How much can I remember?

Gosh, a whole week since the last update. Many apologies for general slackness! We're back from our holidays now (boooo), but you can't tell from the temperature which is roasty toasty :o)

Anyway, Hannah been eating shreddies again for breakfast this week, she was quite a fan of their return. She's also eaten croissants a couple of times, but they'll be few and far between now we're back home.

Otherwise, there's been a fair amount of fruit (melon, nectarines, greengages, raspberries), babybel and some organix gingerbread men for snacks, pasta and pesto, omelette with potato and pesto in, potato wedges, burger with roasties and veg, cheese on toast, cauliflower cheese, falafel in pitta pockets with salad and I'm sure a bunch of other stuff for lunches and dinners since we got back. For puddings she's eaten raspberry flavour angel delight, fresh raspberries, pom'potes that we brought back from France, and some ice cream yesterday when it was baking hot. I tried giving her an organix fruity rice pudding, but she didn't want it and it ended up all over the floor. Messy!

During the hot weather Hannah's drinking lots more fluids than she was previously. She's up to about 3 sippy cups full of water at the moment - about half of it goes during the meal, and she drinks the rest of it in the living room after her meal and before her nap/bedtime. She's also back on normal fresh milk rather than monkey milk and I think it's having a good effect on her nappies - there have been far too many stinky ones for comfort in the past two weeks, but hopefully things are settling back down to normal...famous last words!

Hannah seems to be turning into a stroppy teenager, by the way - she's taken to shouting for things, and when she doesn't get what she wants (or it's removed from her grip when we find her with it) she screams and cries. I'm hardening my heart and ignoring her though, nobody tells you how hard that is when you sign up for this parenthood thing!

I've lost the charger for the camera, so we're a bit short of photos at the moment - I'll have a proper look for it asap!

The sun has got his hat on (but Hannah hasn't)

Right, can anyone recommend ways to keep hats on a toddler's head? I'm thinking gaffer tape, string, superglue, the staple gun...suggestions? Hannah is so not fond of wearing hats, she's even tried to remove George's hat from him when she noticed him wearing it. Ever helpful, I suppose. Here's a rare picture of the hat in position:


She's eaten Golden Grahams for breakfast, and in fact has finished the box, so we're onto something new tomorrow. She's also had a slice of bread most mornings to go with them, and has a full on strop if you take the soggy crust away from her before she's finished with it. The girl is addicted!

Lunches have been bread and cheese mostly, today she had mini baked potatoes and rice squares (cooked rice mixed with pesto, egg and flour, then fried in the wok) as well, and some strawberries and an apricot sorbet for pudding. Yesterday she also had some tomato wedges to go with the bread and cheese.

For dinner, yesterday she ate quorn coq au vin with mini baked potatoes (and bread, of course). She ate loads of it, and I wasn't sure whether she'd like it to start with, but she proved me wrong again. Today's dinner was shepherd's pie, plus a slice of bread and a banana fromage frais and, as you can see, half a pain au chocolat:

Hannah didn't have her afternoon nap today (she went for a swim instead), so we gave her a couple of gingerbread men to snack on. She seems to get hungrier on days when her sleep is disrupted, I suppose she needs to get energy from somewhere. She's still keen on diving right into the pool given half a chance, but played nicely in her paddling pool for quite some time this afternoon. Then got out and played in the inflatable tyre that was on the side, mainly sitting in the middle of it and grinning at all and sundry.

Using an open cup

We're all still having fun in France. Hannah went for her first ever bike ride today, we bought a child bike seat from Decathlon (loads cheaper than in the UK, too!) and fixed it onto one of the bikes here for a trial. Riding around made her giggle, so I think we can say it's a success.

It's a good job we've got decent locks on the gate to the pool, as well, as Hannah went in the paddling pool earlier (next to the big pool). After a few minutes she climbed out of it, wandered over to the side of the big pool, and stepped straight in. Good job I had a firm grip on her hands by that point...she did the same thing again later with Grandma when they'd gone to inspect the pool cleaner thingy too, she's too confident for her own good sometimes.

She's eaten lots of Golden Grahams, and eggy bread for breakfast, with water to drink. Dad refilled her sippy cup with perrier this morning after she finished her own water, which made her giggle and pull faces - we decided that the bubbles were tickling her tongue.

