Ewww, strawberries

Hannah had two enormous bowls of cheerios today, probably because I didn't give her a breastfeed first thing. Since her before-bed feed has been formula for a fair while now, it might well be that yesterday was the final feed that Hannah had from me :o( It's a strange thought but we'll see what happens.

Lunch was a chaotic affair, as I'd forgotton that I had to be somewhere until 5 minutes before we had to leave (oops!). So I grabbed some organix carrot sticks and rice cakes, bunged them in the bag and off we went. Hannah ate the carrot sticks on the bus, and when we got back home had some breadsticks, rice cakes and an apple and orange flavoured cereal bar. She drank lots of water too, but it didn't seem like she ate much food - probably because it was so disjointed.

For dinner Hannah had two slices of toast, one spread with cream cheese and the other with peanut butter. She seemed to like the peanut butter (it was the crunchy sort) and ate lots of the toast, too. She also ate a tomato (whole), a very ripe pear (whole), about a dozen raspberries, and three or four strawberries. There's a funny video of Hannah eating the strawberries, they made her judder! They weren't even tart - obviously I had to taste a few to make sure!

Here's Hannah's method of eating tomatoes:

And here she is using the same method on the juicy pear:

Wonderful Wedges

Hannah had lots of shreddies for breakfast - in fact she had seconds of them! Neil was in charge of this meal, so I don't know exactly how they went down, but they definitely did go down!

For lunch she had a couple of breadsticks to stave off the hunger pangs. Her actual meal was potato and sweet potato wedges and a fromage frais. The standard potato wedges were better received than the sweet variety, which I thought odd as in the past she's clearly shown a preference for sweet potato.

Dinner was two slices of cream cheese on toast, followed by a plum. There was very little toast or cream cheese left after Hannah had had her way with it, although she did leave half of the plum.

She's also got a bit of a sniffle which I suspect is turning into a full blown cold...will have to wait and see on that one, but the medised is primed and ready to go!

Not hungry really

Hannah ate shreddies for breakfast today and seemed to welcome their return, scoffing a large bowlful. Lunch was a two part affair, part of it on the bus on the way back from Tooting, and the rest after her (very delayed) morning nap. It was two babybel cheeses, some cheesy poofs, a couple of apple rice cakes, two breadsticks, a banana and date fruit bar, some chickpeas and some raisins. The babybel was a hit, Hannah took really big bites of them and kept holding on to them until they were finished. The banana and date bar was also popular, although rather messy, it seemed to leave dark brown smears all over everything that Hannah touched after eating it.

Tea was a quorn fillet with some left over chasseur sauce, which Hannah didn't like much. At least I assume that was the reason she threw it all on the floor, anyway. She also had a plum and a fromage frais, which went down much better.

Accident with the sippy cup today though - it was in the living room and Hannah picked it up to have a drink but I think forgot that she wasn't in her highchair. She leant back and toppled over, cracking her head on the floor. It didn't seem to deter her though, and after a quick cuddle she tried the cup again this time with no injury!

I don't know why I bother *sulk*

Hannah ate shreddies for breakfast again today, and lunch was a mixed platter of different stuff. There was a fruit cereal bar, some cubes of cheese (red leicester and cheddar), a breadstick, two oatcakes with moroccan chickpea pate on, some french beans, a slice of cheese on toast (not in the original plan, but nicked off me), and two apple rice cakes. Ooh, and some raisins too. I should have remembered that, I took pictures of her using her fancy pincer grip to pick them up:

For dinner I cooked some garlic and herb tortellini, and mixed it with some tomato puree and pesto, Unfortunately Hannah spent the entire meal throwing it all on the floor, I don't think she actually ate a whole piece of it, although she got half way through a few of them. For afters there was two slices of melon. The first slice was chopped up as normal, into about five pieces. These she nibbled at but didn't seem all that keen on. The other slice I'd just cut into two pieces, and the bigger bits were all eaten.

So my conclusion from today is that Hannah likes either very small pieces of food like raisins, or very large pieces of food, like melon slices. If it falls somewhere in between, then maybe she'll eat it, maybe she won't. I think it depends on what direction the wind is blowing from, and whether she's got purple pants on. Or something.

One of those days, and a better one

Ugh, Friday turned out to be one of those days - it all started out fine, Hannah had her shreddies for breakfast and I grabbed some bits and pieces to eat while we were out and about at lunchtime. That went reasonably well, too. Hannah ate some melon chunks, a couple of breadsticks, a couple of apple rice cakes, plus half a pack of organix carrot crisps. I think that was it, anyway.

