Out to dinner with nothing to drink

Hannah had shredded wheat for breakfast again today, and finished off the last ones, so it's back to shreddies tomorrow. I'm sure she eats more for breakfast than I do, it's amazing!

She also ate tons at lunchtime. I made the pasta carbonara again, and I thought as I was giving the pasta spirals to her that they were disappearing very quickly. I assumed that a fair number were ending up on her lap or down by her sides in the highchair, so didn't really think anything of it. Only when I cleared up, I only found about a dozen or so pasta spirals that were discarded! She must have eaten the rest - including a couple of spoonfuls out of my serving.

Towards the end of the meal I decided to give her the bowl that the pasta was in. It only had a few pasta spirals in when I handed it over, which as it turned out was just as well. She's not really got the idea that not EVERYTHING that you give her during a meal is edible:


For pudding she ate two entire slices of melon, plus had a quick look at half a dozen grapes. The melon was much riper than the last one I gave her, I think that's why she didn't really go for the last one so much. This one had that lovely ripe (slightly overripe almost) smell to it, so I had a couple of slices too. Yum yum.

At dinnertime we were out (we went to Kidspace this afternoon, which was fab) and I'd only chucked a couple of packs of food in the changing bag as we left the house. An early entry into the bad mummy handbook? Anyway, so Hannah had apple rice cakes (about 4 or them) and an entire pack of organix crispy corn rings. She did like them, so seemed quite happy. I also forgot to pick up her sippy cup, so resorted to letting her drink out of my enormous (1 litre I think) bottle of water. I held it and tilted it for her, she knew exactly what to do with it and managed to get a drink from it far easier than I thought she would. Not perhaps was I'd planned for dinner, but it sufficed :o)

Superbaby!

Hannah ate shredded wheat bitesize for breakfast yesterday and today, and made good progress with them. I gave her a couple of my cranberry wheats (a Tesco version of them only filled with cranberry puree) and she liked those too - probably better than her own version to be honest!

Yesterday she had avocado slices and cream cheese in a sandwich for lunch - although she mainly tossed the avocado on the floor, licked the cream cheese off the bread then threw that away too (grrr!). She did devour the apricot fromage frais I gave her for pudding though, so I suppose it's a case of being thankful for small mercies.

Lunch today was preceded by a couple of apple flavoured rice cakes, which Hannah seems to really like. After that, she had a cream cheese and raspberry jam sandwich and a strawberry fromage frais. She did eat a bit of the sandwich, so better than yesterday. While eating her fromage frais though, she did develop the need to pretend to be Superbaby:

She spotted me eating a slice of cheese on toast mid-afternoon (a VERY late lunch!), and immediately made a beeline for me, clambered up my legs and shouted until I handed over half a slice of it, And being contrary, this time she ate all the bread as well as the cheese topping, and followed it up with a yogurt and fruit digestive biscuit.

For dinner yesterday Hannah ate some corn thins - one covered in cream cheese, and two with homemade hummus spread on them. Personally I wasn't all that taken with the hummus, but Hannah really liked it and ate loads of the stuff - just as well, I made plenty! The recipe was really easy, I'll try and post it up tomorrow. She also ate a banana for pudding - the first time she's managed to eat a banana for a week or two, she's been mostly ignoring them when offered.

Today, Hannah had a baked sweet potato, some more of that homemade hummus, and a strawberry fromage frais for afters. Oh, and a whole nectarine. She spent a lot of time chucking the potato and nectarine on the floor, but objected when she didn't get them back quickly enough, so I'm not quite sure what was going on. I assume she's starting to test my reactions to things - will have to work at ignoring her playing up, I think!

Finally, in other news, Hannah's cousin George had his first ever taste of solid food yesterday - he chomped away at a cucumber stick (also Hannah's first food), as you can see:

George isn't planning to make a regular appearance in the blog, but he might turn up as a special guest on occasion now he's started eating... :o)

Hoops a daisy!

Hannah woke up as normal today, but within an hour of getting up was yawning her head off, so after I fed her and got her dressed she went straight back to bed with no breakfast.

