Growth Spurt???

Hannah's eating us out of house and home! I think she's having a growth spurt, the first one that's been noticeable for quite a while. For breakfast she ate 55g of shreddies - apart from the 10g tops that ended up on the floor rather than in her belly. That's nearly twice what the packet says is a normal portion.

For lunch she had some shepherd's pie - which was much better received than last time, hurrah! We followed that up with bananas and custard for pudding, and Hannah was definitely a fan of that. I made a packet of custard (just add boiling water :o) ) and sliced two bananas, thinking I would share it with her. Not a bad idea, but I was on the receiving end of what I can only call "the evils" every time I had a spoonful (we shared the bowl, clearly a mistake!). I couldn't believe how much of the stuff Hannah put away, I'm positive it was more than half of the whole lot.

We went round to a friend's in the afternoon, and while there Hannah was hungry *again* so I gave her a whole pack of cheese organix crisps, 6 apple rice cakes, an orange rice cake, and she also nicked a chocolate chip cookie off the grown-ups biscuit plate while I wasn't looking. I did manage to get half of the cookie back off her though, so she only had part of that.

Finally for her dinner she had two slices of lentil pate on toast, plus the last portion of rice pudding. This time I stirred in half a teaspoon of nutella, so it was chocolate and hazelnut flavour, yum! Hannah certainly thought it was yum, and made very short work of it.

So if you look at it, she's managed four solid meals today, plus two milk feeds. She's definitely only having milk first thing in the morning and again before bed, although the feed first thing has also got longer - but perhaps this is down to the growth spurt? Time will tell...

Today she smells of Shepherd's Pie

Yes, today Hannah has managed to get Shepherd's Pie all over herself, including in her hair. I think I've just about managed to get it all out now (thank goodness!). This was her lunch, and she did seem to enjoy it rather a lot, despite being on the messy side with it. She ate a pear too. Half of it was uncooked, and half was gently cooked just to soften it up a bit. She ate the lot, apart from the skin which she spat out, having eaten all the flesh off it.

It was funny watching her deal with the pear skin, I've always peeled fruit for her in the past. She put it in her mouth as normal, chewed the lump a bit, then without fail out came the skin again. I'm not sure I could do that myself, I was very impressed!

For tea there were rice cakes with lentil pate, some emmental cheese, and a breadstick, with pineapple to follow. She's still pulling the odd face at the pineapple, but it doesn't seem to stop her actually eating most of it when it's offered. The lentil pate was all sucked off the rice cakes, and the cheese and breadstick both had a good going over too.

Breakfast, it almost goes without saying, was cheerios again. She didn't seem very interested in eating at all when I first sat her down for breakfast, it took a good 6 or 7 minutes for her to get going. Once she'd started though, she ate a similar amount to normal, so I don't know what the delay was all about.

I said yesterday that babies need about 700 calories a day, further research suggests that from 6-12 months they actually need about 45 calories per pound of bodyweight. From birth to 4 months, it's about 52 calories per pound (thanks to AQA 63336 for providing the answer to that one!). So Hannah actually needs about 720-750 cals a day at the moment. Aren't they clever things, eating just the right amount to grow and stuff?

Shepherds Pie and Rice Pudding

Ooh, today has been a day of New Things again, Hannah seemed to think it was fun.

Breakfast was cheerios again, the box is so big and Hannah's so little it's going to take weeks to get through them all, very good value for money! I'll have to give her some variety sometimes though, maybe she can have toast or fruit tomorrow.

Lunch was a breadstick and some steamed carrot, parsnip and cauliflower, with rice pudding for pudding. She picked up and had a good chew of the cauliflower for the first time today. The stalks definitely help and give her something to pick it up with. The rice pudding went down well too, she'd not tried it before and she managed it very well, especially considering it's served on a spoon that's given to her to use.

Today's dinner was a veggie shepherd's pie made with soya mince followed by melon and a bit more rice pudding. Again, she did surprisingly well with the shepherd's pie, although again we used a spoon to serve it as the mince was too small for her to pick up just yet. Pretty much an entire slice of melon got eaten again, and the rice pudding all disappeared too - she takes after her Auntie Jo in that respect. Especially since she had seconds of it, too.

It was interesting trying to give her the rice pudding on a spoon though, she was so keen on it she went for the spoon with her hands and leant towards it with her mouth wide open at the same time - so in some respects she was fed food for the first time, rather than feeding it to herself, but I'm not sure this really counts!

We're considering starting to drop the "dream" feed (the one she's only ever slept through once!), as she never finishes the full bottle now anyway, so I think she's ready for it anyway. And two of the four daytime feeds are only ever about 6 or 7 minutes long, so she's clearly only having a drink rather than anything more.