Then we got home, and Hannah proceded to have the screaming ab dabs for two hours. Which was nice. So her tea was a bit...different. It was squished in to the time in between her refusing to have a nap (and screaming instead) and when she should have been getting ready for bed, and consisted of three corn thins with homemade hummus on, a banana, and a fromage frais. She didn't eat much of it though, unsurprisingly since she'd been awake for far too long and was overtired. The corn thins mostly got thrown on the floor, the banana swiftly followed, as did the fromage frais spoon (plus attached fromage frais). So the clean up operation was fun!

Today was much better, Hannah ate shreddies for breakfast, and we all had pasta for lunch with tomato, mascarpone, and mushroom sauce. Somehow she didn't even make that much mess with it, although I'm not sure how! Her pudding was a couple of rusks I found (I thought we'd finished the packet ages ago), which she pounced on:

For dinner today she had lentil pate on toast and a slice of melon. She mostly ate the pate off the toast, and got on better with the melon once it had warmed up to nearly room temperature - it'd come out of the fridge only a few minutes before she started eating.

She's still having three feeds a day along with all her solids, generally a long feed in the morning, a shortish one mid-afternoon (as today, in the pic below), and an expressed feed before bed. She's taking less at the feed before bed, about 120ml / 5oz most nights, the other feeds haven't changed length for a while.

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:

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...

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.

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.

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.

Eating is hard work!

I'm sure I've mentioned before that Hannah seems to get overwhelmed if I put more than about four pieces of food on her tray at any one time - well, unless they're cheerios. I tested this yesterday to see if it was still the case, and it is. I was fishing quite a lot of food off the floor, as she reduces her food choices by the simple method of sweeping her arm across the tray so it ends up going overboard.


Breakfast yesterday was a brief return to cheerios, and today she had shredded wheat bitesize. We briefly tried using a spoon with the cheerios, but Hannah didn't seem to have made the mental connections that let her use the spoon. Never mind, something to try again in a month or two.


Lunch yesterday was pasta, mixed with double cream, grated cheese and baco bits to turn it into a homemade carbonara. Hannah didn't eat much of the pasta, but she did manage a few bits, and sucked the sauce off the rest. For afters she ate one and a half slices of melon.

As you can see, pasta can be a bit slippy and needs a lot of concentration:

Sometimes eating is too much like hard work and you need a rest:

But there's always room for pudding!:

For dinner yesterday she ate a slice of eggy bread. Egg generally is a bit hit and miss, sometimes she'll really go for it, others she'll ignore it completely. Yesterday was a hit day, so she ate nearly all of the eggy bread.


Today's lunch was a couple of oatcakes with lentil pate on, a couple of breadsticks, some halved cherry tomatoes, with tinned apricot halves and a rusk for pudding. Hannah ignored the breadsticks completely, ate the oatcakes, ate some of the tomato and sucked the insides out of the bits that she didn't eat. She didn't do so well with the pudding - half the rusk was left, and one of the two apricot halves as well.


Dinner was a slice of cheese on toast, with a raspberry fromage frais and another tinned apricot half. Although Hannah ate a bit of the toast, mostly she removed the cheese from the toast and just ate that. The fromage frais was as popular as ever, she wiggles her arms and legs and squeaks loudly when she sees the spoon coming towards her. And opens her mouth and grabs at the spoon with both hands - impatient little madam! She's got much better in the last week or so at actually getting all the fromage frais off the spoon, she's worked out that she needs to tip the spoon slightly to get to the stuff in its bowl. But hasn't worked out that she needs to give the spoon back to me in order to get any more - throwing it on the floor and banging her fists on the tray for more definitely slows things down.

Veggies and Pears

Argh, double update again, will try to get better about that! Anyway, two days of cheerios for breakfast again, no signs of Hannah getting bored of them, although I'm starting too. She is getting faster at eating her breakfast, she's gone from taking over half an hour to taking between 15-20 minutes.

Lunch yesterday was all of one breadstick, she wasn't interested in the cream cheese sandwich or the rusk which were also on offer. We were round at a friends for coffee and biscuits and I think she was rather distracted by all the other babies. Today, lunch was very late and she had peas, carrot, parsnip and sweet potato. The peas went down well but she wasn't all that fussed by the other veggies on offer, and mainly threw them on the floor.

