Babies who lunch

Hannah and George had lunch together today, which was nice - the grandparents steered well clear though, and left Jo and me to manage the carnage of pasta and sauce. Which was not that bad really, all things considered.

And it was all going so well:

Hannah had bitesize shredded wheat for breakfast yesterday, and a mixture of those and cheerios for breakfast today. I'm told that she was much keener on the shredded wheat - I'd report it myself, but I was having a lie in and the grandparents were in charge, hurrah!

Dinner today was a hummus and tomato sandwich, a packet of cheesy poofs, a slice of melon and a strawberry fromage frais. Her arms were too tired to work the spoon again for the fromage frais, and she only managed about a third of the melon slice before giving up and chucking it on the floor.

Yesterday for dinner she ate a pitta bread filled with hummus and falafel. She really liked the falafel, and having only started with a couple of them she ended up eating everything that was available. She also had an organix apple and blueberry compote (which was very nice, I tried a bit!).

In other news, Hannah has been a nightmare going to bed for the past three nights, and this evening I found half of one of the four molars she's trying to grow has cut through the gum. I'm hoping that this means we're over a teething hump and there'll be some respite over the next few evenings, but somehow I doubt it... She's also taken to drinking the best part of a sippy cup full of water in her bedroom before going into her cot of an evening, I think that the cool water helps soothe her gums.

A furry peach

Yesterday Hannah ate shreddies for breakfast, then she had gnocchi with a passata based sauce for lunch followed by a slice of carrot cake that Neil brought home. She was quite keen on that (no surprises there!).

Dinner was two slices of cheese on toast, which again she made short work of. I didn't give her any pudding as she was too tired really.

Today, shreddies for breakfast again. Lunch was pasta with tomato sauce and grated cheese stirred through. Hannah ate lots of it this time, or at least she seemed to although there was a fair amount in her lap that I discovered during Operation Cleanup. For pudding she had a peach, and seemed entertained by the furry skin - up until now she's not come across peach skin. It didn't stop her eating it though, or attempting to eat the stone out of the middle either. I think that means she liked it... :o)

For dinner there was a sandwich filled with mashed banana and cream cheese. She also had the banana and cheese mix that didn't fit in the sandwich served off a spoon, along with a couple of little organix animal biscuits and some halved grapes. She ate the lot, too!

Schwings!

Day two of the new "no morning breastfeed" regime today, and it worked just as well as yesterday. Hannah was perfectly happy to wait for her breakfast until we were dressed and downstairs. She had two (well, one and a half perhaps) bowls of cheerios today. I haven't managed to take any eating pics today, so instead have a pic of Hannah at the park during our post-breakfast walk, playing on the swings:



We ate lunch together, and all had a nut cutlet, roasted butternut squash, sweet potato and normal potato wedges, and gravy. Pudding was a few fresh strawberries. Hannah went mad for the nut cutlet, which she's not tried before, and also ate a lot of the normal potato wedges. The sweet potato and squash didn't get pounced on quite so eagerly but still went down pretty well. She didn't have so much of the funny reaction to the strawberries this time, either, and ate about four of them.

Dinner was pasta, with some cream cheese and pesto mixed through, along with some sweetcorn and peas. Hannah ate most of the peas and sweetcorn, and sucked all the cream cheese and pesto mix off the pasta. She ate a fair amount of pasta too, or at least a fair amount made it into her mouth even if some of it came straight out again and down her front or onto the floor.

Must do better on the photo front though, consider my wrists duly slapped!

Poo, cat biscuits and other things...

Well you can probably tell from the title, Hannah has excelled herself recently. Sunday was a relatively normal day, she ate two bowls of shreddies for breakfast, we all had pasta and a tomato and vegetable sauce for lunch, then she had a couple of oatcakes with hummus plus some fruit for her tea. So far so good...

Yesterday, she started out well, eating a bowl and a half of shreddies for her breakfast. Then we went out to playgroup, and shared a tomato and mozzerella panini in Caffe Nero for lunch afterwards. Hannah ate loads of the panini, plus the filling except the slice of tomato, which she discarded. I also gave her a bit of my raspberry and white chocolate muffin and a couple of apple rice cakes that I'd brought with me. On the way home she fell asleep for all of 20 minutes, which turned out to be the only nap she had all day!