Lunch today was tomato and avocado bruschetta, a slice of bread and boursin, and some strawberries for pudding. She ate a square of chocolate, some chipsters (salty crisps, bad mummy!) and tried a bit of panach (non alcoholic shandy) today too, she grabbed the bottle of panach off me and tried to drink the lot! Will be keeping her further away from the bottle in future.

For dinner Hannah ate some 3-cheese tart, a couple of roast potatoes, some cauliflower cheese, peas and carrots and a yorkshire pudding. She enjoyed all of it, especially the roasties and cauliflower cheese. I gave her a rusk for pudding, which she tucked into with gusto.

She's also tried drinking out of an open plastic beaker a couple of times in the last two days. She did lots better than I expected with it, too. Well, she emptied the contents (water) onto the high chair tray twice, but drank a decent amount of it too.

Yesterday for lunch we were out so ate at a supermarket cafeteria, where Hannah had a boiled egg, a bread roll, and two slices of melon. She didn't eat much, but she was very tired as she didn't get a morning nap. Dinner was a cheese and vegetable burger, along with more bread. We thought Hannah had eaten all of her burger, but found she was sitting on half of it when she got down from the table. Oh well...

Given up on the time difference

It's taken a few days but we've finally given up on the time difference thing and are letting Hannah stay up later till between 8-8.30 French time, which is her normal bed time in the UK. Trying to get her up early and off for naps and bed at the "proper" times was hard work! She seems much happier now we've just adjusted all the times forward by an hour.

She's also still enjoying swimming most days, although has a worrying tendancy towards just diving at any person nearby that she wants to - good job we're all family! :o) Her favourite toy of the moment is a beach ball, which is nearly the same size as she is, but this doesn't stop her carrying it around for hours on end.

So on to the food. I've not done an update for the past few days, so this is testing my memory! She's eaten lots and lots of pain, with assorted toppings. She's had Golden Grahams for breakfast every day (which are honey flavoured shreddies, it appears, and the least chocolate or sugar laden cereal available in the local supermarket) along with bits of croissant and/or eggy bread, and also a nectarine or two.

Hannah has been really active while we've been away, and this is showing through as she's wanting more snacks during the day - most mornings, and I think every afternoon so far as well. And drinking lots out of her sippy cup. I gave her a tiny bit of peach and apricot flavoured sirop stuff in her water yesterday, however judging by today's nappies this may have been a mistake - she's not getting any more, anyway!

She's eaten pasta with pesto, creme fraiche and grated cheese for dinner on Wednesday, today she had leek tart along with bread and two fromage frais for lunch. Dinner today was some bread and cheese with a fruity rice pudding (organix) for pudding. Yesterday she had veggie meatballs for dinner, in a tomato sauce, followed by two slices of charentais melon. She made quite a mess with the tomato sauce, too!

Snacks have included biscotte (the hard biscuity French things that look like slices of bread), sweetcorn rings, biscotti (the Heinz baby ones), an apricot canoé soft biscuit thingy, some humzingers, a few chips that Grandad snuck off his plate for her during dinner last night, and probably a bunch of other things I don't know about!

Hannah's also getting a bit of a tan, despite the gallons of suncream that are ladled on to her daily. The good news is that she's much more tolerant of her sun hat, and has almost stopped trying to remove it - this morning I caught her trying to put it on, even, wonders will never cease :o)

Tooth #15 has arrived

Hannah likes pain (pain as in bread, not pain as in hurts, she definitely doesn't like that...). She seems to have eaten loaves of the stuff since we arrived, and there's no sign of it stopping! Just as well really, she's not eating all that much of anything else, and last night perhaps the reason why appeared - her fifteenth tooth! It's the canine tooth on the bottom right, at least I assume that's what they're called.

Anyway, Hannah has eaten cheerios for breakfast over the past two days, along with a bit of eggy bread and this morning she also had part of Neil's croissant (I wasn't sharing my pain au chocolat!). Lunch yesterday was margherita pizza along with bread - she chewed the crusts of the bread for ages, ate the topping off the pizza but ignored most of the base. She also had a fruity custard thingy and a humzinger, which disappeared super quickly.

Today, for lunch Hannah ate three bits of bread, half a tomato, a nectarine, threw some veggie burger and bits of cheese on the floor, and then had a sorbet (a homemade red berries flavour). The sorbet was made in an ice cube tray, and had a teaspoon stuck into it to give her something to grab hold of. She wasn't sure about it to start with, and pulled some funny faces, but decided it was nice enough to persevere. The whole lot got eaten in fairly short order, although when she bit off large chunks it did make her judder down to her toes.