Tea yesterday was a quorn fillet with carrot, parsnip, and sweet potato. She ate all of the quorn fillet, and not a huge amount of the veggies again. I don't know what's put her off her veg, time was that she'd go for any veg in a big way. To follow her quorn fillet she ate some tinned pear halves - two pears worth, so as you can tell they were pretty popular. I quite like giving her tinned fruit as it's so much softer than raw fruit - at least for things like pear - and she does seem to get on better and eat more of the tinned stuff. Plus things like peaches are out of season anyway, so I prefer getting them tinned.

Tea today was precisely nothing, she slept through it! I was planning on feeding her at 5.30 ish after her short nap, but at 6pm she was still asleep so I had to go and wake her up, then we were straight into the bedtime routine anyway (she didn't want to get up when I fetched her, either!).

So hopefully tomorrow we'll be back to normal service, two days of effectively just two meals must have short changed her in terms of calories, even though she slept through anyway and didn't seem to want extra milk. Oh, apart from today at about 1pm she did have an extra feed of about 150ml/5oz of expressed milk.

What a Falafel

Not a bad day today, all things considered. Teeth definitely not a problem any more (well, for the moment at least), so Hannah's been scoffing whatever we've put in front of her. So for breakfast there was a great big bowl of cheerios, with about 1/2 oz of formula on as the full fat milk has gone off (oops).

Lunch was two corn cakes with cream cheese and lentil pate on, a few chickpeas, some cucumber sticks, and some halved cherry tomatoes. Oh, and a breadstick. She wasn't all that interested in the cucumber, sucked the insides out of the tomato but left the flesh, sucked all the pate and cream cheese off the corn thins, and went for the chickpeas in a big way. The chickpeas she picked up, placed in her mouth, mushed around a bit then spat out the skin. I never realised that chickpeas had what you might call a skin, but Hannah certainly thought there was, and she wasn't having any of it thank you very much.

For tea, I made her some falafel. The recipe was from Carol Timperley's Baby and Child Vegetarian Recipes, and worked pretty well although I found the pre-cooked texture rather runny so bunged in a bit of plain flour to stiffen it up. They tasted fab though, and I served them in halved toasted pitta bread with a yogurt, cucumber and mint dressing. In fact we all ate them - here's a pic of Neil and Hannah tucking in, as proof!:

A busy couple of days

The last couple of days have been busy busy busy and I'm only just getting round to updating you on what Hannah's been munching on, sorry! You probably already guessed that she had cheerios for breakfast though, on both days. I weighed them again, as I was pretty sure she's now eating a fair amount more of them than when we first started serving them. I was right, too - she's actually getting through double her original portion, it's now up to about 10g. And judging by the way she's looking for leftovers at the end of breakfast, it might even be time to up the quantity again. I need to learn what the makaton sign for "more" is, so I can use that one with her as well as food, drink, and finished/all gone.

Yesterday's lunch was in a cafe during our shopping trip. I'd taken a packed lunch for Hannah consisting of a cream cheese sandwich, a breadstick, a rusk and some raisins. The little ingrate ignored her sandwich and instead ended up eating the breadstick, rusk and raisins, and half of my toasted teacake, which she absolutely loved. She also worked out how to operate the cafe high chair, which was on wheels. She quickly discovered that kicking her legs out in front of her meant that she skated backwards across the floor, and spent most of the meal doing that. Fortunately she didn't have enough power to go very far, so I wasn't chasing her down or anything - I'm sure it's only a matter of time though :o)

Today's lunch was not much at all - we were out again, this time at the health centre, so I picked up some Fruitina fruit puree strips to keep her going until we got home. She did really well with them, and ate half an apple and strawberry one, and a whole apple and apricot flavour one. But by the time we got home, she was far too tired for anything else to eat, so we skipped straight onto her nap instead.

Yesterday's tea was the sandwich she didn't want at lunchtime (gosh but I'm a mean mummy!), she wolfed it down. I gave her a few more raisins too, she seems to really like them and manages to pick them up with no particular problem, something I wasn't sure she'd be able to do yet. Kids love to prove you wrong, don't they?!

For tea today Hannah ate eggy bread, served with a small squirt of tomato ketchup. It was the first time I'd offered her ketchup, and to be honest it's not something I plan on doing regularly. To begin with, the eggy bread was au naturale, and she showed no real interest in it other than to fling it on the floor. With the ketchup she was immediately more interested, perhaps because she hadn't seen it before, and merrily smeared it all over her face, the high chair, and even the eggy bread. In fact here's a piccy of her having fun with ketchup:

I'm still serving water with each meal in her sippy cup, and yesterday for the first time I left it on her high chair tray during the whole meal. And to my amazement she did pick it up, take a drink and put it back down on the tray several times during the meal. Up until now I've been offering it at the end of the meal, but now I'm leaving it available for the duration. Today she mainly flung it onto the floor rather than drank from it, contrary madam :o)

Still not a fan of cauliflower cheese

Today Hannah ate cheerios for breakfast, then had the cauliflower cheese that she didn't want yesterday for lunch, along with some grapes cut in half, a slice of melon in chunks, and half a portion of butterscotch angel delight.

