Mmm, chalk!

Well Hannah today mainly ate blue chalk. We met up with some friends and Hannah discovered that in the playhouse at the bottom of Helen's garden was a pack of chalk. She opened it, removed the blue chalk, and ate the lot:
But don't worry, that's not all she had (and there's no evidence of blue in her nappies so far...). For breakfast she ate blueberry wheats, but only half a bowlful and she didn't want the banana I offered her either.

Lunch was while we were out at Helen's and Hannah ate two slices of toast with peanut butter on, and one had hummus on as well. She had some bits of salad - cucumber and such - a few of Natasha's blueberries and strawberries, and a squished peach that looked more like a doughnut (it wasn't, I promise!). She also had some water out of her sippy cup, Natasha's sippy cup and William's sippy cup, and I think she had some juice out of the other Hannah's cup as well. She's not fussy ;o)

Dinner when we got home was put together very quickly and was a few quorn nuggets with peas, plus a few strawberries out of the garden.

More news about teeth...

Grandparents have taken over early morning Hannah duty - which is fab, I've had more lie-ins this week than I have since she was born! And I'm told she's eaten quantities of cheerios and mainly shredded wheat bitesize with a few grapes and suchlike thrown in for good measure.

Lunch yesterday was round at Aunty Jo's house, she kindly provided some roasted veggies - sweet potato, standard potato, and butternut squash. She also had a Heinz chocolate biscotti and a few halved grapes for good measure. Oh, and as George was eating first (we were doing shifts with the high chair) she was also placated with a few organix sweetcorn rings before the meal itself. And in other news she may have had a first taste of mince. Possibly. George was eating chilli, and Hannah was mooching round the kitchen when she discovered that there was food on George's lap. So obviously she helped herself to some, and even seemed to like it. I knew her learning to walk would come back to haunt us sooner or later... ;o)

Today's lunch was tomatoes with pesto and mozzerella, plus some ciabatta bread. She ate lots of it, and was offered a peach for pudding, which she threw on the floor. Eventually she swapped her peach for George's (Aunty Jo and George were visiting again!) banana bread and both babies were happy. You can find the recipe for the banana bread here on Aitch's blog.

Dinner yesterday was a sandwich I think - my memory is faulty, sorry! Today, Hannah ate a pile of falafel, half a pitta bread (originally served with falafel in, but treated as a seperate item by madam), a rapsberry fromage frais, a few strawberries, and a slice of melon.

And more news on the teeth front too. We now have two halves of molars. Sadly, not belonging to the same tooth, so there's clearly more work to do...she has been lots better over the past couple of days though, for example actually going to bed of an evening at a reasonable time and not getting up again (well I've jinxed it now...).

There will be photos added here, once Aunty Jo bothers emailing me copies as they're all on her camera.

Millions of peaches, peaches for tea

Yesterday was a pretty good day, Hannah started off with a big bowl of cheerios again, eating loads. For lunch she had a marmite sandwich (love it or hate it, right?) and a banana, and followed this up with potato wedges for tea. Pudding was a nice fresh peach, which Hannah sat and munched her way through (after chucking her potato wedges on the floor mainly). There was nothing left of the peach except for the stone in the end, so I gave her a second peach and the same thing happened! Personally I didn't think that much of those peaches, they weren't the nice sweet ones but were a bit sour/tart tasting. Didn't seem to bother Hannah though and she happily ate her way through the pair of them.

The poor girl is still being fobbed off with rubbish meals though, I think she's looking forward to staying with Grandma next week as she stands more chance of being well fed!

Today was cheerios for breakfast again, same old same old. Lunch was a cheese and cucumber sandwich and a peach again - this time the peach ended up on the floor mostly. She also had a few raisins on her tray while I was making the sandwich, but these also ended up mostly on the floor - very unusual since Hannah normally goes for raisins in a big way. For dinner she had beans on toast, the first time she's had them for absolutely ages, and boy were they popular! She sat and carefully picked all the beans off the toast and ate them, then came back for the toast and sucked all the bean juice out of the bread. She was funny to watch, especially since she's figured out that sucking her fingers and hand after she's been handling beans also tastes good.


She's recently started opening her hand right up to get to the last bit of food inside it, so I quite often see her with a hand plastered across her face. It's got more frequent over the past two weeks, and now is pretty much a daily thing.

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!

Fruity!