We went out to playgroup, and she had a breakfast of sorts while we were out and about, as well as her lunch. Between the two meals she ate a nectarine, some apple flavoured rice cakes, a few grapes, a breadstick, and a pack of saucy tomato organix crisps. Oh, and a gingerbread man too. She also drank most of her sippy cup full of water.

For dinner, we were back at home and I thought Hannah might be particularly hungry after the mixed meals earlier. So she had two slices of toast, covered with spaghetti hoops served up, and ate the lot! Yes, the entire half-size tin (at least all of it that didn't get splattered round the dining room...).

We have a photo of her just starting out on her meal:



And one part way through, she's decided that she definitely likes them:



And here she is trying to reach the plate to help herself to some more:

Eating together - what BLW's all about

We've eaten quite well this weekend, with lots of whole-family meals.



Breakfast on both days was shredded wheat bitesize, and she ate plenty of them. This morning, she finished off her bowl, then signed "more" - it's turning up more and more often, yay! So Neil (who was in charge of breakfast today) gave her a bit of his slice of toast, which she ate. Then she was bashing away at the tray (her normal way of telling us she wants more), so got basically a whole slice of toast as well as her shredded wheat. Some of the toast had marmite on, too.

For lunch on Saturday Hannah ate pizza and garlic bread, along with Neil and me. Shocking I know, and probably far too much salt in for a little girl, too. We let her try a slice of cheese pizza and one piece of garlic bread, and she really liked it:

She preferred the garlic bread though - probably no bad thing! If we share garlic bread with her again I'll make my own with unsalted butter, as I was very conscious that it probably wasn't all that suitable for her...

Today, she had some organix cheese and herb corn crisps and a cream cheese sandwich, plus some tinned peach halves. She didn't go a bundle on the sandwich and kept throwing it on the floor, but ate the crisps and the peach half.

Yesterday's dinner was quartered boiled egg, followed by a fruit salad mixed with fromage frais. The fruit salad included grapes, cherries, melon, peach and banana and once I'd chopped it all up I stirred a raspberry flavour fromage frais into it all. Hannah found it a bit slippy to handle, but she certainly enjoyed sucking the fromage frais off, and ate a fair amount of the fruit too.

For dinner today she had two breadsticks followed by a baked potato with grated emmental cheese, then she ate grapes and hazelnuts too. I didn't intend for her to have those, but Neil took them through for him to eat while she ate the potato. Hannah created until he shared them with her, and got on amazingly well with both - the grapes were rather tart and I didn't think she'd like them, and she'd never tried hazelnuts before. But apart from a minor surprised face at the taste of the grapes, there was no real reaction.

Accidentally dropped a feed

Yesterday was a bit of a mixed bag really. Breakfast consisted of shreddies, and as Neil was working from home we all ate together, which was nice.

For lunch I cooked some roast veggies, and again we all ate together. There was butternut squash, roast potatoes, and parsnips, served with a splash of lo salt gravy. For pudding, Hannah had a fromage frais again - a tesco one this time, which I thought tasted and smelled more strongly than the asda equivalent. It certainly seemed pinker (it was raspberry flavour). Hannah didn't mind the change at all, and swiftly ate the lot.



I took Hannah to the playground in the afternoon, with a friend and her little boy (she really liked the swings), after which we went to a local café. In the café Hannah ate 4, yes 4, vanilla wafer biscuits. They were basically identical to pink wafers, only italian and white rather than pink. I gave her the first one, turned round to have a swallow of my drink, and when I turned back all of 5 or 10 seconds later, there was no sign at all of the biscuit. I thought she'd dropped it, but on closer inspection it turned out that she'd eaten it all! She then did exactly the same with the next three, and would have carried on only I stopped giving them to her.

I was out yesterday evening so left Neil in charge of dinner, he served a slice of cheese on toast. Hannah ate about 2/3 of the slice, not bad considering she was pretty tired by that point. He also gave her two gingernut biscuits. Not ideal, as that takes her total biscuits for the day up to "far too many" and with a bit of luck and forward planning they won't be making another appearance for a few days at least.

