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...

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.

Post-Christmas Update

Time has been flying by and I haven't managed to update the blog with what Hannah's been up to for the past couple of days, so here goes!


On Thursday she had her first taste of trifle at lunchtime, and about chomped our hands and arms off trying to race us to the spoon. A definite fan, it's just a shame I only make it about once a year. It wasn't only trifle for lunch though, don't worry - she also ate a breadstick, a rice cake with vache qui rit on, some grapes and cherry tomatoes that I cut in half, and some cucumber sticks. I can't remember what she ate for dinner though, sorry!


Here's a photo of Hannah and trifle - the trifle has been fighting back...

...but not as much as the beans fought back yesterday!

On Friday she ate cheerios for breakfast, then had beans on toast and rice pudding for lunch before we set off to her great uncle's for the afternoon. While we were there she ate some grapes, a bit of bread and marmite, some boursin on bread, and a slice of quiche.

The quiche was quite crumbly, so she didn't do all that well with it, but the rest was fine and she managed nicely. Then after she'd finished I was eating trifle and she was trying to nab bits off me, so I shared it with her while she was sat on my knee. That was I think the first time I've actually tried to spoon feed her rather than have her feed herself, as she wasn't wearing a bib and we were sat on someone else's sofa! Hannah wasn't that impressed with being fed, and she kept on trying to take the spoon off me - I usually let her have it once the majority of trifle was safely in her mouth.

Vegeballs and other things

Breakfast: cheerios
Lunch: vegeballs in tomato sauce and half a rusk

Tea: lincolnshire sausage, avocado, rice cake with boursin, half a rusk and some grapes

Verdict:

Breakfast went down fairly well as usual. Lunch was a success too, which was good as it was the first time Hannah had tried vegeballs (and the first time I'd tried making them, I've put the recipe here). They didn't hold up too well to pressure as she picked them up, and disintegrated more than I thought they would, but most still got eaten. The tomato sauce wasn't too messy either, probably because we didn't actually give her most of it, just the bit that the vegeballs were coated with.

Her tea went down well too, she seemed to prefer the sausage but happily munched away at everything she had. She also managed the grapes really well too, and seemed much more confident picking them up than even yesterday. Some pieces she managed to suck the innards out of (I had cut them in half for her), leaving the skin.

We've noticed in the past few days that she doesn't really chuck food over the side of her high chair any more. Not sure when this started, but we're definitely not having to pick so much up. There's still the food that goes down onto her lap, along her legs, and onto the floor, but not nearly so much.

And no dream feed again last night, but she woke up at 6.10am today wanting a feed. I fed her one side, then put her back to bed. She slept until 8am when she woke wanting her breakfast, but when I fed her she only wanted one side, so her early feed was spread out over two hours! Hopefully we've managed to get enough down her today that she'll sleep longer tonight, but at least I got a bit of a Sunday lie in... :oD

Stinky Baby

Cheerios for breakfast again today - 5 grams of them to be exact. I weighed them because I was interested in how much Hannah is eating and how many calories she's getting from food, Neil read recently that a baby needs about 700 calories a day, which is more than I thought she'd need.

Lunch was a smelly affair as I gave her a rice cake with boursin on. She wasn't sure at first, but after a couple of tastes really went for it and ate the lot. There was another rice cake, too, this one with sweet potato mash on it, plus some carrot and parsnip fingers and the rest of yesterday's rice pudding. Hannah loved the rice pudding again, I was trying to give her the spoon to feed herself but I obviously wasn't quick enough as she dived for the spoon with her mouth rather than hands. Unfortunately the boursin did make her smell rather garlicky for the afternoon, despite plenty of wiping down. I think she's stashed some behind her ear or somewhere...

For tea there was a mix of broccoli and breadsticks for main, and for pudding a first taste of kiwi fruit with a rusk. She wasn't that interested in the broccoli, although she did break some off and chew it. The kiwi fruit reaction was possibly the most extreme yet - even more of a shudder than with the raspberries a few weeks back. I'd even cooked it gently so it wasn't as tart, ho hum. She focused mainly on the rusk after the first taste, I think we'll try the kiwi again once they've (over)ripened a bit so they taste sweeter for her.




For milk feeds, we've decided that this coming weekend we're going to try dropping the dream feed (10.30pm or thereabouts). For most of the past week we've been getting her up for it, she's not been waking for food at all. And she's not finishing the feed either, normally leaving 1-2oz. We'll see how that goes, and I'll report back.

Oatcakes and BLW equipment

Today's meals were toast for breakfast with marmite and jam, then oatcakes with cream cheese, hummus, and boursin for lunch followed by a fig. I was amazed that Hannah actually went for the boursin, I thought the taste would probably be too strong but she continues to surprise me with what she's willing to eat.

A bit of oatcake was the cause of the first proper full on gag today, she got a big chunk to the back of her mouth and coughed it forward, it fell out along with a puddle of spit/mucus/something fairly grim. No harm done though and she carried on as if nothing had happened.

Someone was asking me the other day where we got our splash mat from for doing BLW, and I had to confess that we didn't have one - we do have laminate floors though! In fact thinking about it we have very little equipment for weaning with, and I've listed it here:

• A high chair - we have the Antelop chair from Ikea, cost about £20 inc the tray and the only one we could find that was completely hard plastic so it could be cleaned really easily. The benefit of waiting till 6 months or so to wean is that you don't need a highchair that reclines or supports the head or anything like that, and this highchair is as basic as they get.
• Painting aprons - bibs that cover as much of the body as possible! We got ours from the Early Learning Centre, I've also seen them in Ikea and Asda before, and I'm told that Mothercare sell them too.
• A free flow cup, we have a Tommee Tippee one from Asda that cost £1.
• Muslins - I wrap a muslin around Hannah's legs in the highchair as the painting apron doesn't come all the way down her legs, it helps avoid having to change her after each meal! I also keep one handy for wiping my hands on as I'm picking up bits of her food.
• A baby sized spoon - I've just been using the plastic one that came free in the Bounty pack I got when Hannah was about 3 or 4 months old. Only used when I'm giving her fromage frais or similar.

That's it, I can't think of anything else that we've found really helpful - apart from lots of flannels and hot water to clean up with! I'm mulling over whether a splash mat would be helpful or not, but we've done without it so far so I think we won't bother.