After lunch Hannah went swimming:

For dinner last night we had quorn and mushroom pie, Hannah had sweetcorn and mash to go with hers, and concentrated mostly on the mash. For pudding she ate 2 humzingers and devoured them as quickly as normal.

Neil and I were out when Hannah had her dinner this evening, she tried another bit of quorn and mushroom pie but again didn't eat much of it - a bit of the pastry and nothing much of the filling. She pulled a funny face before scoffing two laughing cow triangles along with another couple of pieces of bread - apparently given because Grandma thought she hadn't eaten enough (according to Auntie Jo anyway), and gagged on an organix biscuit. The first time she's gagged on anything for simply ages, and it's when someone else is in charge! Good job Auntie Jo is another BLW mummy and knew not to panic (too much...) :o)

She's been filling up on eating bath toys in between meals, too:

Walking, swimming, eating, and other things

I can't remember if I mentioned this already, but Hannah got her 14th tooth through a week or so ago - finally! I'd go back and check to avoid repeating myself but...nah...I'm on holiday! So now that's through and she's getting over her cough and runny nose that came with it, things are getting back to normal and she's much better at going to bed at night.

Hannah has settled in nicely to eating different foods while we're in France. She hasn't blinked an eye at being offered UHT milk (known in our house as monkey milk, ever since my sister asked why it tasted different when she was little, and was told because it comes from monkeys and not from cows...). If anything, Hannah is drinking more of this milk than the normal supermarket full fat milk that we get at home - upwards of 9oz a night so far.

Breakfast yesterday was fruity wheats, I think it was pomegranate and rasberry flavour this time, that Jo brought with her for George. She also had some pain with a bit of butter on it, and a banana that mostly got mashed into the floor. This was followed by a lunch of spaghetti bolognase, which she liked but didn't eat much of, and more bread. It takes her ages to chew her way through the crust of a bit of pain, but she does persevere and gets there in the end.

Dinner yesterday was curry and rice, which Hannah quite enjoyed and ate a decent amount of. Her favourite bit was the poppadom, followed by the onion bhaji. The consequences of this meal today mean that it won't be getting served again for quite some time...I'll leave the details of that to your imagination, suffice to say they weren't that pleasant! She also ate a couple of humzingers - dried fruit formed into chewy bars for the uninitiated. These got inhaled, within seconds.

Today Hannah had honey flavoured cheerios for breakfast, along with a banana that once again mostly got turned into mash and swept onto the floor. Lunch was a special Sunday fried breakfast (yes, at lunchtime, quiet at the back there!) and included a fried slice, which Hannah loved and spent ages eating, a quorn sausage and two bits of quorn bacon, a fried egg and a tinned tomato. She didn't eat the fried egg, although she did poke at the yolk a bit before chucking it in the floor. Pretty much all of the rest of it got scoffed in short order though.

Dinner this evening was gnocchi with ratatouille (hmm, don't know if that's spelled correctly! Never mind). Hannah also had a couple of slices of bread again, which we dunked into the tomato juice from the ratattoille for her. Pudding was strawberries, but bizarrely she didn't want to eat all of them and George ended up scoffing her leftovers, Hannah had a rusk instead, which did get eaten.

She's getting keener on carbs, I think it has to do with the miles that she does tracking about the house in between naps - she's never still unless she's asleep, it seems, or in need of a cuddle due to falling down the stairs (only off the bottom step, fortunately) or on the patio (tripped on a paving slab) or over a foot (not looking where she's going...again).

We took Hannah swimming in Grandma and Grandad's shiny new swimming pool yesterday, but it was a bit parky so we only stayed in for about 10 minutes before she started shivering so we had to take her out. It did mean that her swim seat (from toys r us, suitable for up to 1 year or 24 lbs - good job Hannah is a tiddler!) got its first ever use after having bought it more than a year ago.

Bonjour a tous!

Just a quick update on what we've been upto over the past few days :o) We're now on holiday for a couple of weeks, in France. Hannah is still teething and didn't endear us to the neighbours in the cabins either side of us on the overnight boat - although the Brittany Ferries travel cot we paid an extra fiver for was really good with a proper mattress and little duvet and everything.

