slice of eggy bread. Egg generally is a bit hit and miss, sometimes she'll really go for it, others she'll ignore it completely. Yesterday was a hit day, so she ate nearly all of the eggy bread.


Today's lunch was a couple of oatcakes with lentil pate on, a couple of breadsticks, some halved cherry tomatoes, with tinned apricot halves and a rusk for pudding. Hannah ignored the breadsticks completely, ate the oatcakes, ate some of the tomato and sucked the insides out of the bits that she didn't eat. She didn't do so well with the pudding - half the rusk was left, and one of the two apricot halves as well.


Dinner was a slice of cheese on toast, with a raspberry fromage frais and another tinned apricot half. Although Hannah ate a bit of the toast, mostly she removed the cheese from the toast and just ate that. The fromage frais was as popular as ever, she wiggles her arms and legs and squeaks loudly when she sees the spoon coming towards her. And opens her mouth and grabs at the spoon with both hands - impatient little madam! She's got much better in the last week or so at actually getting all the fromage frais off the spoon, she's worked out that she needs to tip the spoon slightly to get to the stuff in its bowl. But hasn't worked out that she needs to give the spoon back to me in order to get any more - throwing it on the floor and banging her fists on the tray for more definitely slows things down.

Melon Madness!

Today's breakfast was a twist on bitesize shredded wheat - I gave Hannah some of the asda cranberry filled ones instead. She seemed quite surprised when she first bit into one, but swiftly polished off the lot.

I made a one-egg cheese omelette for lunch, and chopped up some melon for pudding. Hannah did really well with the omelette, and ate not one, but two whole slices of melon. And had a fair amount of water from her sippy cup, too.

For dinner there was a vegetarian sausage roll, and some pieces of dried fruit. She's not tried dried fruit before, and judging by the expression on her face you'd have thought I was poisoning her. She ate a bit of the dried peach, chewed it, pulled a face but swallowed it anyway, and repeated the whole thing all over again. Many times. She didn't like the dried apricots at all, even though they were the really nice juicy ones, so I don't think I'll bother giving her those again for quite some time.

Update on bibs, milk feeds, and meals

It was shredded wheat bitesize for breakfast again today, and I've remembered why I was such a fan of cheerios to begin with. They're much, much tidier than anything else we've tried! Shredded wheat has the unfortunate ability to set like concrete once discarded, so if I miss a bit during the post-meal clean up, I regret it later. And yes, Hannah did manage to discard a fair amount of the cereal during the meal although she did eat a fair amount too.

Post-playgroup lunch was a vegetable casserole, with carrot, parsnip, sweet potato, potato, onion and leek in. And it came with a dumpling, too, which Hannah took one bite of then threw on the floor. Oh well, I liked them anyway! She didn't eat very much at all, as our timetable was a bit out and she should really have been napping, not eating.

Dinner was a cream cheese and raspberry jam sandwich, and a banana. Apparently Hannah doesn't want curly hair, she consistently refuses to eat the crusts on her bread. She did diligently lick all the cream cheese and jam off before discarding them, though.

Over the past few days she's dropped one of her four milk feeds, too. I still feed her first thing in the morning, but I decided to wait until she actually "asked" for the mid-morning feed (by screaming, naturally!). Except she never asked for it. So I served her lunch as normal at around noon, she happily ate that and went for her post-prandial snooze. That's been the case for the past three days, so I can't really see that feed being reinstated. To be honest she probably could do without the mid-afternoon feed, too, as she never asks for that one until she notices me getting ready for it - but I'm not quite ready to test that just yet... :o)

Oh, and before I forget (again), an update on our BLW equipment. Hannah, it turns out, is hard on bibs, and she's worn out the first two "painting apron" bibs we got from the ELC. Over time, the plastic they were made of hardened and became brittle, and eventually split. So she's now sporting a variety of long sleeved bibs from Matalan and Mothercare. Two of them are Christmas themed, but we figure she's too young yet to realise that it's not Christmas any more! These bibs are fabric rather than plastic, and while they won't go brittle and crack, they also need washing VERY regularly. At most they last for two meals before going in the washer. So not as convenient from my point of view in terms of keeping them clean, but they still do a good job, although the branches on the one shaped like a Christmas tree can be a bit impractical!