She still isn't a fan of cauliflower cheese and didn't eat very much of it at all. The melon didn't seem to be ripe enough for Hannah to cope with easily, so she didn't pay it very much attention. Fortunately she loved the grape halves, and the angel delight too. The angel delight got a similar reaction as rice pudding did the other week, she dived for the spoon as we were attempting to hand it to her, and she made "num num" noises while she was eating it.

For tea, Hannah ate an oatcake with cream cheese on, another with lentil pate on, a breadstick, a clementine, and the remainder of lunchtime's angel delight. For the first time in ages Hannah gagged on some of the oatcake and hastily spat it out. She didn't seem remotely bothered by this, and carried on with the rest of her meal regardless.

Another first today, she only had half a breastfeed at 11am, and none at all at 3pm, so I gave her a sippy cup full of formula along with her tea to make sure she's getting enough milk. She actually drank most of it, I think the first time she's drunk significant amounts out of the sippy cup.

Double whammy update

A double update today, as I missed yesterday due to being at a Spice Girls concert, yay!


For breakfast on both days Hannah had cheerios, and ate loads of them - I'm sure she's eating more every day. We've started placing the last few of them on the tip of our fingers for her to grab if she wants them, as there's one particular sort that goes really mushy and she can't get them. Her pincer grip is developing apace and is pretty good now - there's not much she can't get between her thumb and index finger these days.


Lunch yesterday was, well, forgettable - can't remember what I gave her! I think it was a couple of breadsticks and a sandwich with cream cheese in. I'm sure there was something else as well, but I don't know what it was! Today there were some Quorn Swedish Style Balls, which were also on the menu yesterday teatime, along with a quarter of a slice of my cheese on toast, and a rusk. Here's the start of lunch:

Here she is part way through lunch:

And now she's finished!

Tea today was a corn thin with cream cheese, a slice of melon, and three tinned peach halves. She's not tried peach halves before and she wolfed them down, so I'll pick up another tin of those when we go shopping next.

Hungry Hannah

Hannah's been very hungry today, more so than usual. She had lots of cheerios for breakfast after a longer than normal breastfeed, and a largeish (~100ml) drink of water before her morning nap.

Her 11am BF was again quite long compared to normal, and she then ate some tomato and mozzerella filled pasta with tomato and mascarpone sauce, plus a clementine and some rice pudding. I've taken to breaking the top off the clementine segments as Hannah seems to find it difficult to break into them otherwise. She wasn't all that fussed with them today though, as there was rice pudding to be having a go with. She was very tidy with it today (but I still had to change her top after lunch!) and did very well with the spoon we were using, even placing it down on the tray next to me rather than flinging it over the side of her tray when it was empty.

The mid-afternoon feed was shorter than the earlier ones, and she followed it up with her first attempt at dipping breadsticks in hummus, with mixed success. As well as the breadsticks and hummus she had a corn thin, also with hummus, a banana, a pear, and some grapes cut in half.

She finished the day off with a HUGE feed before bed - of well over 200ml, blimey! I'm not all that surprised though, as she spent the bits of the day when she was awake either climbing over things, crawling round the living room, kitchen and hall, or practicing pulling herself up to standing (which she's getting far too good at for my peace of mind...) and standing up itself.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everybody! A bit of a catch up today, on account of having been away for a few days and not posting. Hannah's enjoying her first Christmas, although she's had so many presents she hasn't actually finished opening them yet. Her favourite so far seems to be the small rocking horse she got from her Granny Sue. Keep an eye out for Christmas-themed bibs in our pictures in the next few days, she has one that looks like a Christmas tree from Aunty Jo and Uncle Matt, and one saying "My 1st Christmas", also from Granny Sue.

On Sunday, Hannah ate cooked breakfast, with veggie cumberland sausage, veggie bacon strips, and some fried mushrooms. She liked all of it, even the peppery cumberland sausage. Her lunch was tomato wedges, cucumber, some emmental cheese, followed by some halved grapes and a clementine. Ooh, and she ate a buttered crumpet, too - I nearly forgot that! In fact here's a picture of her enjoying it:


Dinner was eaten at her first ever cocktail party (she's ever so posh, you know!), and was basically cheese and biscuits with yet more grapes for pudding. Oh, and she also ate a strawberry cream flavour Quality Street chocolate during the day that her grandad and I fed her in tiny pieces. She definitely quite liked that, but won't be having any more as a) I don't think they're good for her and b) we've eaten them all!

