It's all gone pear shaped

Oh dear, today really hasn't been up to much. Hannah woke up just before 4am today, eventually drifting back off after some medised at about 5.30am. She managed her normal breastfeed and solid breakfast (yes, cheerios) OK and ate quite a bit, but after that it all went wrong.

Her feeds have been minimal, she's been unsettled and quite fractious, and she hasn't slept much either. She ignored the vegetable omelette I made for her at lunch, ate about half of the rusk, and threw her sippy cup on the floor. She did nick a bit of my white chocolate Thornton's snowman, though, little monkey. And liked it very much indeed!

I ended up giving her a bottle this afternoon as she was refusing to nurse, she did have a fair amount from that, and had her usual pre-bed bottle as normal. But she wasn't interested in any solid food, and had a dose of Calpol at 2pm, then Medised before bed.

I'm hoping that it's a combination of teething pain (definite bumps on her top gum have appeared) and the tail end of this cold she's had for weeks, rather than anything more serious. Hopefully tomorrow she'll be back to her usual sunny self, but today has been a bit of a write off really.

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.

Boxing Day food

Hannah had a funny day yesterday. She ate cheerios for breakfast as normal, and ate loads of them too.

For lunch she had beans on toast followed by rice pudding, and did pretty well with that. The beans she seems to pick up one or two at a time, and carefully squeeze them in her hand until they pop out of her palm onto the side between her thumb and index finger, where she carefully eats them from. Cheerios are dealt with in much the same way.

Dinner didn't go down very well really. It was left over Christmas dinner, but most of it ended up on the floor or generally spattered around. She was very tired - a result of not napping very well - and not in the mood for solid food much at all.

She's had a cold for what seems like weeks now, and is still suffering with a runny nose and a cough. I think this is making her less interested in her solid feeds, it's definitely making her naps shorter, as she can't self-settle by sucking her thumb on account of not being able to breathe at the same time. Medised is helping, but any other suggestions very welcome :o)

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everybody! A bit of a catch up today, on account of having been away for a few days and not posting. Hannah's enjoying her first Christmas, although she's had so many presents she hasn't actually finished opening them yet. Her favourite so far seems to be the small rocking horse she got from her Granny Sue. Keep an eye out for Christmas-themed bibs in our pictures in the next few days, she has one that looks like a Christmas tree from Aunty Jo and Uncle Matt, and one saying "My 1st Christmas", also from Granny Sue.

On Sunday, Hannah ate cooked breakfast, with veggie cumberland sausage, veggie bacon strips, and some fried mushrooms. She liked all of it, even the peppery cumberland sausage. Her lunch was tomato wedges, cucumber, some emmental cheese, followed by some halved grapes and a clementine. Ooh, and she ate a buttered crumpet, too - I nearly forgot that! In fact here's a picture of her enjoying it:


Dinner was eaten at her first ever cocktail party (she's ever so posh, you know!), and was basically cheese and biscuits with yet more grapes for pudding. Oh, and she also ate a strawberry cream flavour Quality Street chocolate during the day that her grandad and I fed her in tiny pieces. She definitely quite liked that, but won't be having any more as a) I don't think they're good for her and b) we've eaten them all!

Yesterday saw a return to cheerios for breakfast, then she ate some lunch at mum's, which was a vegetable omelette followed by halves of grapes, and no dinner at all as we were in the car travelling home - in fact we had to stop in a layby on the A34 so I could feed her. She had a dream feed yesterday too, on account of not having all three of her normal meals,. and took a full 200ml/7oz.

Today, Hannah's eaten cheerios again for breakfast, then she had tomato wedges, cucumber sticks, a couple of oatcakes with hummus on, and a breadstick, with rice pudding for afters. Her dinner today was of course Christmas dinner, including some Quorn roast, roast potato, roast parsnips, carrot, some stuffing and a bit of low salt gravy. She hadn't tasted stuffing before, but certainly seemed to like it. But not as much as she liked the bit of Christmas pudding that we gave her for pudding.



She's also drunk a lot of water out of her sippy cup today, and sucked the end of our champagne cork too (I don't think she got much champagne off it though!). Sadly she wasn't very impressed with her party hat, so it only lasted a few seconds before she had it off and in her mouth for a good chew.