I changed her nappy when we got in (frankly it wasn't pretty) and she went ever so quiet when I was clearing up. Then I noticed she'd got her hands on a bit of cotton wool I used and was happily chewing away on it. Let's put it this way...it wasn't a clean bit of cotton wool. So we had a quick brush of her teeth, I tried to rinse her mouth out with cold water then gave her a drink from her sippy cup. Hannah then went back to playing in the living room, and next thing I know she's crawled over to the gate blocking the door into the hall, shoved her arm right through and managed to get hold of a fistful of cat biscuits. She's obviously grown since I placed the cats bowl in the hall, she didn't used to be able to reach it! So it's now further down the hall, hopefully that'll stop Hannah helping herself to their food.

For her actual dinner I gave her a cream cheese and cucumber sandwich, a few organix corn rings, and a banana. She drank a lot of water, ate half the sandwich and a couple of corn rings, then nibbled the banana and threw it on the floor. I think she must have been full from all the cat biscuits she'd eaten ;o)

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.

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...

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.

Sniffles again :o(

Well, as of lunchtime today, Hannah has the sniffles again. She's been sniffle free for all of a week or so, it's just not on frankly. Anyway we battle on regardless, and good old medised helps.

So breakfast today was cheerios, presided over by Neil (I stayed in bed a bit longer :o) ). He tells me that Hannah ate loads, even the ones that were turned up during the clean up caught in her bib or on the high chair.

Lunch was pasta with mushrooms and a creamy tomato sauce, which we all ate, plus half a pear that was left from the tin of them I opened the other day. Hannah's pasta had a veggie lincolnshire sausage cut up in it too, as we'd saved it for her out of our dinner last night. She ate loads again, and seemed to find the pasta spirals very interesting at least in terms of texture. She got on lots better with the spirals than she did with the pasta tubes, which is what she's eaten before. I did have to fish a bit of the mushroom out of her ear at one point, she was diligent in smearing herself with the sauce, as you can see:

For dinner she just had a slice of cheese on toast and a clementine. She didn't really go for the clementine much, but did very well with the cheese on toast. For the first time we saw her actually bite small pieces of toast off and chew them - she didn't even spit all of them back out again! She definitely seems to like more flavoured cheeses too, today's was cathedral city.

First raisins

Not much to report today really. Hannah had cheerios for breakfast again today (and so did I, turns out they taste quite nice!).

For lunch I cooked her some mushroom and ricotta tortellini, and she followed it with half a banana. I think she ate more of the pasta today than she managed last night, although she still mainly sucked the filling out and left the pasta itself.

Tea was a couple of oatcakes, one with cream cheese and one with lentil pate on, plus some cherry tomatoes, slices of avocado, and some raisins. It was the first time she's tried raisins, and even though they were pretty small she managed to get them down her really well. I did find a couple that escaped down her bib in the clean up operation, but that was all.

She passed!

Hannah had her 8 month check today, and I'm pleased to report that she passed. She now weighs 16lb 15oz, and is 69cm long. Her head is nearly 46cm round, and she showed off by pulling herself up to standing for the health visitor several times.

Breakfast was cheerios, lunch was a cream cheese and hummus sandwich, and tea was some mushroom and ricotta filled pasta with tomato and mascarpone sauce. All went down very well, although all meals were rather brief today as we were a bit short of time and never quite caught up with ourselves.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a bit more relaxed, we don't have any specific appointments to get to, so I'm hopeful!

Better late than never!

Not much to report apart from the fact that Hannah seems to like slightly spicy food, and only had two naps today for the first time.

Breakfast was cheerios, lunch was rice cakes with lentil pate and sweet potato mash, emmental cheese fingers, half an avocado and a slice of melon. Dinner was mezze lune arrabiata pasta things, with a version of tomato and mascarpone sauce on them.

I was surprised that Hannah went for the pasta, as there was a little kick to it and I thought she might find it too spicy, but she enjoys proving me wrong :oD The tomato and mascarpone sauce was a very quick homemade (improvised) version, which was a couple of teaspoons of mascarpone cheese, a squirt of tomato puree, and a little milk to mix it all with. Worked like a charm, although it wasn't very authentic!

Here's a pic of Hannah enjoying her pasta:

And here's a completely gratuitous pic that I'm uploading just because she looks cute in her fleece with ears (tm):

See you tomorrow...

Malt loaf and cheerios

Hannah tried cheerios for breakfast today. They turned out to be smaller than I expected, but she did better than I thouht she would considering the size. Lots of pincer grip practice! She seemed to eat most of the serving I gave her too, which is always nice to see.