Nutty about Fruit

Breakfast today was en famille, and Hannah ate bitesize shredded wheat. I also gave her one of my asda cranberry wheats, and after tasting it she tried to find the cranberry in all of her (cranberry free) shredded wheats. Is that mean???

For lunch she had about half a ton of fruit. There were two slices of galia melon, a (tinned) pear, and a banana. As well as this fruit extravaganza there were two or three yogurt covered pecan nuts. It was the first time we've given her nuts, and we weren't sure how she'd get on, but she managed just fine. Mind you, mostly she just sucked all the yogurt covering off the nuts and discarded them. It was just like toast all over again :oD

Dinner was a slice of beans on toast, another pear, and a rusk. She ate the lot, and drank a lot of the water in her sippy cup too. All in all it's been a very good day indeed - we'll have to see what tomorrow brings.

Stretchy food fascination

Family breakfast was cheerios for Hannah again, plus a tiny bit of my innocent strawberry and banana smoothie. I gave it to her out of my glass, the first time I've tried cup-feeding her. The cup-feeding itself worked pretty well, but she pulled a bit of a face at the taste, although then went back for more. She didn't even dribble *all* of it straight down her chin, either. So yay!

For lunch we all had mediterranean quorn. Well, that's what I call it anyway. It's a couple of courgettes, sliced into an oven proof dish, then quorn fillets sliced and filled with slices of mozzerella, put on top of the courgettes, then covered with a mixture of chopped tomatoes, garlic, tomato puree, and tomato & mascarpone pasta sauce, then bunged in the oven for about 40 minutes. It was Hannah's first experience of stretchy food (the mozzerella) and she was fascinated.

She stretched out the cheese a few times, and always seemed surprised when it broke. For pudding she ate an apricot fromage frais.

Dinner was a couple of oatcakes with boursin, two halves of tinned pear, and a banana. She ate all of it with gusto, although I didn't see it as Neil was in charge.

Friday's Girl doesn't like naps

Well yesterday Hannah basically didn't nap at all during the day - she managed 1 hour in total, so that had an effect on her eating from lunchtime onwards.

Breakfast was a normal portion of cheerios, which she disposed of very quickly (just as well, as we had to get out of the house). For lunch she ate half of a cream cheese sandwich - only half because she was sharing with William - at a local cafe. She also had a few bits out of my side salad, mainly slices of cucumber. Shortly after lunch we went to the soft play session at the leisure centre, where Hannah proceded to bounce on the bouncy castle, and attempt to crawl up the slide for another go once I'd let her on it once. So a good job she didn't eat *too* much, else I'm sure there would have been consequences!

Dinner was a plain quorn fillet, which she ate sat on my knee in the living room (bad mummy!). She was quite a fan of the quorn, and ate most of it, despite being so tired. Then it was straight to bed, and I think she fell asleep before her head hit the cot.

Catching up (again)

I don't seem to have stopped to draw breath yet this week, which is why my blogging has had rather shoddy timekeeping. Hopefully we'll get back on track in the near future :o)

On Wednesday Hannah had half shredded wheat bitesize, half cheerios for breakfast, yesterday she ate cheerios alone. Both went down well, she seems to be eating ever increasing amounts of whatever we give her.

Lunches have been scrambled egg on toast yesterday, as we were out in Orpington. She liked the toast, but didn't eat the egg at all really - frankly it tasted rather insipid so I don't blame her! On Wednesday she had half an apple mullerrice, a corn thin with cream cheese, and some other bits and pieces that I've now forgotton - perhaps I should get a little notebook or something to record this stuff in!