Yesterday saw a return to cheerios for breakfast, then she ate some lunch at mum's, which was a vegetable omelette followed by halves of grapes, and no dinner at all as we were in the car travelling home - in fact we had to stop in a layby on the A34 so I could feed her. She had a dream feed yesterday too, on account of not having all three of her normal meals,. and took a full 200ml/7oz.

Today, Hannah's eaten cheerios again for breakfast, then she had tomato wedges, cucumber sticks, a couple of oatcakes with hummus on, and a breadstick, with rice pudding for afters. Her dinner today was of course Christmas dinner, including some Quorn roast, roast potato, roast parsnips, carrot, some stuffing and a bit of low salt gravy. She hadn't tasted stuffing before, but certainly seemed to like it. But not as much as she liked the bit of Christmas pudding that we gave her for pudding.



She's also drunk a lot of water out of her sippy cup today, and sucked the end of our champagne cork too (I don't think she got much champagne off it though!). Sadly she wasn't very impressed with her party hat, so it only lasted a few seconds before she had it off and in her mouth for a good chew.

Sleepyhead Hannah

Yay! Hannah slept for a whole 13 or so hours last night! We (OK, I) have been dithering about dream feeds, whether we were just going to drop it or gradually phase it out, how to do it, and so on. Last night we were distracted (ie watching QI on the telly) and completely forgot to go upstairs to get Hannah and feed her. When we realised, it had gone 11pm, so we decided that we'd not make her feed up and instead just suffer the consequences if she woke us at silly o'clock. But she didn't! We'll see whether she carries on in the same vein, but I think/hope that's the end of the dream feed. Now to find something to do with the tag end of a box of formula...any ideas?

No exciting outings this morning (well, apart from a trip to Asda, does that count?) meant that Hannah had time to sit and enjoy her breakfast. Obviously we gave her Cheerios again so she could fully appreciate them. She mainly did this by hiding them in her bib, and I found hundreds of them when I was cleaning it in preparation for lunch. I'm sure she did eat some though.

Speaking of lunch, today she tried some new foods. There was some cottage cheese - served on a small spoon - which after flinging around a bit, Hannah decided that she liked. There were two rice cakes with hummus on, too. Hummus hasn't made an appearance for a while, and she really seemed to like it. No hesitation as there usually is with new foods, so I presume she remembered the flavour. Then there was a breadstick, followed by a clementine and some grapes that I cut in half. Since she hadn't tried either of these before, I wasn't sure how she'd get on, but she was fine. She ate the grape halves, and sucked the innards out of all the clementine segments, without pulling any strange faces!

Here she is showing how she eats clementines:

For tea Hannah tried a slice of quiche that I saved from our lunch, plus a banana and a (local) apple, I can't remember what kind but possibly a russet. She enjoyed the quiche but found that it disintegrated rather quickly, went for the banana more than the apple, but when eating the apple actually sounded like she was eating it - we could hear her crunching away at it with her two little teeth.

BLW Picnic Lunch

We're all over the place today, as I had an appointment this morning. Breakfast was a rushed bowl of cheerios, in a race against time to get the bus, and lunch was taken in a waiting room sat on my knee. I used a muslin tied round Hannah's neck as a bib, and gave her two rice cakes with lentil pate, a breadstick and a rusk. She wasn't overly interested in any of it as she was so tired (no morning nap due to us being on the move all morning). For the first time she even left half the rusk, so not a particular success.

Despite not eating much lunch, her breastfeed prior to tea was no longer than usual, a short affair no longer than 10 minutes in total.

Hannah is currently tucking into her tea, of some four cheese tortellini with stir through olive sauce, and an apple - a cox's something or other, not an orange pippin though. Can't remember what I picked up at the greengrocers, sorry, but I do know that they're local, keeping our food miles down. The tortellini are going down very well, I can tell from the num num num noises she's making - not heard those for a while!

She seems to be rather fascinated by the apple, she's scraping it against her teeth. Well, the two that she's got anyway. I left the skin on and the apple uncooked this time, the skin is carefully being spat out much like the pear skin yesterday. The uncooked state doesn't seem to be causing any particular problems so I'll probably not bother cooking it in future, unless there's a particular reason to.