Hannah didn't eat much yesterday - she went to sleep very late on Thursday night (like, 10.30 or something) and we had to get her up early as we docked and had to get in the car. So she had about 1/4 of a pain au chocolat and a few bits of plain croissant for breakfast, along with some water.

Lunch was when we arrived - Hannah spent nearly all the time in the car asleep, catching up on what she missed the night before I think. She had some bread, a babybel, a nectarine and a banana. Again, not a huge amount, and I was kind of expecting her to eat more to make up for her missed breakfast.

For dinner she had a burger thing made from mashed up veggies wrapped round a babybel, dipped in egg and breadcrumbs and cooked. Grandma made them for her, and she ate two, along with some mange tout and a fruity rice pudding from organix.

She was better at going to bed last night, thank goodness, although still dosed up with ibuprofen. Her fourth molar is at least partially through now though, so I'm hoping that we're on the downward slope after this last bout. And I'm hoping that we get more of a break before any more teeth show up - I mean, how many teeth does 1 14-month-old need?!

200th post :o)

Wow, we've been weaning Hannah for so long I've managed to witter on about it a whole 200 times! And, I don't think I mentioned it the other day, but I signed and sent back the consent form for one of Hannah's photos to be used in Gill Rapley's Baby Led Weaning book - we don't know whether it'll make the final cut yet, that's up to the editor, but the photo has been submitted! The book is due to be published later this year.

So for breakfast today Hannah ate shreddies, and she polished off a decent sized bowlful. I offered her a banana to follow, she took about one bite then squished it between her fingers and threw it on the floor. Lovely. Her appetite is definitely returning though, which is good news.

Lunch was on the move (well, on the bus actually!) and I gave her some raisins, a couple of rice cakes, some cubes of cheddar cheese, a drink of water and a gingerbread biscotti. She ate loads, or so it seemed to me, and was very tidy about it too.

When we got home Hannah had a slice of veggie sausage plait for tea along with peas and sweetcorn and a bit of lo salt gravy. She really went for the sos plait, and polished off the slice in short order. She had four enormous strawberries for pudding, although again she was enjoying squishing them through her fingers as much as eating them.

Hannah has also worked out how to close the spout on her sippy cup (the Tommee Tippee free flow type). Unfortunately she's not quite able to reopen it when she wants a drink, so I seem to have spent most of the last couple of days reopening the spout up for her, only for it to be thrown at me a few minutes later closed.

We're off on holiday on Thursday for a couple of weeks, and I don't know how often I'll be able to update things while we're away - if you don't hear from us for a little while, don't worry! We'll be back...

Away for the weekend

We were away for the weekend, met up with some friends which was very nice indeed! Shame the weather couldn't have been more cooperative! So the whole weekend Hannah ate rather snack-based meals, but seemed to enjoy herself anyway.

Breakfasts were a combination - a couple of days it was shreddies, and the rest was shredded wheat bitesize. She's still been eating smaller than normal portions, and I was beginning to think this was the new normal, but this morning she was pretty much back on form, putting away certainly a medium bowl of shreddies, if not quite a large bowlful.

Lunches were pasta with cream cheese and tomato sauce (today), and over the weekend were sandwiches, organix things - gingerbread men, crisps, cereal bars, fruit chewy things - and bits stolen off my plate. She had a couple of bananas, too at some point.

Dinner on Saturday was round at cousin George's house, Hannah ate a veggie bake and a vegetable sausage, plus lots of peas and a half-size corn on the cob. It was the first time she'd tried sweetcorn in its cob form, and to start with she wasn't quite sure what to make of it, but soon settled down to give it a good gnawing. She then had a load of peas off my plate - the peas and sweetcorn were the only things she ate much off, most of the rest got mashed up a bit and thrown on the floor - Sophie the spotty dog was in heaven!

On Sunday, we were stuck in traffic so Hannah's dinner was a mish mash of what I had with us in the car - about four honey flavour rice cakes, a carrot cake cereal bar, a raspberry and apple cereal bar, a gingerbread man, a tiny bit of babybel cheese, a date and banana fruit chew, some cheesy poofs and sweetcorn rings, and nearly a sippy cup full of water. It was easily her biggest meal of the weekend, at least I'm pretty sure it was.