In other news, as I said Hannah was tired during her dinner last night, and Neil got her ready for bed straight afterwards. I'd gone out, and in the slight confusion he forgot to give her the milk I'd left in the fridge. So she only had two milk feeds yesterday, rather than three. Oops! It didn't affect her sleeping through, thankfully, although she was ready for her breakfast feed slightly earlier than normal, and we'll be back to three again today.

Gnawing a (g)nectarine

Right, I'm finally getting round to updating things after the last few action-packed days. This post covers Wednesday and Thursday, yesterday's food will follow shortly...

So breakfast on both days was shreddies. And on Wednesday we experienced a major milestone! I've been using baby signing with Hannah for the past few months - since we started weaning really - and at the end of breakfast when I signed "finished", she responded with "more". I decided to make the most of it, and gave her a second (much smaller!) bowl of shreddies to reinforce the communication. And was so excited by what she'd done that I immediately phoned Neil to tell him! :o) She did the same thing on Thursday morning at breakfast too, so it doesn't seem to have been a one off. Now I'm keeping a close eye out for any other signs that show up.

On Wednesday, at lunchtime we were out and about, so it was a snack-y meal of what I'd chucked in the changing bag before we left the house. It included a gingernut biscuit (from the plate at the venue rather than one from home), then some organix cheese and herb corn crisps, a couple of breadsticks, some grapes and a gingerbread man. On Thursday she ate a cream cheese sandwich, some cherry tomatoes, some dried fruit and a whole nectarine. It was the first time she's had a piece of fruit whole, and I was amazed how well she did with it. It looked quite comical, as if an adult had been given an entire cantaloupe melon to eat like an apple, but was very effective.

On Wednesday, dinner was a courgette cooked in butter, some baked stuffed mushrooms, and followed by a banana and a fromage frais, but Hannah didn't really eat much of it at all (except the fromage frais, of course, and the filling from the mushrooms). And it looked so nice, too:

The courgette mostly got thrown on the floor, the banana got ignored. I really don't know why, as she hadn't eaten an enormous amount earlier in the day, and she should have been ready for something to eat! Perhaps the double breakfast was still filling her up.

For dinner on Thursday, Hannah ate some organix carrot crisps, a raspberry and apple flavour cereal bar, a gingerbread man, and a slice of cream cheese on toast. There was nothing spectacular to report at all really, so I'll end it there!

Keep smiling,

Cate.

Introducing snacks

Right, time for another update. We've been rather busy this week so they seem to be coming in pairs rather than daily - sorry about that!


For breakfast on both Monday and Tuesday, Hannah had Shreddies. She definitely likes them, goodness knows why, I think they're nasty! Clearly she has her own preferences. She gets through a significant amount of them, too - I weighed them on one day and there were 45g of them in the bowl, and not many left at the end of the meal. I'm sure that the recommended portion size is 30g, she's definitely got hollow legs!


Lunch on Monday was pasta with cream cheese and tomato sauce, cherry tomatoes cut into quarters, and a quorn "chicken" slice cut into pieces and all stirred together. I gave her a fromage frais for pudding, which was as popular as ever. Part way through the meal Hannah nicked the spoon I was using to get the pasta from the bowl to her tray, and as you can see she quite liked it!



Her lunch yesterday consisted of two spinach and rictotta sausages, half a pack of organix carrot crisp things, followed by half a nectarine. She did really well with the nectarine, and ate the majority of flesh while leaving the skin (yes, that's still happening!).

Dinner on Monday was a couple of oatcakes with boursin spread on them, 3 tinned peach halves, and a gingerbread man. She seemed to really like the oatcake and boursin combo, although it did make her smell rather garlicky afterwards! That improved after I found and removed the boursin she'd stashed behind one ear, though. Kids, eh?

Yesterday's dinner started with a couple of breadsticks that I gave Hannah while I was preparing the rest of her meal, to stop her shouting to tell me she would starving to death if I didn't get a move on. At least I assume that's what all the noise was about, it stopped once she had the breadsticks... I think it's going to be worth having something small to give her as a snack to munch on while I'm sorting out her dinner, if you've got any suggestions other than breadsticks then leave me a comment! Ideally not messy food, as she's generally stood holding on to the gate we've put across the door between the living room and kitchen so only has one hand to hold the food with.