Dinners have been beans on toast yesterday, with the other half of her mullerrice from Wednesday, and, erm, a rapidly failing memory on Wednesday. That notebook does look like a good idea. I remember that I offered her a bit of a lychee, which she did actually quite like, but have no idea what else she ate.

Sorry for the poor reporting, I think my school report would say "should do better",

No, I'm not starving her...

To all concerned aunties and suchlike, just because I didn't get round to updating this yesterday doesn't mean that Hannah's had nothing to eat since Monday. Yes, Jo, I mean you.

So now that that's sorted, we can get down to business. Hannah had a bowl of shredded wheat fruitful for breakfast, with not much fruit in it (I think we've already eaten it all), and got on very well with them again. She seems to find them less frustrating that cheerios, presumably because she gets a bigger mouthful of food for the same effort. It must be annoying only being able to eat cheerios one at a time, they're so small you'd burn off about as many calories getting them to your mouth as you'd get from eating them!

Lunch was roast potatoes, carrot and parsnip again, and the conclusion on parsnip is definitely a "not fussed", whereas roast potatoes almost all got eaten, crunchy bits and all. She had a banana for pudding and again ate all of it, managing very well with the whole fruit all at once. So I think our days of cutting up banana are definitely over.

Tea was more of a snack-y meal, being a slice of toast with cream cheese spread on it, half an apple flavoured mullerrice, half a fresh apricot, and some seedless grapes. I should have known better than to buy fresh apricots at this time of year, Hannah pulled a face when she tried it, so I ate half of it and it was horrible! Really sour and nasty. So unsurprisingly she didn't really eat much of that at all. The grapes were hit and miss, Hannah was getting quite tired by the time we got round to those, and while she ate some of them, others were basically ignored. The toast, like always, she sucked the topping off and left most of - although we are making progress, a little of the bread did go down.

A funny old day

Hannah only managed two meals today, we've been so busy chasing around that we didn't have time to fit a third in. She also had all of half an hour's nap all day, so was in danger of falling asleep in her roast dinner this evening.

Breakfast today was a reappearance of shredded wheat fruitful. I gave her quite a bit, about 20 or so of the little shredded wheats, and she ate the lot in short order! Even when I took her out of the high chair and cleaned it up there were no leftovers in evidence.

Lunch just wasn't, although she had an extra feed instead. And dinner was a roast, which Neil and I ate last night and Hannah had today. She loved the roasties (sensible girl), and also ate the carrot fairly eagerly. Parsnip she wasn't so fussed about though. It's not the first time she's ignored or virtually ignored parsnip, it definitely seems like she's showing a preference for not bothering eating it. She also ate a banana for pudding, the first time I've given her a whole peeled banana without cutting it in half or anything. She managed fine with it, and scoffed the lot with no leftovers again.

She's still sniffling too, although not so badly as at the weekend - although that could just be wishful thinking. It does make her quite unsettled though, and I'm not sure whether her napping variations and so on are down to that or the fact that she's rapidly getting bigger and doesn't need so much daytime sleep. I suppose time will tell...

Cheerios, couscous and corn thins

In a shock move, Hannah didn't have just cheerios for her breakfast today. Yes, it's true! She ate some of the cheerios, but seemed to be hungry still so we gave her a few bits of shredded wheat fruitful. She really liked them, and concentrated on those rather than the cheerios left on her tray. So perhaps we'll be branching out from the relentless diet of cheerios, who knows?!

For lunch she tried something new, couscous. It was mixed with some chopped avocado, peas, and a serving of lentil pate to try and make it more sticky. She liked the taste and texture of it, but had considerable trouble getting it into her mouth. We eventually reverted to loading a spoon for her, which was somewhat more successful but she still didn't eat a huge amount.

Dinner was a couple of corn thins spread with lentil pate, a rusk, and half a banana. She ate the lot, I've never seen her eat so much of it and we were really surprised not to find huge chunks of it in her lap when we cleaned her up. In fact when she'd finished all of that, she was busily bashing her hands on the tray demanding more food, so we topped her up with a raspberry fromage frais as well - which she ate all of again.