Hannah was stuck with own brand shreddies for breakfast this morning, as that's what Neil managed to get hold of at the shops yesterday. She got on with them just as well as the normal branded shreddies, so no complaints there. However when it came to the clean up operation I found them slightly more difficult to peel off the muslins and floor. I'm not sure yet whether that was because I put more milk on them so they were soggier than normal, or whether they somehow are inherently stickier. Will observe and report back!

For lunch she had three oatcakes, two spread with cream cheese and one with butter and marmite. The marmite one made her judder again - she seems to be doing that more and more these days on a wider variety of foods, even stuff she's tasted before. She also had some raisins, a pack of cheesy poofs and a pear. Then she had her special dotted lines staring at my fab ice lolly, so I let her try some (just the strawberry flavour bit from the middle). That made her judder, a lot. She seemed fascinated by the whole thing though, and even though it made her pull some very funny faces she kept coming back for more. Of course I let her have more, since it was proving quality entertainment at the time...does that mean I'm a Bad Mother??? I did call a halt to the experiment after she bit a largish chunk of lolly off, and sat there pulling faces trying to melt it as quickly as she could, lol.

Tea was a much more sensible affair, she just had a large fruit salad with pear, peach, apricot and a huge number of strawberries in. She ate all the strawberries too, 150g of them! She was deliberately picking them out in preference to anything else offered. Oh and I nearly forgot, she also had a chocolate biscotti at Diane's house earlier this afternoon. She loved it, and managed to make very little mess even though she was cruising/crawling round with it in her hand and/or mouth. Not one to waste food, especially when it's chocolate flavoured!

Here's some video I took of her eating her fruit salad...she's quite chatty in it, as you will hear!

Eating together - what BLW's all about

We've eaten quite well this weekend, with lots of whole-family meals.



Breakfast on both days was shredded wheat bitesize, and she ate plenty of them. This morning, she finished off her bowl, then signed "more" - it's turning up more and more often, yay! So Neil (who was in charge of breakfast today) gave her a bit of his slice of toast, which she ate. Then she was bashing away at the tray (her normal way of telling us she wants more), so got basically a whole slice of toast as well as her shredded wheat. Some of the toast had marmite on, too.

For lunch on Saturday Hannah ate pizza and garlic bread, along with Neil and me. Shocking I know, and probably far too much salt in for a little girl, too. We let her try a slice of cheese pizza and one piece of garlic bread, and she really liked it:

She preferred the garlic bread though - probably no bad thing! If we share garlic bread with her again I'll make my own with unsalted butter, as I was very conscious that it probably wasn't all that suitable for her...

Today, she had some organix cheese and herb corn crisps and a cream cheese sandwich, plus some tinned peach halves. She didn't go a bundle on the sandwich and kept throwing it on the floor, but ate the crisps and the peach half.

Yesterday's dinner was quartered boiled egg, followed by a fruit salad mixed with fromage frais. The fruit salad included grapes, cherries, melon, peach and banana and once I'd chopped it all up I stirred a raspberry flavour fromage frais into it all. Hannah found it a bit slippy to handle, but she certainly enjoyed sucking the fromage frais off, and ate a fair amount of the fruit too.

For dinner today she had two breadsticks followed by a baked potato with grated emmental cheese, then she ate grapes and hazelnuts too. I didn't intend for her to have those, but Neil took them through for him to eat while she ate the potato. Hannah created until he shared them with her, and got on amazingly well with both - the grapes were rather tart and I didn't think she'd like them, and she'd never tried hazelnuts before. But apart from a minor surprised face at the taste of the grapes, there was no real reaction.

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...

Melon Madness!

Today's breakfast was a twist on bitesize shredded wheat - I gave Hannah some of the asda cranberry filled ones instead. She seemed quite surprised when she first bit into one, but swiftly polished off the lot.

I made a one-egg cheese omelette for lunch, and chopped up some melon for pudding. Hannah did really well with the omelette, and ate not one, but two whole slices of melon. And had a fair amount of water from her sippy cup, too.

For dinner there was a vegetarian sausage roll, and some pieces of dried fruit. She's not tried dried fruit before, and judging by the expression on her face you'd have thought I was poisoning her. She ate a bit of the dried peach, chewed it, pulled a face but swallowed it anyway, and repeated the whole thing all over again. Many times. She didn't like the dried apricots at all, even though they were the really nice juicy ones, so I don't think I'll bother giving her those again for quite some time.

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!

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.