To follow, she ate about half a courgette that I cooked in a little butter, the rest of the organix carrot crisps from earlier, a gingerbread man, and half a dozen grapes that I halved for her.

Quick note on breastfeeding too, while I remember. We're definitely winding down I think, Hannah consistently feeds three times a day, morning, mid-afternoon and before bed. The before bed feed is the one I express, and I've been noticing that the amount I can express is getting less and less. I've sometimes topped it up with some formula (aptamil first, fwiw) but the amount I top it up by always seems to get left - Hannah doesn't want it. So she's taking a significant amount less milk than even just a few weeks ago. I'll keep an eye on things and report back...

Quiet Sunday

Breakfast today was back to shredded wheats, Hannah ate a reasonable amount of them as normal.

For lunch we offered her some potato cakes, noughts and crosses crisps, and peas followed by a banana. The potato cakes were mashed potato mixed with a bit of grated cheese, formed into little cakes and fried gently so the outside is golden brown - which makes the mash not squish quite so much in Hannah's hands. She initially wasn't very interested in the peas, until Neil cunningly took some off her plate and ate them. This made Hannah immediately pounce on her own peas and eat some, but she couldn't really pick many up at once, so she got bored of them fairly quickly. The banana didn't get much attention either, she only managed around a quarter of it before giving up.

Dinner was a slice of cheese on toast cut into triangles, a slice of melon, halved cherry tomatoes, plus two gingernut biscuits. The triangles of cheese on toast were good, she seemed to like the fact that there was only one side with crust on. She devoured the gingernuts, somewhat unexpectedly as Neil wasn't sure she'd like them because of the strong ginger flavour. In fact she liked them better than the melon, which only got half eaten.

I didn't get a photo of her today, because Neil did her meals, so here's a random pic of her in her new dress sent down by Grandma:

Cherries, cashew nuts and other things

Friday:

In a break with tradition, Hannah had shreddies for breakfast. I naively thought they were just wheat with nothing added, but it turns out they've got sugar and other things in too. So they won't be making a terribly regular appearance on the breakfast table even if they make a nice change from cheerios and shredded wheat. Hannah certainly thought they made a nice change, she ate absolutely tons of them.

For lunch she had an organix gingerbread man, some saucy tomato noughts and crosses (corn crisps), a couple of breadsticks and some halved cherry tomatoes. I gave her the gingerbread man because she was creating as I was being slack and late with her lunch, it kept her going for long enough that I could grab the rest of the offerings.

Dinner was baked beans - served on a spoon, which wasn't as messy as you might have thought - plus some halved cherries and a banana. Hannah wasn't really sure what to make of the cherries, she sucked at them a bit but didn't really eat much of them. Cherry juice dribbled down her chin and all over the bib, it all looked quite gory!

Saturday:

Breakfast today was shreddies again, and again they were very well received. For lunch Hannah ate a corn thin with pureed avocado spread on it, a breadstick, some saucy tomato noughts and crosses, an apple and raspberry cereal bar, a banana and a slice of melon. She went at the avocado covered corn thin with gusto, although most of the topping seemed to end up on her face rather than in her belly. She did attempt to use the banana and cereal bar to wipe it off again, with mixed success :o) the flannel at the end of the meal did a much better job!

For dinner, Neil gave her some halved cherry tomatoes, a few cashew nuts, a fromage frais, some halved cherries, a slice of bread with cream cheese. The tomatoes came out of the fridge, and were a bit cold for Hannah to start with, but she went back to them once she'd eaten the bread and cream cheese and sucked all the insides out plus ate some of the flesh. She got on pretty well with the cashew nuts, too - the first time she's tried them. She seemed to really like biting into them and hearing them crunch - new teeth coming in useful! Naturally she ate the entire fromage frais, and was more enthusiastic about the cherries today than she was yesterday.

Twodays Meals...

Not much new to report chez nous, so this should be fairly quick. Breakfast both yesterday and today was shredded wheat bitesize, and Hannah made impressive inroads into a substantial portion of them. I think she's made like easter eggs and entirely hollow on the inside.