Lunch was two rice cakes spread with sweet potato mash, some swede mash, a slice of melon, and two sticks of malt loaf with a bit of butter spread on them. The rice cakes were brought into play because the sweet potato mash was too soft and difficult for Hannah to handle. It worked quite well, and I can see various mashed thins being served on rice cakes in future. She didn't pay much attention to the swede mash other than to smear it over the high chair tray, but the malt loaf and the melon were both well received. The malt loaf in particular was given a severe beating, she went at it relentlessly for a good ten minutes or so.

For tea I cooked her some pasta and served it in a veggie carbonara type sauce. The sauce was double cream, parmesan cheese, and some baco bits out of the cupboard. Mostly she sucked the sauce off the pasta (again) but I think some did go down this time too. The sauce tasted lovely, so it might make an appearance on the adult menu soon, yum (I'm sure Hannah didn't mind me pinching some of her tea to taste it...).

Still no pics, but the house should get put back to normal tonight or tomorrow so hopefully normal service will be resumed shortly!

I Can Eat A Rainbow

Breakfast was back to raisin wheats with full fat milk. As before she tended to crush them by gripping them too tightly, but made considerably less mess than last time. I'm not sure why - it's possible that she ate more, but it's hard to tell.

Lunch was a colourful affair of red, yellow and green: red baby plum tomatoes sliced in half lengthways, yellow pepper cut into slices, steamed in the microwave then skinned, green courgette fried in butter. She seemed to like tomato the best, sucking out the innards of each one which is exactly what she did last time. She also enjoyed the courgette, as you can see in the photo. Pepper was a bit slippy but when it made it into her mouth she liked that as well. She did mostly go for the tomato, though.

For pudding she had a slice of melon, always a big hit! It's fair to say that she's perfected the art of stripping all the flesh off, leaving just the rind to be cleared away.

Dinner was pasta again, with tomato and mascarpone sauce spiced up a little with some more fresh baby plum tomatoes. As per, she sucked all the sauce off the pasta, sucked the innards out of the tomatoes and left the tomato husks with the bare pasta.

For pudding she had a raspberry fromage frais which she was a bit too enthusiastic about - she ate about half as usual then managed to fling the rest on the floor, table legs, chair legs, herself... The problems started when she grabbed the pot and tried to drink from it like a cup, but got her mouth on the 'top' side side instead of the bottom, as if trying to get rid of hiccups. It all went downhill from there...

In other news, she's consistently taking less milk on her pre-dinner breastfeed, suggesting that she's regularly eating quite a bit of food at lunchtime, as well as continuing to take less than the full 7oz (200ml) dream feed. We also took her to be weighed today, she came in at 16lb 4oz (7.4Kg for our international viewers), which is a healthy gain of 1lb 2 oz (510g) in 3 weeks, so she seems to be thriving on BLW!

She's also developed a new trick: she drops things off the side of the tray, then leans over and peers down at them. Special fairy magic means they usually reappear back on the tray, where she once again pounces on them.

Breakfast today was toast, half served with raspberry jam the other hand served with blackcurrant jam. She didn't eat a great deal of toast but the jam all disappeared - definitely a fan of jam!

Lunch was a home made veggie sausage plait and avocado. This was her first taste of sausage plait and she seemed to prefer the avocado, which is an old favourite, but the sausage did get some attention towards the end so we'll give that another go in the future. Pudding was 4 halves of apricot and two dried apple rings. The apple rings seemed to be the preferred choice today.

Dinner was pasta tubes with tomato and mascarpone sauce, the same as yesterday. And like yesterday she cheerfully sucked off all the sauce and left most of the bare pasta.

We're seeing signs that she's eating more solid food as half the breastfeeds she's had today have been significantly shorter than normal with no signs that she's still hungry - she's been quite cheerful and playful today. She's also taken less of the dream feed (11pm) the last few days, at least on the days when she's had 3 solid meals - we offer 200ml but she's only taking between 100 and 140ml. Previously she's always finished the lot.

Threeee is the magic number

Back to three meals today, starting with raisin wheats with full fat milk for breakfast. She's getting better at manipulating them, but still has a way to go: she tends to grip them a bit too forcefully so they get crushed and turn into raisin wheat mush. Today's raisin wheat mush spread from eyebrows to chin, from fingers to elbow and all across the tray. Still, Hannah seemed to enjoy it and might even have eaten some.

Lunch was the remainder of the tomato and Boursin tart, which she seemed a little less ethusiastic about than the first time at least to start with. But she did get into her stride after a while and seemed to get through a reasonable amount, photo below shows the tart before it had sustained the full-on Hannah Attack. By the end I was practically scraping it off with a trowel...