Nice bit of crumpet

Hannah slept really well last night, she's back to going through from 7pm till around 7.30am, hurrah! She's still got a runny nose, but is basically over her cold and back on fine form.

Breakfast today was cheerios again, I had to do them with semi skimmed milk as mum didn't have any full fat in the house. Fortunately I only put a little milk on anyway then drain the excess off so that the cheerios don't go too soggy. Hopefully it won't be bad for her!

For lunch, Hannah ate with us, which was really nice. She had some tomato and boursin tart, a stick of celery, some cucumber and tomato, some tomato and mozzerella ravioli, and a lightly cooked pear. The ravioli was taken apart so that she could eat the middle of it without bothering with the pasta itself. The tomato and boursin tart went down well, she hadn't had any for ages. I wasn't sure how she would receive the celery, her dad absolutely hates it, but it didn't bother her at all. Not that she made much progress with it, mind, not like the tomato where only the skin was discarded.

Tea was more a spectator sport than a family meal, Hannah was the only one eating but there were about half a dozen people in the room. And a spotty dog, which to be honest Hannah was more interested in than the food. For tea she had some more tomato and boursin tart, some sticks of emmental cheese, and some wedges of tomato, with a banana for her afters. Part way through the meal, we remembered that there was a crumpet put aside for her, so toasted it and spread it with butter before handing it over. Once she'd got her hands on the crumpet she ignored everything else on her plate and ate almost all of the crumpet (apart from the bit she dropped on the floor that Sophie the dalmation nicked). She ate virtually all the banana, too, so a really good meal all told.


And by the way, are they crumpets or pikelets? My dad maintains they're pikelets, I know them by both names but usually call them crumpets. What's the difference between them, why do they have two names, are the answers out there?

Oh, and I almost forgot. She ate about half a strawberry cream Quality Street before tea, too. Well, it is Christmas after all...just don't tell anyone!

Out and about

We've all been out and about today, travelling to see my parents. So breakfast was a swift bowl of cheerios at home before departure. Hannah ate lunch at a motorway service station on the M40, fortunately we took a packed lunch with us so didn't have to search for something suitable. She ate three rice cakes, two with marmite and one with raspberry jam on, and a rusk. I was planning to give her a clementine too, but we left it in the car!

Hannah's dinner was our late lunch when we arrived chez the grandparents. She ate some sticks of cheddar cheese, a vache qui rit triangle (messy but tasty), and some veggie sausage plait. The pastry flaked off quite well, although she did manage to eat some of it. It made her cough a time or two as well. The sausage bit from the middle was received quite enthusiastically, but generally she was flagging over dinner due to not really napping all day. Let's hope she settles down OK this evening...

A busy day!

Today has been very busy, with a coffee morning for some other mums from our playgroup, then a visit from family dropping off Christmas presents, but we still managed to get some food down Hannah eventually!

Breakfast (before the first visitors arrived) was cheerios again, she ate loads today. I think she's making up for the past couple of cold-filled days when she hasn't felt much like eating.

Lunch happened during the coffee morning, picnic style on the living room rug. So that it wasn't too messy, I gave her one rice cake with vache qui rit (or laughing cow as it's now known!) cheese on it, and another with lentil pate, plus a clementine. It was the first time she's tried the cheese, and she seemed to really like it - although she smeared quite a lot of it all round her face! And because we didn't use the highchair, I also found a bit of rice cake stuck to her tights with the cheese. Oh well, another item of clothing for the washing heap!

Tea was later than normal, after family had left and Hannah had her afternoon nap, and was a slice of eggy bread and a banana. She didn't seem at all phased by the delay, and tucked in quite happily.

She's also back to sort of sleeping through the night after her cold, which is a relief. She did wake up and want a feed last night just as we were going to bed, but didn't wake after that, which is a first this week I think. So hurrah!

We're off to my parents tomorrow morning, so will be on the move. Hopefully I'll manage to keep posting, but if I miss a day or two you'll know why! Back home on Monday.

A repeat of yesterday

Poor Hannah had almost exactly the same food put in front of her today as she had yesterday. I blame the cold that the entire family now has, we all feel a bit manky, boo hiss. Hannah's Medised and our Lemsips do seem to be working though!