The upshot of a huge dinner was that she didn't really want all of her feed before bed, at least not all at once - I split it into two, as it was expressed with medised added so I wanted to get it down her! Hannah's also not asking for feeds during the day so regularly either, and for the moment I'm going with the flow. She's still getting all four feeds, but not at regular times any more.

Sniffles again :o(

Well, as of lunchtime today, Hannah has the sniffles again. She's been sniffle free for all of a week or so, it's just not on frankly. Anyway we battle on regardless, and good old medised helps.

So breakfast today was cheerios, presided over by Neil (I stayed in bed a bit longer :o) ). He tells me that Hannah ate loads, even the ones that were turned up during the clean up caught in her bib or on the high chair.

Lunch was pasta with mushrooms and a creamy tomato sauce, which we all ate, plus half a pear that was left from the tin of them I opened the other day. Hannah's pasta had a veggie lincolnshire sausage cut up in it too, as we'd saved it for her out of our dinner last night. She ate loads again, and seemed to find the pasta spirals very interesting at least in terms of texture. She got on lots better with the spirals than she did with the pasta tubes, which is what she's eaten before. I did have to fish a bit of the mushroom out of her ear at one point, she was diligent in smearing herself with the sauce, as you can see:

For dinner she just had a slice of cheese on toast and a clementine. She didn't really go for the clementine much, but did very well with the cheese on toast. For the first time we saw her actually bite small pieces of toast off and chew them - she didn't even spit all of them back out again! She definitely seems to like more flavoured cheeses too, today's was cathedral city.

Veggies and Pears

Argh, double update again, will try to get better about that! Anyway, two days of cheerios for breakfast again, no signs of Hannah getting bored of them, although I'm starting too. She is getting faster at eating her breakfast, she's gone from taking over half an hour to taking between 15-20 minutes.

Lunch yesterday was all of one breadstick, she wasn't interested in the cream cheese sandwich or the rusk which were also on offer. We were round at a friends for coffee and biscuits and I think she was rather distracted by all the other babies. Today, lunch was very late and she had peas, carrot, parsnip and sweet potato. The peas went down well but she wasn't all that fussed by the other veggies on offer, and mainly threw them on the floor.

Tea yesterday was a quorn fillet with carrot, parsnip, and sweet potato. She ate all of the quorn fillet, and not a huge amount of the veggies again. I don't know what's put her off her veg, time was that she'd go for any veg in a big way. To follow her quorn fillet she ate some tinned pear halves - two pears worth, so as you can tell they were pretty popular. I quite like giving her tinned fruit as it's so much softer than raw fruit - at least for things like pear - and she does seem to get on better and eat more of the tinned stuff. Plus things like peaches are out of season anyway, so I prefer getting them tinned.

Tea today was precisely nothing, she slept through it! I was planning on feeding her at 5.30 ish after her short nap, but at 6pm she was still asleep so I had to go and wake her up, then we were straight into the bedtime routine anyway (she didn't want to get up when I fetched her, either!).

So hopefully tomorrow we'll be back to normal service, two days of effectively just two meals must have short changed her in terms of calories, even though she slept through anyway and didn't seem to want extra milk. Oh, apart from today at about 1pm she did have an extra feed of about 150ml/5oz of expressed milk.

Casserole is messy!

Double update today, since I didn't get round to writing anything yesterday. Hannah breakfasted on cheerios, of course, and seems to be eating more and more of them. I think I need to find something else to give her along with her daily cheerio ration, this morning she was busy bashing her hands on the tray when they'd all gone. Normally that signal means I'm not providing food quickly enough for her liking.

For lunch yesterday, she had a couple of corn thins with cream cheese on. There was also a rusk, a raspberry flavour fromage frais, some tomato and cucumber. Today, she had two falafel served in half a pitta bread with copious amounts of cucumber minty yogurt sauce. She LOVED the yogurt stuff, and I ended up scooping more of it up with the pitta bread, and she actually ate a remarkable amount of the pitta bread, too. Wonders will never cease!

