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.

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.

Yet another cold, argh

Well Hannah has got *another* stinking cold, and decided it was time to get up for the day at 4.30am today. So excuse me if I'm not that coherent!

Breakfast today was two slices of toast with raspberry jam, as I'll be limiting her dairy intake for a few days while we ride out this cold. She enjoyed the change and ate a fair amount of the toast.

Lunch was a banana, an organix flapjack, a fromage frais and some organix crispy rings. She ate very little of it though - perhaps a quarter of the banana, two of the crispy rings, and only a third of the fromage frais, which is not at all like Hannah. She did manage most of the flapjack though, along with a bit of water out of her sippy cup.

For dinner I gave her the rest of the crispy rings, a corn thin with blitzed avocado spread on it, and the rest of lunchtime's fromage frais - which she did finish this time. She also drank a lot of water, and nearly brained the cat by chucking her sippy cup over the side of the high chair tray. I don't think the cat will choose to sit there waiting for scraps again!

Water Baby

Today's meals were at funny times, since we took Hannah swimming for the first time when she'd normally have been eating her lunch. She loved swimming, and wasn't bothered about lunch (I breastfed her instead).

So breakfast was shredded wheat bitesize, while lunch when it eventually turned up was a corn thin with humus, another with cream cheese, and two slices of melon. There were also some organix corn crisp rings. She really liked those, and every time she picked them up with her thumb in the middle of the ring, and nibbled away at the edges until she broke through.

Dinner was vegeballs in tomato and basil sauce, followed by a rusk and a banana. Hannah seemed to get a bit bored of the meatballs after a little while, but briefly went back to them after eating some of the banana and rusk.

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.

Pasta bake v cauliflower cheese

Hannah has got more teeth, the two top middle ones have now turned up, a week or two after the ones immediately outside them. So with six teeth to use on her food, we've definitely noticed she's getting better at biting - us as well as the food!

Breakfast has been cranberry wheats (Friday) and shredded wheat bitesize (Saturday). She ate an absolutely HUGE amount yesterday - about the same as I'd eat, if not even more. I couldn't believe she'd finished the bowlful, but there was very little left behind to find in the clean up.

Her lunches have been cauliflower cheese and pasta bake. The cauliflower cheese was fairly successul - much more so that last time I tried her with it. It was very messy, but I'll definitely make it for her again. She even ate quite a bit of the cauliflower, which in the past she hasn't really seemed very interested in. The pasta bake wasn't so successful, probably on account of the millions of shredded wheat she'd filled up on at breakfast. The fromage frais that followed it though was well received - enthusiastic shrieks in between sucking the spoon clean is always a sign.

As you can see, she's keen on the cauli (this time):

But what's going on outside is much more interesting (high wind making a for sale sign flip to and fro):


...but even that gets boring after a while!:

For dinner, on Friday Hannah ate a cream cheese and avocado sandwich followed by a fromage frais. She did pretty well with the sandwich - although she pulled the bread apart to get at the filling better - but didn't eat all of the avocado, prefering to pull it out and cast it aside. I'd slightly mashed half an avocado so that I could spread it, I think in future I'd slice it instead so that she can pick it up better if she deconstructs the sandwich.

Yesterday she had half a baked potato, with the inside scooped out and mixed with a little cream cheese, plus a corn thin also with cream cheese. For pudding she ate a portion of chocolate flavoured angel delight. I have never seen her so excited about food, I don't think! The squeals and flailing legs and arms were some indication of what she thought of it :o) Neil was feeding her, and he noticed that she seemed to be drinking a lot of water during the process too, she'd have a mouthful or two of the angel delight and then have a bit of water in between, and she carried on doing this the whole time.

Cheerios, couscous and corn thins

In a shock move, Hannah didn't have just cheerios for her breakfast today. Yes, it's true! She ate some of the cheerios, but seemed to be hungry still so we gave her a few bits of shredded wheat fruitful. She really liked them, and concentrated on those rather than the cheerios left on her tray. So perhaps we'll be branching out from the relentless diet of cheerios, who knows?!

For lunch she tried something new, couscous. It was mixed with some chopped avocado, peas, and a serving of lentil pate to try and make it more sticky. She liked the taste and texture of it, but had considerable trouble getting it into her mouth. We eventually reverted to loading a spoon for her, which was somewhat more successful but she still didn't eat a huge amount.

Dinner was a couple of corn thins spread with lentil pate, a rusk, and half a banana. She ate the lot, I've never seen her eat so much of it and we were really surprised not to find huge chunks of it in her lap when we cleaned her up. In fact when she'd finished all of that, she was busily bashing her hands on the tray demanding more food, so we topped her up with a raspberry fromage frais as well - which she ate all of again.