So anyway, breakfast was cheerios of course, lunch was sweet potato, carrot and parsnip, oatcakes and hummus, and tea was beans on toast followed by rice pudding. She definitely likes both beans and rice pudding, and I think she'd have eaten the entire (big) tin of rice pudding given half a chance. As you can see from the picture, she was firmly of the opinion that I hadn't given her enough, and she was forced to suck the leftovers off her bib...

She's been extra tired today, because of her cold, so hasn't eaten a huge amount but - to my surprise - has still been interested in her food. The breastfeeds have been much longer than in the past week or two, presumably to make up the calories she's not getting from her solid food at the moment. Feeds today were lasting around 15-20 minutes, rather than the 6 or 7 minutes that's become normal during the day. At least I got a chance to sit down for a bit longer than normal! :o)

A fruitful day

Not bad today. Despite her cold, Hannah tucked into her cheerios this morning, and got on fairly well with her lunch which was sweet potato, carrot, parsnip and peas followed by a clementine.

It was the first time she'd tried peas, and she was quite nonplussed to start with. Turns out peas are quite wily, and they kept running around the tray while Hannah chased them down. She did eventually manage to pick them up, and seemed to like them once they made it into her mouth. Everything else on the menu was an old favourite, and she tucked in, although not with quite as much gusto as normal, I guess because of her cold.

For tea (after our Christmas shopping expedition) she had a quick slice of beans on toast, and a rice cake with unsalted butter and marmite on. She really went for the marmite this time, and the beans too. Still not much progress with the toast, it's basically a disposable plate as far as Hannah's concerned. Having said that, she did actually bite a small piece off the toast today, but spat it out after a couple of chews. The beans were a different variety today, too. We bought Branston 50% bigger beans, which I thought might be easier for her to pick up. To be honest they didn't seem much bigger, so if they weren't the same price anyway it wouldn't be worth it I don't think.

Here's a pic of Hannah chasing her peas at lunchtime:

Hannah sniffles

Oh dear, Hannah's got a sniffle. Not sure it's quite a cold yet, but she had me up four times last night, after doing so well with no dream feed too. So she's back on the dream feed for the moment, as it's a good way to get Calpol down her (mix it with the milk).

She's still managed well with her food today despite the sniffle, and had more cheerios than ever for breakfast. Lunch was rice cakes with hummus, a steamed carrot, about 10 grapes cut in half, and a rusk. The hummus all got sucked off the rice cakes (as plates go, they're expensive as you can't reuse them!), the carrot was largely ignored, and the innards were sucked out of the grapes. The rusk was the only item that all got eaten, but I think that's because it mostly dissolves while she gums at it.

For tea I did her a mushroom omelette, three sliced mushrooms, one egg, and a bit of milk. I cooked the mushrooms a bit before adding the egg, and it worked very well. Hannah seemed to really like it, and at least half got eaten - the rest was shredded into very small bits and scattered all over the place. I gave her a pear for afters, but it was less ripe than I thought so she didn't make all that much headway with it. She still seemed to enjoy it though, and there were lots of little teeth marks left on the flesh.

Here's Hannah eating her omelette:

Vegeballs and other things

Breakfast: cheerios
Lunch: vegeballs in tomato sauce and half a rusk

Tea: lincolnshire sausage, avocado, rice cake with boursin, half a rusk and some grapes

Verdict:

Breakfast went down fairly well as usual. Lunch was a success too, which was good as it was the first time Hannah had tried vegeballs (and the first time I'd tried making them, I've put the recipe here). They didn't hold up too well to pressure as she picked them up, and disintegrated more than I thought they would, but most still got eaten. The tomato sauce wasn't too messy either, probably because we didn't actually give her most of it, just the bit that the vegeballs were coated with.

Her tea went down well too, she seemed to prefer the sausage but happily munched away at everything she had. She also managed the grapes really well too, and seemed much more confident picking them up than even yesterday. Some pieces she managed to suck the innards out of (I had cut them in half for her), leaving the skin.

We've noticed in the past few days that she doesn't really chuck food over the side of her high chair any more. Not sure when this started, but we're definitely not having to pick so much up. There's still the food that goes down onto her lap, along her legs, and onto the floor, but not nearly so much.