Today, Hannah had a slice of cheese on toast with a few grapes and strawberries. She mauled the toast, squished the grapes and even squished a strawberry or two before eating them. Not like her at all! I think she's been practising posing for the camera though:




Her teeth have been hurting for the past few days (AGAIN, bah) and I think that's mostly why her appetite has been so much smaller than normal. All three of the molars that were part through are now completely through (both sides of them), and if the other molar isn't through yet, then it will be in a day or two I think - when I felt her gums earlier it was either just peeking through or about to be. Oh, and I got bitten for my trouble too.

Also, Hannah has a cold at the mo. No idea where it came from, but she's been spreading it round her baby friends for several days now. So we're dosing her on both ibuprofen (for the teeth) and medised (for the cold) at night, but she seems to be managing fine during the day so long as there's something for her to look at/destroy/play with/pester (mainly the cats, that last one!).

Hopefully she'll be over the teething and the cold in a few days, because we're off on holiday for a couple of weeks on Thursday! Don't fancy taking a poorly baby on a 12 hour ferry crossing...

Nice nectarine (and videos not photos today)

Hannah ate shreddies for breakfast again, and for lunch she had some quorn nuggets, a slice of bread and a tomato cut into wedges. She was offered four nuggets, and ate about three of them, pre-dunked in a tiny bit of ketchup. She liked and ate a decent amount of everything she was served this time - feels like the first time in days that's happened!

She didn't have any snacks today, but did have a fair amount of water again.



For dinner I gave her two slices of cream cheese on toast, a whole nectarine, and an organix fruit bar - date and apple flavoured I think. The fruit bars are pretty chewy, but Hannah gnawed away at it for a while and seemed to get on with it very well. The nectarine started out well, but ended up being a slipperly customer once she'd covered it in cream cheese:

Food, meet floor. Floor, food.

Hannah is developing a fine throwing arm, I have to say. She can get a decent heft on her food and get it to the other side of the dining room in the blink of an eye. Fortunately not all of it goes that way, but enough does that it's getting rather annoying.

Shreddies for breakfast again today, and again a smaller bowl eaten. Lunch was scrambled egg on toast, some raisins, and an organix carrot cake bar, oh and the tag end of a pack of carrot crisp things. She ate a decent amount of scrambled egg - good job too, else I'd have started to get offended and think it was my cooking she is objecting to! She's drunk loads of water again today as well - we've refilled her cup at least three or four times.

For dinner Hannah had sausage and mash, with a bit of gravy. When she's had this in the past she tends to concentrate on the sausage and ignore the mash to some extent. Today, just to be contrary, she did the exact opposite. The sausage got thrown on the floor, the mash got more or less hoovered up. Well, apart from one largeish blob which splatted nicely under the high chair.

Ooh and we shared some raspberries picked fresh from the garden just before bed time (well, before we brushed her teeth anyway!).

The one benefit of the new rule about not replacing food that's thrown away and taking the systematic emptying of the stuff on her tray onto the floor as a sign that she's finished eating is that mealtimes are getting a fair bit shorter. I normally allow 30 minutes per meal - ie, that's how long Hannah spends in her high chair, roughly. That's been her tolerance for meals ever since we started BLW, but tonight's dinner was down to 15 minutes at most, breakfast was similar too. Obviously she's getting better and more efficient at eating, but I don't think that's the only reason.

No appetite?

Hannah really hasn't eaten much again today (at least by her normal standards). She had shreddies for breakfast and only ate about half as many as normal. I don't know whether it's because of the heat or what.

Lunch was pasta with tomato sauce and grated cheese, the first dozen or so got hoovered up and most of the rest of them ended up on the floor. Pudding, which was fruit salad mixed with fromage frais, didn't even get tasted. It did get put back in the fridge for dinner though.

This afternoon Hannah mostly stayed awake. She did go for a nap (briefly) but sang and chattered to herself for an hour and eventually got bored and yelled so she got up again.

Dinner was a cream cheese sandwich and a few carrot wotsits, all the carrot things were eaten and over half of the sandwich. The fruit salad was ignored yet again, although she did suck the fromage frais off about half a dozen pieces of the fruit.

Hannah's had gallons of water to drink today, again I assume because of the heat, and generally has been quite grumpy and unsettled. She did flake out after her milk before I took her up to bed though:





She didn't even really wake up during the nappy change and while I inserted her into her sleeping bag - good job I bought a couple of new 1-tog ones a couple of weeks ago, they're getting lots of use at the moment!