A swingingly good time

Breakfast today was more shredded wheat, once again Hannah ate absolutely tons of them - although she wasn't so keen on the ones that hadn't soaked up a fair amount of milk. Tomorrow I think she can have more milk on the cereal, to moisten them a bit more.

For lunch she ate beans on toast, along with part of a whole pear. The pear was a bit crunchy, rather than juicy, so she didn't make all that much progress with it despite managing to eat chunks out of the side and top. Beans were a popular choice, and she even managed quite a bit of the toast, too. Pre lunch she finished an open bag of cheesy poofs - well there were only four of them left!

Apparently beans on toast can be quite tiring though:

Dinner was a cheese triangle sandwich, two slices of melon, and a raspberry fromage frais. Hannah seemed really hungry though so as well as all that she also managed three or four apple rice cakes and a fistful of raisins. Didn't have time to cook anything for dinner, as we were late back from the park where we'd been playing on the swings, slide and dog onna spring (well only Hannah went on the first two, and I only went on the latter with her because she was refusing to hold on!).

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.

Feeling hot hot hot!

Well it's still baking hot down here (and I've still got poorly tonsils, boooooo). Hannah's drinking loads so she's obviously feeling it too. Breakfast today was the usual bowl of cheerios, and she had a nutella sandwich and a banana to eat at lunchtime. I gave her some raspberry flavour milkshake to drink, and she really went for it - which surprised me a bit, as it was an experiment to see if she would drink milk straight from the fridge. Turns out she will, at least if it's raspberry flavoured!

Dinner was an omelette with peas, cherry tomatoes and grated cheese in it. To my surprise Hannah ate the lot - I turned away to refill her sippy cup and when I looked back, I thought she'd just dropped it. No, it had disappeared. She followed this with a cereal bar and two fromage frais.



She's also eaten two handfuls of raisins over the course of the day. I think raisins are my new best friend, Hannah loves them and they're clean, portable, handy snack items! She doesn't even need a bib on to eat them, which has to be a good thing...

Sunny days

Today has been fairly unremarkable, except for the vast quantities of food Hannah has eaten. Breakfast was a huge bowl of cheerios, and ever fewer of them get dropped or otherwise wasted these days.

Lunch was a quorn fillet, and I don't know what I managed to do to it during cooking but it was revolting, so Hannah ended up with a sausage instead. She had two yorkshire puddings and lots of peas to go with it, followed by 6 pear quarters.

When she got up from her afternoon nap she was really hungry, so I gave her 3 roast potatoes that were meant to go with lunch but weren't ready in time. These swiftly got demolished, along with a handful of raisins. Shortly afterwards she had dinner, a slice of bread and butter, three more roasties, some cucumber chunks and halved cherry tomatoes. Pudding was another pear - it's a toss up whether she'll look more like a raisin or a pear in the morning! 20 minutes after finishing dinner Hannah drained a full bottle of milk too - I think we can definitely call it a growth spurt.

That's not to say that Hannah's attention is always on her dinner though:

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!

No nap = no tea

Today has been a bit weird, all things considered. Hannah had her bowls of cheerios for breakfast, but we were out and about for most of the rest of the day, which took it's toll on things.

Lunch was a whole pair, half a pack of cheesy poofs, some raisins, some sweetcorn, and a pack of heinz veggie crackers. The ladies sat near us in the cafe were very impressed with Hannah eating a whole pear, and she kept grinning back at them as if to say "I know, aren't I great?".

Tea didn't actually happen, as we didn't get home until after the normal tea time and having had no afternoon nap AT ALL. Hannah was far too tired to eat (and she kept rubbing her eyes, so goodness knows what sort of mess she'd have made with food!) so I gave her extra milk instead. It did the job, and she seemed satisfied with it Not normal practice though.

P-p-p-pick up a pancake

Hannah had cheerios for breakfast today - two enormous bowls of them! She ate absolutely loads, perhaps because she left lots of room by not really bothering much with her morning feed which was about half the length it normally is.

For lunch we all had pancakes, Hannah's two were filled with chopped fresh tomato, mushrooms, sweetcorn, and grated cheese. Then she had a special one for pudding, with a little bit of nutella and creme fraiche in. She seemed to like this one best - I can't imagine why ;o) - and smeared it all over her face.

Dinner was some of the chopped up veg left over from lunch - red pepper, sweetcorn and tomato - along with two rice cakes with cream cheese, some raisins and a banana. I nearly had to go and fetch her some seconds again, as she merrily ploughed her way through the plateful she had, but she did start to lose a bit of interest towards the end of the banana so the run for seconds was called off at the last minute.

She's still suffering from this cold, it's nearly a week now although she hasnt had a temp since the weekend. It's mainly affecting her at nap times and bedtime now, and her appetite definitely seems to be back to normal. In fact it seems bigger than normal, I guess because she's making up for the days when she didn't eat much at all.

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!

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

Beany Baby

Hannah had cranberry wheats for breakfast again today - Neil gave her an enormous bowlful of them and she ate the lot again.

For lunch I made cauliflower cheese for all of us. Hannah sucked the cheese sauce off every bit of cauli and did eat some pieces of cauli itself. She had some raisins and a banana for pudding, too.




Dinner tonight was beans on toast - an entire half sized tin of beans spread across two slices of toast. As normal Hannah carefully picked each bean off the toast, ate it and when she'd finished with that she sucked the bean juice out of the toast, then finally got round to eating the toast itself. No pudding, I figured all those beans were enough for anyone!

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.

Mum, I've dropped it...

Hannah ate shreddies for lunch today and yesterday - I'm rationing her slightly as the consequences were so unpleasant after Sunday's massive portion, so she only gets one large-ish bowlful. Yesterday she did want more, so I gave her a banana. She looked a bit disgruntled by that, and didn't bother eating much of the banana either.

For her lunches, yesterday she had some sprouts (a first), some green beans (another first), a veggie lincolnshire sausage, and half a boiled egg. She prodded the sprouts for a while before trying them, but once she'd decided they were definitely food she actually got on quite well.

The beans went down pretty well, too, although I'm not sure how much she actually ate of them. She did OK with both the sausage and the boiled egg though, and ate a fair amount.

Hannah also seemed to have a meal where everything ended up thrown on the floor at least a dozen times! It's not normally as bad as that, but as you can see here, she knew where she'd left it - she just expects it to be back on her tray when she's ready for another helping.

Today she had two slices of toast spread with lentil pate, followed by a strawberry fromage frais and a few grapes. She ate most of the toast, as well as sucking all the pate off, which always comes as a surprise to me after months of treating toast and bread as disposable serving dishes.

In fact here she is after finishing the fromage frais:

For dinner today I gave her a breadstick while I was sorting it out, as she stood at the stairgate blocking the kitchen door and shouted at me. You'd think the poor girl never gets fed! Anyway, once we moved through and got her settled in the high chair she had a baked potato, with the flesh scooped out and mixed with cream cheese before being replaced. There was also a fruit puree strip (from health food shops) which she liked but couldn't really eat very well on account of it being too tough for her to chew, half a dozen corn crisps, and finally some raisins. For the first time she had absolutely no problem picking up the raisins and getting them to her mouth, and she was actively searching for them off the tray, her lap, the bib, everywhere she thought she might have dropped some!

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)

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.