And no dream feed again last night, but she woke up at 6.10am today wanting a feed. I fed her one side, then put her back to bed. She slept until 8am when she woke wanting her breakfast, but when I fed her she only wanted one side, so her early feed was spread out over two hours! Hopefully we've managed to get enough down her today that she'll sleep longer tonight, but at least I got a bit of a Sunday lie in... :oD

Sleepyhead Hannah

Yay! Hannah slept for a whole 13 or so hours last night! We (OK, I) have been dithering about dream feeds, whether we were just going to drop it or gradually phase it out, how to do it, and so on. Last night we were distracted (ie watching QI on the telly) and completely forgot to go upstairs to get Hannah and feed her. When we realised, it had gone 11pm, so we decided that we'd not make her feed up and instead just suffer the consequences if she woke us at silly o'clock. But she didn't! We'll see whether she carries on in the same vein, but I think/hope that's the end of the dream feed. Now to find something to do with the tag end of a box of formula...any ideas?

No exciting outings this morning (well, apart from a trip to Asda, does that count?) meant that Hannah had time to sit and enjoy her breakfast. Obviously we gave her Cheerios again so she could fully appreciate them. She mainly did this by hiding them in her bib, and I found hundreds of them when I was cleaning it in preparation for lunch. I'm sure she did eat some though.

Speaking of lunch, today she tried some new foods. There was some cottage cheese - served on a small spoon - which after flinging around a bit, Hannah decided that she liked. There were two rice cakes with hummus on, too. Hummus hasn't made an appearance for a while, and she really seemed to like it. No hesitation as there usually is with new foods, so I presume she remembered the flavour. Then there was a breadstick, followed by a clementine and some grapes that I cut in half. Since she hadn't tried either of these before, I wasn't sure how she'd get on, but she was fine. She ate the grape halves, and sucked the innards out of all the clementine segments, without pulling any strange faces!

Here she is showing how she eats clementines:

For tea Hannah tried a slice of quiche that I saved from our lunch, plus a banana and a (local) apple, I can't remember what kind but possibly a russet. She enjoyed the quiche but found that it disintegrated rather quickly, went for the banana more than the apple, but when eating the apple actually sounded like she was eating it - we could hear her crunching away at it with her two little teeth.

Out to lunch again

We were out to lunch again today, this time visiting friends. So after her breakfast of cheerios, Hannah ate a biscuit when we arrived (a rusk type thing, not sure exactly what it was), then a plain rice cake, a breadstick, and half a pear. She did really well with the pear, and ate all of it - I felt rather guilty for having eaten the other half before she finished!

For tea she had beans on toast, the first time she's tried that combination, and got on surprisingly well. I did just one slice of toast, buttered and cut into six pieces, with abotu 1/3 of a small tin of beans on it. Judging by the "num num" noises she was making, she liked it. She didn't eat much of the toast, but the bean juice had soaked into it quite well so she did give it ore attention than normal. She managed to pincer grip the beans too, and is becoming very delicate picking things up, using just the tips of her fingers and thumbs.

I meant to mention a few days ago that we've decided to use the Baby Whisperer method of eliminating the "dream" feed, and have slowly been cutting down on the amount of milk she's offered. Last night it dropped to 5oz, having started at 7oz, and tomorrow night it'll go down again to 4oz. So far so good, but we'll see what happens when we try dropping it completely.

Hannah's first party food

Today Hannah went to her first ever Christmas party, at our local playgroup. She met Santa, who gave her a present, and joined in with the party food on offer. So for lunch she ate (or at least tried) some wotsits, some other crisps - I don't know what they were - a small cheese and onion roll, a bit of veggie sausage, a small sandwich with the crust cut off - again I don't know what was in it - and a chocolate cornflake biscuit. Oh, and a bit of my mince pie too! She got in quite a mess, but did enjoy herself.

I caught her first ever taste of chocolate on camera, too - note that she seems to be leaning forward to fit more of it in her mouth,,,

Breakfast was, of course, cheerios. We were in a rush to get to the party, and they are relatively mess-free, quick and easy to serve, and generally fab. I have noticed the lightest coloured ones (I think they're rice?) go soggy very quickly, so have taken to splashing on a bit of milk then draining it off into the sink so the cereal isn't sat in the milk while Hannah's eating. I think it helps a bit, but they still go soggy.