Pudding was 4 halves of apricot with an apricot fromage frais. It was the first time she's tasted apricot so it was greeted in the usual way: she froze as she got the first taste, then raised her eyebrows, then frowned, then dropped it. Then went straight back at it. Second taste she's a little hesitant, then usually by the third taste she's tucking in happily. As usual we gave her the fromage frais on a spoon which she operates herself, and as usual she tended to grab the spoon end with one hand so half of it ends up between her fingers. But from there it mostly winds up in her mouth, so all's well that ends well.

For tea she had pasta tubes with tomato and mascarpone sauce. She did very well at manipulating the pasta tubes, but I don't think she really ate any. However, she did remove all traces of the sauce from every tube so that's a partial success! By the end she had a pile of plain pasta and a slight pinkish orange tint to the tray, so we moved that away and brought in pudding, which was 4 more halves of apricot. She dived straight in without hesitation this time and seems to quite like apricot, all four pieces getting a bit of a mauling.

Three meals a day!

Today is the day...Hannah has eaten three meals today for the first time.

Firstly at breakfast she ate some melon, some mango, and a medjool date. The mango and date were new, she hadn't tried them previously, and the mango was a little underripe so put up a fight. She did manage to make some headway though, and seemed to like it too. The date was sticky, and even when she opened her hand to grab something else, it stayed where it was, which confused her a bit.

Lunch was pasta with tomato puree and grated cheese again, followed by melon (again!), a couple of dried apple rings, some sultanas, and a strawberry flavoured fromage frais. I wasn't sure how she'd get on with the sultanas, since she's only just got the hang of her pincer grip. She surprised both of us by managing to pick one of them up at her first attempt, but didn't manage to transfer it to her mouth. So it didn't actually get eaten, we'll try them again in a few days I think.



I'm still impressed with how much of each piece of melon she manages to eat now, we're basically just left with the rind at the end.

Dinner confused Hannah today - it's the first time she's had any though. It was a slice of eggy bread cut into fingers, and she ate a fair amount of it too. I'll have to start thinking up new meals to give her though, now she's on three a day!

Teeth, pincer grips and other things

Yes, Hannah appears to have two shiny new teeth to show off! Well, little points of teeth really, but still they do seem to have broken through her gums at the bottom centre. She's well and truly growing up (*sob*).

As if that wasn't enough, at breakfast there was a definite pincer grip too - see the pic for evidence:

Anyway, on to the food. For breakfast Hannah ate a banana, a slice of melon, and a rusk. The fruit was better received than the rusk, but that had its day once she'd seen off the banana and melon.

For lunch there was pasta mixed with a squirt of tomato puree and some grated cheddar. It's the first time I've tried her with cheddar, and it was the really strong stuff, since that's the sort I like so it was in the fridge. She did pull a funny face at the first taste, but carried on regardless and pretty much demolished the lot of it. Her fancy new pincer grip meant that the pasta tubes didn't offer much resistance - it was quite difficult to pick up last time she tried - which is just as well as I forgot that I bought pasta twists specially to make it easier, they're still sat in the cupboard, oh well!

I gave her another slice of melon for pudding, and she drank from her sippy cup again too. All in all a very good day!

Update: that'll teach me for posting this while she's still eating - I've just been and got her a second slice of melon and another rusk, as she'd eaten everything I'd given her! No idea where she's putting it all... Oh and she's having a bath this afternoon, I've just discovered dried-in banana in her hair and behind her ear. Lovely.

Pasta and sauce

Neil was in charge of this morning's breakfast, and offered Hannah toast with cream cheese, toast with jam, and a slice of melon. She didn't go a bundle on the cream cheese today, but did suck all the jam off the toast. And the melon was pretty much eaten too.

Lunch was the first proper meal of pasta, with some cheese sauce stirred in. I used pasta tubes, since that's what we had in, and the sauce was basically a white (bechamel) sauce with grated cheese stirred into it. The pasta was a little difficult to pick up, but not too bad and didn't seem to cause any problems once she'd got used to it a bit. On a few occasions she picked up a tube and it shot out of her fist, but mostly she managed to get it into her mouth. At first Hannah didn't really show any interest in the pasta at all, it took a good few minutes for her to get started. Once she had started, though, she was happy enough, so I'm not sure what the problem was.

There was another slice of melon for afters, but that'll be the last one for a while as we've run out - I'll have to pick another one up when I go shopping next.

Finally, why is it that nobody warns you of the horrible consequences of weaning? Nappies nowadays are much less pleasant than when she was exclusively breastfed, and yesterday's four dirty nappies in one day is some kind of record, she's normally a once a day kind of girl. Hey ho, another reason not to give her porridge again for quite some time...