Lunch yesterday was pesto tortelloni in tomato sauce and a slice of melon, while today was a cream cheese and avocado sandwich, an organix gingerbread man, and half a dozen cherry tomatoes. Wednesday's pasta wasn't very popular, although she ate all of the melon on offer, and after her nap tried to nick my cheese on toast off my plate - I ended up sharing it with her, she ate about half a slice of it. Today the cherry tomatoes went down a storm. The gingerbread man was more of a snack to keep Hannah quiet and happy while I was sorting out the rest of the meal, and served as a starter more than anything else.

For dinner, yesterday Hannah ate a slice of beans on toast and about half a banana. Today she had a baked sweet potato with the insides scooped out and mixed with cream cheese before being replaced, followed by a slice of malt loaf.

Much better today

As you can see from the picture above, Hannah's back on her food pretty much, and tucked into a couple of slices of toast first thing. One had marmite on, the other was raspberry jam.

Lunch took place while we were out and about, and was a cream cheese and avocado sandwich, a breadstick, and an organix flapjack. Hannah ate most of everything, leaving maybe a quarter of the sandwich and not much at all of the flapjack or breadstick.

For dinner there was pesto tortelloni, which I gave her covered in cream cheese and tomato puree sauce with a slice of melon for pudding. All of the melon got eaten, but not much at all of the pasta went down.

Hannah did drink an entire sippy cup full of water with her dinner, and at least half a sippy cup full at lunchtime - I think because she's still full of cold so must be losing a fair amount of water through her runny nose and having to breathe through her mouth.

Yet another cold, argh

Well Hannah has got *another* stinking cold, and decided it was time to get up for the day at 4.30am today. So excuse me if I'm not that coherent!

Breakfast today was two slices of toast with raspberry jam, as I'll be limiting her dairy intake for a few days while we ride out this cold. She enjoyed the change and ate a fair amount of the toast.

Lunch was a banana, an organix flapjack, a fromage frais and some organix crispy rings. She ate very little of it though - perhaps a quarter of the banana, two of the crispy rings, and only a third of the fromage frais, which is not at all like Hannah. She did manage most of the flapjack though, along with a bit of water out of her sippy cup.

For dinner I gave her the rest of the crispy rings, a corn thin with blitzed avocado spread on it, and the rest of lunchtime's fromage frais - which she did finish this time. She also drank a lot of water, and nearly brained the cat by chucking her sippy cup over the side of the high chair tray. I don't think the cat will choose to sit there waiting for scraps again!

Water Baby

Today's meals were at funny times, since we took Hannah swimming for the first time when she'd normally have been eating her lunch. She loved swimming, and wasn't bothered about lunch (I breastfed her instead).

So breakfast was shredded wheat bitesize, while lunch when it eventually turned up was a corn thin with humus, another with cream cheese, and two slices of melon. There were also some organix corn crisp rings. She really liked those, and every time she picked them up with her thumb in the middle of the ring, and nibbled away at the edges until she broke through.

Dinner was vegeballs in tomato and basil sauce, followed by a rusk and a banana. Hannah seemed to get a bit bored of the meatballs after a little while, but briefly went back to them after eating some of the banana and rusk.

Return of the cheerio

No photos for a while, sorry - Neil's accidentally taken our memory card into work in his laptop, d'oh!

Hannah's breakfast yesterday was shredded wheat bitesize, and today she finished off our packet of cheerios. Must be about time to get in touch with nice Mr Tesco again to deliver us some more food! She did pretty well with the cheerios, but we did notice that they're a fair bit messier than the shredded wheat. She managed to sprinkle them all over the floor, her lap...quite a messy job fielding them.

Yesterday's lunch was a packet of organix carrot crisp things, a banana and a slice of melon, and she started her lunch at the busstop on the way home, and finished it off once we got in. Today Hannah ate two corn thins - one with cream cheese and one with hummus - a breadstick, a banana, and an organix apple and orange flavour flapjack. It's been a while since Neil has seen her eat a corn thin, and he was surprised with how much her teeth are helping these days - she really does take proper bites of things now, rather than just sucking lumps off.

Dinner yesterday was an organix apple and orange flavour flapjack, a banana, and a corn thin with cream cheese. It was a very quick meal, as we were running late thanks to a doctor's appointment and Hannah was getting really tired. Today, she ate mozzerella and tomato ravioli with a bit of tomato and basil sauce.