And to prove I'm not telling fibs about her prowess with a sippy cup, here she is showing off and using it one handed:

Dinner yesterday was vegetable casserole, which turns out to be quite messy to eat. Hannah did quite well with it, and seemed to prefer the juice that the casserole came in rather than the vegetables it actually contained. Some pieces of veg she just sucked clean and then ignored, but at least some of them did go down.

Today, I gave her a lentil pate and cream cheese sandwich, plus a fruit and yogurt digestive biscuit. Dinner was a rather rushed affair, as we'd been out for the afternoon and were later than planned getting back, so a bit short on time. But Hannah seemed to enjoy herself anyway, and judging by the amount of sandwich filling she managed to smear all over herself, she's angling for a bath in the near future :o)

Just Peachy

Cheerios for breakfast again today, followed by a lunch of corn thins with cream cheese and lentil pate, some cucumber fingers, and some tinned peach slices. I only gave her three peach slices to start with, but rapidly had to fetch more to stop her banging her fists on the tray repeatedly. She also had a fair amount of water to drink, out of her sippy cup.

Hannah's getting lots better at using her sippy cup, and I usually leave it on the corner of her tray during a meal now rather than give it to her once she's finished eating or if she seems to need it. She doesn't even fling it on the floor after she's finished with it now, which has to be a step forward! I've also noticed that she's much more aware of dropping things, for example if something ends up on her lap she will try to pick it up herself (assuming she wants it, anyway). It makes the clean-up operation slightly easier, as there's fewer lumps of food to catch.

Her tea today was a hard boiled egg, some slices of avocado, and a slice of toast with cream cheese and avocado spread on it, plus a rusk and more water to drink. She did her normal trick with the toast, mainly sucking the topping off and leaving the toast. It was the first time I've given her boiled egg, although she's had egg before in other things, and to be honest she wasn't very impressed with it, not much of it got eaten.

Oh, and one last thing that I noticed Hannah doing today: when food falls out of her mouth, she doesn't always use her hands to push it back in. Sometimes, she leans forward as if she's trying to catch it up and overtake it. I haven't noticed that technique having much success so far though!

What a Falafel

Not a bad day today, all things considered. Teeth definitely not a problem any more (well, for the moment at least), so Hannah's been scoffing whatever we've put in front of her. So for breakfast there was a great big bowl of cheerios, with about 1/2 oz of formula on as the full fat milk has gone off (oops).

Lunch was two corn cakes with cream cheese and lentil pate on, a few chickpeas, some cucumber sticks, and some halved cherry tomatoes. Oh, and a breadstick. She wasn't all that interested in the cucumber, sucked the insides out of the tomato but left the flesh, sucked all the pate and cream cheese off the corn thins, and went for the chickpeas in a big way. The chickpeas she picked up, placed in her mouth, mushed around a bit then spat out the skin. I never realised that chickpeas had what you might call a skin, but Hannah certainly thought there was, and she wasn't having any of it thank you very much.

For tea, I made her some falafel. The recipe was from Carol Timperley's Baby and Child Vegetarian Recipes, and worked pretty well although I found the pre-cooked texture rather runny so bunged in a bit of plain flour to stiffen it up. They tasted fab though, and I served them in halved toasted pitta bread with a yogurt, cucumber and mint dressing. In fact we all ate them - here's a pic of Neil and Hannah tucking in, as proof!:

Baked sweet potato and philly

Thankfully the teething seems over with for the moment, although I've discovered that Hannah's teeth are remarkably sharp and you really don't want your fingers anywhere near her mouth if you can avoid it.

Breakfast today was once again a bowl of cheerios, with full fat milk on. Must try a different cereal next time we buy some, even I'm getting bored of cheerios, and I don't eat them every day!