Tea was some broccoli and parsnip with an oatcake, followed by some melon. I thought we should make some attempt to have healthy food today, despite the earliuer goings on! She basically ignored the broccoli again, but ate some of the parsnip and most of the oatcake. The melon mostly disappeared too - it was chunks of pre-prepared melon today, which I picked up while we were out earlier, as I thought we'd be pushed for time. Not having the rind on made it more difficult to pick up, but she battled on and managed pretty well anyway. It included different melon, too, there was green melon, orange melon, and watermelon, and all was well received.

BLW Picnic Lunch

We're all over the place today, as I had an appointment this morning. Breakfast was a rushed bowl of cheerios, in a race against time to get the bus, and lunch was taken in a waiting room sat on my knee. I used a muslin tied round Hannah's neck as a bib, and gave her two rice cakes with lentil pate, a breadstick and a rusk. She wasn't overly interested in any of it as she was so tired (no morning nap due to us being on the move all morning). For the first time she even left half the rusk, so not a particular success.

Despite not eating much lunch, her breastfeed prior to tea was no longer than usual, a short affair no longer than 10 minutes in total.

Hannah is currently tucking into her tea, of some four cheese tortellini with stir through olive sauce, and an apple - a cox's something or other, not an orange pippin though. Can't remember what I picked up at the greengrocers, sorry, but I do know that they're local, keeping our food miles down. The tortellini are going down very well, I can tell from the num num num noises she's making - not heard those for a while!

She seems to be rather fascinated by the apple, she's scraping it against her teeth. Well, the two that she's got anyway. I left the skin on and the apple uncooked this time, the skin is carefully being spat out much like the pear skin yesterday. The uncooked state doesn't seem to be causing any particular problems so I'll probably not bother cooking it in future, unless there's a particular reason to.

Today she smells of Shepherd's Pie

Yes, today Hannah has managed to get Shepherd's Pie all over herself, including in her hair. I think I've just about managed to get it all out now (thank goodness!). This was her lunch, and she did seem to enjoy it rather a lot, despite being on the messy side with it. She ate a pear too. Half of it was uncooked, and half was gently cooked just to soften it up a bit. She ate the lot, apart from the skin which she spat out, having eaten all the flesh off it.

It was funny watching her deal with the pear skin, I've always peeled fruit for her in the past. She put it in her mouth as normal, chewed the lump a bit, then without fail out came the skin again. I'm not sure I could do that myself, I was very impressed!

For tea there were rice cakes with lentil pate, some emmental cheese, and a breadstick, with pineapple to follow. She's still pulling the odd face at the pineapple, but it doesn't seem to stop her actually eating most of it when it's offered. The lentil pate was all sucked off the rice cakes, and the cheese and breadstick both had a good going over too.

Breakfast, it almost goes without saying, was cheerios again. She didn't seem very interested in eating at all when I first sat her down for breakfast, it took a good 6 or 7 minutes for her to get going. Once she'd started though, she ate a similar amount to normal, so I don't know what the delay was all about.

I said yesterday that babies need about 700 calories a day, further research suggests that from 6-12 months they actually need about 45 calories per pound of bodyweight. From birth to 4 months, it's about 52 calories per pound (thanks to AQA 63336 for providing the answer to that one!). So Hannah actually needs about 720-750 cals a day at the moment. Aren't they clever things, eating just the right amount to grow and stuff?

Stinky Baby

Cheerios for breakfast again today - 5 grams of them to be exact. I weighed them because I was interested in how much Hannah is eating and how many calories she's getting from food, Neil read recently that a baby needs about 700 calories a day, which is more than I thought she'd need.

Lunch was a smelly affair as I gave her a rice cake with boursin on. She wasn't sure at first, but after a couple of tastes really went for it and ate the lot. There was another rice cake, too, this one with sweet potato mash on it, plus some carrot and parsnip fingers and the rest of yesterday's rice pudding. Hannah loved the rice pudding again, I was trying to give her the spoon to feed herself but I obviously wasn't quick enough as she dived for the spoon with her mouth rather than hands. Unfortunately the boursin did make her smell rather garlicky for the afternoon, despite plenty of wiping down. I think she's stashed some behind her ear or somewhere...