Daily schedules

A couple of people have been asking me what kind of schedule we follow during the day with Hannah's feeds and things, so I'll try and explain it below.

First though, a run through of today's food. Breakfast was shredded wheat bitesize, another huge portion of them that almost all got eaten. For lunch Hannah had an omelette with mushrooms and cheese, followed by some tinned fruit cocktail. The fruit cocktail went down much better than last time we tried it, and she was easily able to deal with the pieces although they're actually quite small. For dinner she just had a cream cheese sandwich and some more fruit cocktail.

The daily routine works like this:
7.30am - Hannah gets up and has a breastfeed before getting dressed
8.30am - solid breakfast, usually takes about 20 minutes
9.00am - naptime! Length anything from 30mins to 2 hours
11.00am - Hannah gets up from her first nap and comes downstairs to play
12.00 - solid lunch, usually takes about 30 minutes
1.00pm - naptime again, normally about 90 minutes
3pm - milk feed, if expressed then about 200ml
4.30pm - naptime again, usually only 30 minutes at this one unless she's had a short nap earlier in the day
5.30pm - solid dinner, usually takes 20-30 minutes as she's getting tired by now
6.15pm - bedtime routine starts - milk feed, brush teeth, nappy, sleeping bag etc and settle down to quiet play - we cuddle and sometimes watch In the Night Garden or read a bedtime story.
7.00pm - Upstairs and in to bed, she normally settles very well and that's it until morning.

We don't always stick strictly to nap times - for example if we're off out then I'll get her up early and she seems to make up for it later in the day. At the moment I try to make sure she goes for a nap every 2 to 2 1/2 hours so she doesn't get grumpy and overtired. If that does happen it has a huge knock-on effect on her eating - she mostly wants milk not solids, which puts her to sleep.

Gnocchi not bad!

Another nappy free day today, but I've figured out that folding a towel and putting it in the high chair works well enough to soak up any accidents during meals - although thankfully we haven't had any.

Breakfast was half cranberry wheats, half shredded wheat again, and Hannah ate lots of them yet again. She's figured out that there's food in her hand as well as the bit that's poking out of the top of her fist, and she's now pushing that bit into her mouth rather than just dropping it when she reaches for the next bit of food. Not every time, but mostly.

For lunch we picniced in the living room again, and Hannah ate a bit of sandwich. Half of it had lentil pate in, a quarter had cream cheese and cucumber, and the other quarter had hummus and cucumber. To my surprise she did actually go for the cucumber today, and ate 3 or 4 slices of it. The bread mostly got mauled, she left all of the crust and a fair amount of the rest of it too. For pudding she ate a whole pear, and still acted hungry so I cut her up another pear, and she ate 3/4 of it! Can't believe how much she put away! She's still carefully spitting out the skin of the pear, but all the flesh had gone.

Dinner was her first taste of gnocchi with tomato and basil sauce with a bit of grated cheese sprinkled on top. She really liked the gnocchi, which was good to see, and ate all of what I gave her. However she got far more excited about the prospect of fromage frais and rusk for pudding - and here's a video of her with the fromage frais:

Happy Pancake Day!

Happy pancake day everyone! (Or, as the advertisers would have us believe, happy jif lemon day.) It seemed rude not to offer Hannah the chance of pancakes today, so that's what she had for her lunch - two of them, one with cream cheese in and the other with hummus in. I haven't quite gone so far as to sprinkle sugar on her food...

For breakfast she had half shredded wheat bitesize and half cranberry wheats. It was funny watching her eat them, as once she figured out some had cranberry filling in she systematically went through and bit into each one. If it didn't have filling it quickly got discarded, although she did eventually go back to them once she'd eaten all the cranberry ones.

For dinner Hannah had a slice of cheese on toast, plus some tinned fruit cocktail. All in all though she hasn't really eaten much today, and she hasn't drunk extra milk either. She has, however, been suffering with a horrendous bout of nappy rash - all meals eaten picnic style on towels in the living room as I kept her nappy free for most of the day.