For lunch I baked a sweet potato, then scooped out the flesh from it and mixed half of it with some philly cheese, the other half with philly and beans. Then I placed it back into the potato skins and gave it Hannah. She seemed to love it, as you can see here:

She followed the sweet potato (of which she ate precisely no skin, naturally) with a raspberry fromage frais, and by the way she was smacking her forearms on the tray while the spoon was loaded for her, liked it a fair bit.

She didn't really get tea today, as we were out, but she did enjoy sharing my slice of carrot cake. I decided the icing would be bad for her, so I selflessly ate all that myself, but she didn't seem bothered :o)

New tastes with new teeth

Yesterday (Friday) turned out to be a bit strange in terms of weaning. Breakfast was, as usual, fine and plenty of cheerios went down the hatch. But later, Hannah woke rather early from her morning nap, and seemed a bit fractious.

Her lunch was a spinach and ricotta sausage, served with some steamed carrot and parsnip. However she ate precisely none of it - possibly a minute amount of the sausage got eaten, but most of it was left on the plate/tray/floor. She wasn't interested in her sippy cup, didn't really want a breastfeed, although she did crawl over to my glider chair and chew on the wooden glider bits that go across the width of it. Perhaps that should have been my clue? When I had a quick feel in her mouth, having eliminated all other suspects, I discovered a new tooth at the top! Not one of the middle ones, but the next ones out. And by the time Neil got home from work, it had a friend, so Hannah now has four teeth, that don't meet up - oh well! Hopefully the two middle top ones will turn up soon.

I guess the teeth errupting made the different to her appetite, as by tea time she seemed ravenous, and put away an entire portion of quorn korma, bar a bit of sauce that she couldn't really pick up. The korma had sliced onions, sultanas and chick peas in as well as a quorn fillet (or most of one, I think there was only about 2/3 of it in there). So a significant quantity of food to end the day with.

Oh, and the other new taste she tried was chicken flavour cat biscuits. Hmm. I caught her red-handed while I was getting her breakfast ready in the kitchen. Having left her on the living room rug, I peeked round the door to see what she was up to and found she'd crawled over to the cats bowls and was helping herself to the Whiskas biscuits. I guess she just couldn't wait... :o)

We've moved the cat food out of the living room now, by the way.

A busy couple of days

The last couple of days have been busy busy busy and I'm only just getting round to updating you on what Hannah's been munching on, sorry! You probably already guessed that she had cheerios for breakfast though, on both days. I weighed them again, as I was pretty sure she's now eating a fair amount more of them than when we first started serving them. I was right, too - she's actually getting through double her original portion, it's now up to about 10g. And judging by the way she's looking for leftovers at the end of breakfast, it might even be time to up the quantity again. I need to learn what the makaton sign for "more" is, so I can use that one with her as well as food, drink, and finished/all gone.

Yesterday's lunch was in a cafe during our shopping trip. I'd taken a packed lunch for Hannah consisting of a cream cheese sandwich, a breadstick, a rusk and some raisins. The little ingrate ignored her sandwich and instead ended up eating the breadstick, rusk and raisins, and half of my toasted teacake, which she absolutely loved. She also worked out how to operate the cafe high chair, which was on wheels. She quickly discovered that kicking her legs out in front of her meant that she skated backwards across the floor, and spent most of the meal doing that. Fortunately she didn't have enough power to go very far, so I wasn't chasing her down or anything - I'm sure it's only a matter of time though :o)

Today's lunch was not much at all - we were out again, this time at the health centre, so I picked up some Fruitina fruit puree strips to keep her going until we got home. She did really well with them, and ate half an apple and strawberry one, and a whole apple and apricot flavour one. But by the time we got home, she was far too tired for anything else to eat, so we skipped straight onto her nap instead.

Yesterday's tea was the sandwich she didn't want at lunchtime (gosh but I'm a mean mummy!), she wolfed it down. I gave her a few more raisins too, she seems to really like them and manages to pick them up with no particular problem, something I wasn't sure she'd be able to do yet. Kids love to prove you wrong, don't they?!

