Best laid plans...

Today was the day we were starting Hannah on two meals a day instead of just one. Note the use of "was" in that last sentence. A combination of teething (again, still nothing to report though) and silly parents going to Ikea at nap time mean that she only had the one meal today, breakfast.

It was nice though - Hannah had two slices of wholemeal toast, cut into fingers, while Neil and I had our cereal and coffee. The toast worked better cut into four fingers rather than three, as those were a bit big for Hannah to manage.

On the toast was a selection of spreads. A couple of bits just had unsalted butter on, some had seedless raspberry jam, and the rest had a tiny scraping of marmite. I only used a really small bit of marmite because of the salt content.

Hannah's reaction to toast was quite funny. She liked the bits with butter on, but she liked the different toppings too - mostly with each piece she sucked the topping off before attacking the toast itself. Her first taste of marmite made her raise her eyebrows, but there wasn't really any other reaction. Later on, she pulled a funny face at another bit of marmite. I think it's a bit early to decide whether she loves it or hates it, at this stage the raspberry jam was definitely more popular!

Hopefully tomorrow we'll actually get both meals served - and she'll be exactly 6 months old, too, so we'll officially be allowed to wean her :o)

Fruit medley

Hannah is 26 weeks old today! Blimey, time flies. So tomorrow we'll be starting her on two meals a day rather than the one she's been having so far.

Today's meal was a rice cake spread with butter (unsalted of course), a banana, and some slices of melon. It's the first time she's tried melon, and it seemed as popular as everything else has been. I cut a normal slice of melon, removed the seeds, gave the rind a good wash, then cut the slice into smaller chunks. I left the rind on so that she had something to grab onto.

Rice cake wasn't that popular last time, but went down better this time round. It did get a bit soggy in the mushed banana and melon juice that covered the high chair tray before the end of the meal. Watching Hannah eat melon proved good entertainment. Even with the rind on, it seemed it was hard to pick up. But that didn't stop her: she lined it up in front of her on the tray, bent double and sucked at it where it was! Very ingenious :o)

Same as yesterday

Since yesterday's lunch was a bit of a non-starter, today's involved leftovers, plus a fromage frais - peach flavoured this time.

Fromage frais definitely seems to be the favourite item, with cheese a close second today. Carrot and parsnip were tolerated, but since they are the same colour as the two cheeses on offer, they probably got more attention than they would have otherwise! Cunning, eh? :oD

The fromage frais went down so well that Hannah actually grabbed the pot off me and tried to eat it directly:

Managed to get some video again today, sorry for the poor camera work - comes from trying to supervise lunch and use the camera at the same time! As you can see, the aim still needs some work - fromage frais isn't a great eyeshadow.

Cheese and steamed veggies

Hannah's having problems cutting these teeth again, so was a bit upset and not very interested in food this lunchtime. I offered her some red leicester and emmental cheese, along with some steamed parsnip and carrot batons. She did spend a bit of time sucking at the cheese, but it was very lacklustre and after only ten minutes or so the crying started, so I took her out of the highchair.

She wouldn't breastfeed either, so ended up having lunch of expressed milk, as that's easier and less painful for her to eat. The Calpol and Calgel might have helped too.

We did manage to get a pic of the new bib in action though:

First taste of avocado

Hurrah for painting aprons, the postman brought us two just as I was getting Hannah into her high chair for lunch - how's that for good timing?! I can confirm that it kept her clothes clean and dry and was very easy to wipe clean, And there's plenty of room to grow, as technically it's for ages 2-3 years!

Anyway, on to lunch. A first taste of avocado, accompanied by some banana, was the main course today, and there was plum for pudding. The avocado was a bit slippy so hard to pick up at first, but Hannah is persistent and conquered it in the end. I'm not sure what she made of it, there wasn't much reaction to it at all.

The plum went down as well today as it did yesterday, except that today she managed to chew off a small chunk of it and made herself gag slightly, since I think she was still sucking at the main bit while it was in her mouth. Bit scary to watch, but she managed to spit out the offending piece without any intervention from me (which was easier said than done, I wanted to leap in and take it off her straight away). Shortly after that she started being much more interested in eating her thumb than the food, so I took that as a sign and put her to bed for a nap :o)

Hopefully we'll get some pics of the new bib in action tomorrow.

Two new tastes

I thought it was about time Hannah had some variety in her lunch, so today to go with her roast veggies she also had a bit of cheese, Emmental in fact as I didn't think that St Agur was very appropriate as a first cheese.

Cheese was a definite hit, she spent the first couple of minutes just sucking on the end of the stick I gave her and grinning. The roast veg went down a treat too, although I have discovered that it's best to break the shapes in half if you can as Hannah was having trouble getting at the soft inside bits Once I'd done that it was a lot easier, although seeing her with an entire roast potato in her mouth all at once is still rather alarming.

The other new taste of the day was plum. I really thought she'd pull a face at this, as it's a fairly tart flavour, but she didn't. I'm really impressed with baby led weaning - I know that it's meant to mean children eat a wide range of foods, but Hannah hasn't rejected anything yet. If you're thinking about trying it, it is a messy process though!

In other news, there are two painting aprons in the post to Hannah today from Grandma and Grandad (hello!) so once they arrive it should be a bit easier to keep Hannah fairly clean.

Fromage Face

Lunch today was a swift affair conducted in the midst of a house cleaning mission, so it was more roast veg leftovers and a raspberry flavour fromage frais. Hannah seemed to be choosing the orange veg (carrot and sweet potato) over the other choices available.

Raspberry fromage frais was just as nice tasting as the strawberry one on Friday, and just as messy to eat. In fact this time we caught it on video:

According to the photo evidence below, this is today's verdict..

Flavour: Excellent

Targetting: Needs work