It made life a bit interesting, and rather than put her head down for a rest part way through the meal, since she wasn't in the high chair she had a quick lie down instead!

As for yesterday's food, breakfast was shredded wheat, while lunch was scrambled egg on toast. She didn't eat much of the scrambled egg, but got through a surprising amount of the toast, so yay! Her dinner was a few quorn pieces with peas and carrots. She didn't have any of the carrots, ate about half a dozen peas, and most of the quorn pieces. Not sure what was going on there, as previously she's gone for both carrots and peas in preference to other things.

Fingers crossed her nappy rash is better tomorrow.

Milk strike?

For breakfast today Hannah ate another tonne of shredded wheat bitesize, it's amazing how many of them she manages to put away.

Lunch was toad in the hole with mash and gravy, served en famille. She did really well with the mash, having figured out how to hold it firmly enough to pick up, but not so firm that it squished out through her fingers. Well, after the first attempt anyway. It's really the first time I've seen her manage that kind of fine motor control. She's growing up!

For dinner she had a lot of different things. There were some sticks of red leicester, a raspberry fromage frais, a bit more chocolate angel delight, some halved tinned apricots, and a rusk. Plus water to go with it. I tried letting Hannah control the spoon completely by herself, which didn't quite work. Once I'd put it into the pot for her it worked much better. I also tried breaking the rusk and letting her dunk that in the fromage frais, and that worked rather better than the spoon. Well, sort of. She definitely needs more practice at the whole "not covering everything in fromage frais" thing.

As you can see, she's making a move for the pot of fromage frais...

...and wins!

Today Hannah really hasn't had all that much milk. She's been having expressed feeds from bottles for the past couple of days - on account of having bitten me and drawn blood, evil child. Which means I've been able to see exactly how much milk she's getting. Anyway, she had 150ml at her midafternoon feed, and only 100ml before she went to bed. Her morning feed (the only one she's still getting breastfed at for the moment) was shorter than normal, too, at only 6 minutes start to finish.

At this point I'm putting it down to the increasingly huge portions of solid food she's tucking away, but I'll be keeping an eye on things for the next few days to see what happens. Perhaps it's time to drop that midafternoon feed afterall?

Pasta bake v cauliflower cheese

Hannah has got more teeth, the two top middle ones have now turned up, a week or two after the ones immediately outside them. So with six teeth to use on her food, we've definitely noticed she's getting better at biting - us as well as the food!

Breakfast has been cranberry wheats (Friday) and shredded wheat bitesize (Saturday). She ate an absolutely HUGE amount yesterday - about the same as I'd eat, if not even more. I couldn't believe she'd finished the bowlful, but there was very little left behind to find in the clean up.

Her lunches have been cauliflower cheese and pasta bake. The cauliflower cheese was fairly successul - much more so that last time I tried her with it. It was very messy, but I'll definitely make it for her again. She even ate quite a bit of the cauliflower, which in the past she hasn't really seemed very interested in. The pasta bake wasn't so successful, probably on account of the millions of shredded wheat she'd filled up on at breakfast. The fromage frais that followed it though was well received - enthusiastic shrieks in between sucking the spoon clean is always a sign.

As you can see, she's keen on the cauli (this time):

But what's going on outside is much more interesting (high wind making a for sale sign flip to and fro):


...but even that gets boring after a while!:

For dinner, on Friday Hannah ate a cream cheese and avocado sandwich followed by a fromage frais. She did pretty well with the sandwich - although she pulled the bread apart to get at the filling better - but didn't eat all of the avocado, prefering to pull it out and cast it aside. I'd slightly mashed half an avocado so that I could spread it, I think in future I'd slice it instead so that she can pick it up better if she deconstructs the sandwich.

Yesterday she had half a baked potato, with the inside scooped out and mixed with a little cream cheese, plus a corn thin also with cream cheese. For pudding she ate a portion of chocolate flavoured angel delight. I have never seen her so excited about food, I don't think! The squeals and flailing legs and arms were some indication of what she thought of it :o) Neil was feeding her, and he noticed that she seemed to be drinking a lot of water during the process too, she'd have a mouthful or two of the angel delight and then have a bit of water in between, and she carried on doing this the whole time.