For tea today Hannah ate eggy bread, served with a small squirt of tomato ketchup. It was the first time I'd offered her ketchup, and to be honest it's not something I plan on doing regularly. To begin with, the eggy bread was au naturale, and she showed no real interest in it other than to fling it on the floor. With the ketchup she was immediately more interested, perhaps because she hadn't seen it before, and merrily smeared it all over her face, the high chair, and even the eggy bread. In fact here's a piccy of her having fun with ketchup:

I'm still serving water with each meal in her sippy cup, and yesterday for the first time I left it on her high chair tray during the whole meal. And to my amazement she did pick it up, take a drink and put it back down on the tray several times during the meal. Up until now I've been offering it at the end of the meal, but now I'm leaving it available for the duration. Today she mainly flung it onto the floor rather than drank from it, contrary madam :o)

First raisins

Not much to report today really. Hannah had cheerios for breakfast again today (and so did I, turns out they taste quite nice!).

For lunch I cooked her some mushroom and ricotta tortellini, and she followed it with half a banana. I think she ate more of the pasta today than she managed last night, although she still mainly sucked the filling out and left the pasta itself.

Tea was a couple of oatcakes, one with cream cheese and one with lentil pate on, plus some cherry tomatoes, slices of avocado, and some raisins. It was the first time she's tried raisins, and even though they were pretty small she managed to get them down her really well. I did find a couple that escaped down her bib in the clean up operation, but that was all.

She passed!

Hannah had her 8 month check today, and I'm pleased to report that she passed. She now weighs 16lb 15oz, and is 69cm long. Her head is nearly 46cm round, and she showed off by pulling herself up to standing for the health visitor several times.

Breakfast was cheerios, lunch was a cream cheese and hummus sandwich, and tea was some mushroom and ricotta filled pasta with tomato and mascarpone sauce. All went down very well, although all meals were rather brief today as we were a bit short of time and never quite caught up with ourselves.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a bit more relaxed, we don't have any specific appointments to get to, so I'm hopeful!

Crumpet and omelette and other things

Hannah had cheerios for breakfast again today, and we ate all together as a family, which was lovely.

At lunchtime I made her a couple of buttered crumpets, some cherry tomatoes cut in half, some grapes also cut in half, half a banana, a rusk, and a fromage frais (a strawberry flavoured one). The crumpets were just as popular this time as the first time she tried them a few weeks ago. She also drank some well diluted juice out of her new sippy cup - we finally bought a replacement after leaving the original one at someone's house earlier this week.



For tea she ate some of a cheese and onion omelette and a cream cheese sandwich. She definitely seems to eat more bread when it's not been toasted though, strange child!

Still not a fan of cauliflower cheese

Today Hannah ate cheerios for breakfast, then had the cauliflower cheese that she didn't want yesterday for lunch, along with some grapes cut in half, a slice of melon in chunks, and half a portion of butterscotch angel delight.

She still isn't a fan of cauliflower cheese and didn't eat very much of it at all. The melon didn't seem to be ripe enough for Hannah to cope with easily, so she didn't pay it very much attention. Fortunately she loved the grape halves, and the angel delight too. The angel delight got a similar reaction as rice pudding did the other week, she dived for the spoon as we were attempting to hand it to her, and she made "num num" noises while she was eating it.

For tea, Hannah ate an oatcake with cream cheese on, another with lentil pate on, a breadstick, a clementine, and the remainder of lunchtime's angel delight. For the first time in ages Hannah gagged on some of the oatcake and hastily spat it out. She didn't seem remotely bothered by this, and carried on with the rest of her meal regardless.

Another first today, she only had half a breastfeed at 11am, and none at all at 3pm, so I gave her a sippy cup full of formula along with her tea to make sure she's getting enough milk. She actually drank most of it, I think the first time she's drunk significant amounts out of the sippy cup.