The upshot of a huge dinner was that she didn't really want all of her feed before bed, at least not all at once - I split it into two, as it was expressed with medised added so I wanted to get it down her! Hannah's also not asking for feeds during the day so regularly either, and for the moment I'm going with the flow. She's still getting all four feeds, but not at regular times any more.

Casserole is messy!

Double update today, since I didn't get round to writing anything yesterday. Hannah breakfasted on cheerios, of course, and seems to be eating more and more of them. I think I need to find something else to give her along with her daily cheerio ration, this morning she was busy bashing her hands on the tray when they'd all gone. Normally that signal means I'm not providing food quickly enough for her liking.

For lunch yesterday, she had a couple of corn thins with cream cheese on. There was also a rusk, a raspberry flavour fromage frais, some tomato and cucumber. Today, she had two falafel served in half a pitta bread with copious amounts of cucumber minty yogurt sauce. She LOVED the yogurt stuff, and I ended up scooping more of it up with the pitta bread, and she actually ate a remarkable amount of the pitta bread, too. Wonders will never cease!

And to prove I'm not telling fibs about her prowess with a sippy cup, here she is showing off and using it one handed:

Dinner yesterday was vegetable casserole, which turns out to be quite messy to eat. Hannah did quite well with it, and seemed to prefer the juice that the casserole came in rather than the vegetables it actually contained. Some pieces of veg she just sucked clean and then ignored, but at least some of them did go down.

Today, I gave her a lentil pate and cream cheese sandwich, plus a fruit and yogurt digestive biscuit. Dinner was a rather rushed affair, as we'd been out for the afternoon and were later than planned getting back, so a bit short on time. But Hannah seemed to enjoy herself anyway, and judging by the amount of sandwich filling she managed to smear all over herself, she's angling for a bath in the near future :o)

Just Peachy

Cheerios for breakfast again today, followed by a lunch of corn thins with cream cheese and lentil pate, some cucumber fingers, and some tinned peach slices. I only gave her three peach slices to start with, but rapidly had to fetch more to stop her banging her fists on the tray repeatedly. She also had a fair amount of water to drink, out of her sippy cup.

Hannah's getting lots better at using her sippy cup, and I usually leave it on the corner of her tray during a meal now rather than give it to her once she's finished eating or if she seems to need it. She doesn't even fling it on the floor after she's finished with it now, which has to be a step forward! I've also noticed that she's much more aware of dropping things, for example if something ends up on her lap she will try to pick it up herself (assuming she wants it, anyway). It makes the clean-up operation slightly easier, as there's fewer lumps of food to catch.

Her tea today was a hard boiled egg, some slices of avocado, and a slice of toast with cream cheese and avocado spread on it, plus a rusk and more water to drink. She did her normal trick with the toast, mainly sucking the topping off and leaving the toast. It was the first time I've given her boiled egg, although she's had egg before in other things, and to be honest she wasn't very impressed with it, not much of it got eaten.

Oh, and one last thing that I noticed Hannah doing today: when food falls out of her mouth, she doesn't always use her hands to push it back in. Sometimes, she leans forward as if she's trying to catch it up and overtake it. I haven't noticed that technique having much success so far though!

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!:

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.

Hannah banana

Hannah's eaten loads today, despite still having a cold - nothing seems to be shifting it :o(

For breakfast she had a huge bowl of cheerios, and did really well with them. She's developed a method of eating them where she picks up one or two in her hand, then does a kind of mexican wave with her fingers closed round them that sees them pushed up between her thumb and index finger with her hand still held in a fist. It sounds bizarre, but seems to be very effective, and I noticed her doing the same thing with other smaller pieces of food today too.

For lunch Hannah had two oat cakes and a corn thin, all with lentil pate on. She also had some cherry tomato halves, some emmental cheese, and a slice of melon. She ate pretty much all of the melon, sucked all the lentil pate off the oatcakes and corn thin, and even ate a bit of those too. She sucked the insides out of some of the tomato halves, but left some of them nearly untouched too.

Tea was mainly fruit, I cut up an apple into segments for her but it was mostly ignored - she gummed briefly at one or two pieces and left the rest. She had another go at a kiwi, and this time didn't shudder and throw it onto the floor - a big step forward! She didn't seem to like it very much, but once I'd nicked a segment of it off her plate and eaten it, she got a lot more interested and actually did eat some too. There were segments of clementine, and a banana too. The banana is easier than ever to prepare now, as I just cut it in half across the middle. Hannah seems to prefer it like this, it gives her more to grab and chomp on, rather than the thinner chip shapes I made before. As well as all the fruit there was some scrambled egg, the first time I've made it for her. She got on OK with the egg, but wasn't that keen on it today - I think she only ate it at all because it looked like the banana bits and she got them confused!

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.