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:

Easy Peas-y

Hannah's eaten loads in the last two days! She's started both days with an enormous bowl of cranberry wheats, in fact between us we've finished the box off already :o)

For lunch yesterday she had a quorn fillet, some potato wedges that I sprinkled a bit of cayenne pepper onto, and about a ton of peas (well, ish). She really enjoyed the peas, and seemed fascinated by how small they were and how she could chase them around the tray on her highchair. The wedges and quorn also went down well. Pudding was a few grapes.

Dinner yesterday was a couple of sices of toast with lentil pate spread on it. We've finally nearly eaten all of the lentil pate - one batch has lasted ages in the freezer - so it's nearly time to cook up a new batch. I also gave Hannah some raisins, which went the same way as the peas.


Today for lunch Hannah had a packet of carrot organix wotsits while we were out and about, plus two nectarines and a banana. The banana was a bit underripe and she wasn't all that keen on it, although she still managed about half of it. She's showing off her ability to eat a nectarine one handed while wielding a sippy cup:


Dinner was a dairy-based affair with two rice cakes spread with cream cheese, a serving of cottage cheese, and a peach flavoured fromage frais. As usual, anything arriving via a spoon was very well received and there was lots of excitement on show.

Hannah's also now having mixed feeds, for the past week she's had a breastfeed first thing in the morning (well, before 8am which is early enough for me!) then a bottle of formula before bed. She's consistently only taking those two milk feeds now, and I'll be moving her onto moo juice rather than mummy juice in just over a month, when she turns one :oO

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.

Gnawing a (g)nectarine

Right, I'm finally getting round to updating things after the last few action-packed days. This post covers Wednesday and Thursday, yesterday's food will follow shortly...

So breakfast on both days was shreddies. And on Wednesday we experienced a major milestone! I've been using baby signing with Hannah for the past few months - since we started weaning really - and at the end of breakfast when I signed "finished", she responded with "more". I decided to make the most of it, and gave her a second (much smaller!) bowl of shreddies to reinforce the communication. And was so excited by what she'd done that I immediately phoned Neil to tell him! :o) She did the same thing on Thursday morning at breakfast too, so it doesn't seem to have been a one off. Now I'm keeping a close eye out for any other signs that show up.

On Wednesday, at lunchtime we were out and about, so it was a snack-y meal of what I'd chucked in the changing bag before we left the house. It included a gingernut biscuit (from the plate at the venue rather than one from home), then some organix cheese and herb corn crisps, a couple of breadsticks, some grapes and a gingerbread man. On Thursday she ate a cream cheese sandwich, some cherry tomatoes, some dried fruit and a whole nectarine. It was the first time she's had a piece of fruit whole, and I was amazed how well she did with it. It looked quite comical, as if an adult had been given an entire cantaloupe melon to eat like an apple, but was very effective.

On Wednesday, dinner was a courgette cooked in butter, some baked stuffed mushrooms, and followed by a banana and a fromage frais, but Hannah didn't really eat much of it at all (except the fromage frais, of course, and the filling from the mushrooms). And it looked so nice, too:

The courgette mostly got thrown on the floor, the banana got ignored. I really don't know why, as she hadn't eaten an enormous amount earlier in the day, and she should have been ready for something to eat! Perhaps the double breakfast was still filling her up.

For dinner on Thursday, Hannah ate some organix carrot crisps, a raspberry and apple flavour cereal bar, a gingerbread man, and a slice of cream cheese on toast. There was nothing spectacular to report at all really, so I'll end it there!

Keep smiling,

Cate.

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...

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.