Cauli Cheese Rejection

Strange day all told. Breakfast was good, as it usually is - in fact Hannah was desperately trying to find additional cheerios to eat towards the end of the meal:

Lunch was a toasted pitta bread filled with grated cheese melted in, and a yog-fruit digestive. She did remarkably well with the pitta bread, and even ate a bit of the bread. Mostly, of course, she sucked the cheese out of the middle and discarded the bread wrapping. Hannah really liked the digestive, and I ended up giving her another half of one after she'd scoffed the first lot. I thought it might be a bit too crumbly for her to manage very well, but the yogurt topping kind of held it all together, which was useful.

I made her some cauliflower cheese for tea, but she didn't eat any of it, I'm not even sure that any of it made it into her mouth for a taste. She missed her late afternoon nap, and generally seemed to be a bit out of sorts, spending over an hour either grizzling or yelling. When I put her in the high chair she swiped the cauliflower cheese off the tray and just banged her fists on the tray until I took her back into the living room a few minutes later. She settled down OK at bedtime, and didn't wake for a dream feed, so I can only assume that she wasn't especially hungry yesterday.

Double whammy update

A double update today, as I missed yesterday due to being at a Spice Girls concert, yay!


For breakfast on both days Hannah had cheerios, and ate loads of them - I'm sure she's eating more every day. We've started placing the last few of them on the tip of our fingers for her to grab if she wants them, as there's one particular sort that goes really mushy and she can't get them. Her pincer grip is developing apace and is pretty good now - there's not much she can't get between her thumb and index finger these days.


Lunch yesterday was, well, forgettable - can't remember what I gave her! I think it was a couple of breadsticks and a sandwich with cream cheese in. I'm sure there was something else as well, but I don't know what it was! Today there were some Quorn Swedish Style Balls, which were also on the menu yesterday teatime, along with a quarter of a slice of my cheese on toast, and a rusk. Here's the start of lunch:

Here she is part way through lunch:

And now she's finished!

Tea today was a corn thin with cream cheese, a slice of melon, and three tinned peach halves. She's not tried peach halves before and she wolfed them down, so I'll pick up another tin of those when we go shopping next.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Happy New Year from all of us! Hannah saw in the New Year as it turned out, she woke up at about 11.30pm and seemed to be hungry, so we fed her, changed her, and by the time she was heading back to bed it had just gone midnight :o)

So anyway, onto food on 1 January 2008...Breakfast was the usual Cheerios but in formula milk due to a sudden lack of full fat cow juice.

For lunch she has 2 small slices of quiche and a cream cheese sandwich. Half the sandwich also had raspberry jam in, which seemed to go down well. It's only the second time she's tried untoasted sliced bread, I've been quite wary of it as I was told that the texture made it more difficult for babies to cope with than, for example, toast. But not only did Hannah cope admirably with it, she even ate a fair amount too! So unlike toast, sandwiches aren't considered mere disposable plates - hurrah! She also ate about 10 grapes cut in half, by chewing out the insides and leaving the skin.

We were out at tea time, visiting family, and Hannah ate some firsts - half an onion bhajee and some vegetable samosa. The samosa had a bit of a kick to it, but Hannah seemed to quite like it (it made me have a swift drink of something cool, apparently I'm a wuss!). She also had more grapes, a bit of carrot and a bit of parsnip.

Later on she shared tea and biscuits with Neil. She didn't have any tea, but had a couple of small chocolate biscuits that she liked. I'm noticing rather too much chocolate creeping into her diet though, but we've about eaten all our festive chocs and don't have any more family visits or days out planned just yet, so hopefully we can reign in the young chocoholic...

She's definitely starting to drop one or two breastfeeds, it's more often than not that the daytime feeds are either one side only, or very short. Morning and evening feeds are as normal, so I'll just keep an eye on things and try to make sure she's still getting enough milk - using formula or expressed milk on her cereal may become a standard thing.