For tea there was a mix of broccoli and breadsticks for main, and for pudding a first taste of kiwi fruit with a rusk. She wasn't that interested in the broccoli, although she did break some off and chew it. The kiwi fruit reaction was possibly the most extreme yet - even more of a shudder than with the raspberries a few weeks back. I'd even cooked it gently so it wasn't as tart, ho hum. She focused mainly on the rusk after the first taste, I think we'll try the kiwi again once they've (over)ripened a bit so they taste sweeter for her.




For milk feeds, we've decided that this coming weekend we're going to try dropping the dream feed (10.30pm or thereabouts). For most of the past week we've been getting her up for it, she's not been waking for food at all. And she's not finishing the feed either, normally leaving 1-2oz. We'll see how that goes, and I'll report back.

Shepherds Pie and Rice Pudding

Ooh, today has been a day of New Things again, Hannah seemed to think it was fun.

Breakfast was cheerios again, the box is so big and Hannah's so little it's going to take weeks to get through them all, very good value for money! I'll have to give her some variety sometimes though, maybe she can have toast or fruit tomorrow.

Lunch was a breadstick and some steamed carrot, parsnip and cauliflower, with rice pudding for pudding. She picked up and had a good chew of the cauliflower for the first time today. The stalks definitely help and give her something to pick it up with. The rice pudding went down well too, she'd not tried it before and she managed it very well, especially considering it's served on a spoon that's given to her to use.

Today's dinner was a veggie shepherd's pie made with soya mince followed by melon and a bit more rice pudding. Again, she did surprisingly well with the shepherd's pie, although again we used a spoon to serve it as the mince was too small for her to pick up just yet. Pretty much an entire slice of melon got eaten again, and the rice pudding all disappeared too - she takes after her Auntie Jo in that respect. Especially since she had seconds of it, too.

It was interesting trying to give her the rice pudding on a spoon though, she was so keen on it she went for the spoon with her hands and leant towards it with her mouth wide open at the same time - so in some respects she was fed food for the first time, rather than feeding it to herself, but I'm not sure this really counts!

We're considering starting to drop the "dream" feed (the one she's only ever slept through once!), as she never finishes the full bottle now anyway, so I think she's ready for it anyway. And two of the four daytime feeds are only ever about 6 or 7 minutes long, so she's clearly only having a drink rather than anything more.

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!

Mashed banana more popular than melon shocker

Considering the upheavals of the day, Hannah's done really well today. For breakfast she had a very rushed two slices of toast, half a slice had marmite on and the other slice and a half had blackcurrant jam on. Obviously she sucked off the topping and left the toast again it's like she hasn't figured out that toast is actuallly food too, not just a way of getting jam to the table.

After we got back from playgroup and the doctors (no sign of an ear infection, hurrah! She's just tugging at her ears to wind me up...) Hannah had a swift lunch before her very overdue nap. She ate a rice cake with lentil pate, a breadstick, some red leicester cheese sticks, there might have been something else as well but I;ve forgotton, sorry!

Tea is the only more or less normall meal that today has seen, Hannah ate another rice cake, this time with mashed banana spread on it, half a slice of melon, and a rusk. She really went for the rice cake and banana today, and ignored the melon until it had all gone. A real change from normal, she's generally a big fan of melon.

Hannah is continuing to cut down on her milk feeds, too. Last night for the first time ever she failed to finish the 200mls of expressed milk she normally has before bed. And as normal she left some of her final feed (the 10.30ish one) again too. Combined with ever-shorter breastfeeds, I wonder how long it will be until she completely drops one of them. She doesn't really ask for them as it is, I just offer at regular times and leave it up to her to decide how much to have. The morning BF is the only one that's still "normal", whatever that might mean!

She had seconds!

Hannah ate loads today, I can't believe it!

Breakfast was two slices of toast, one with raspberry jam and one with blackcurrant jam. Once again Hannah ate none of the toast but the butter and jam was entirely sucked off. I'm not sure that it's good for anyone to survive on butter and jam but Hannah seems to be doing OK so far.

For lunch she had a couple of rice cakes with lentil pate, plus half an avocado cut into fingers, and some emmental cheese. She did really well with the rice cakes today, and the cheese, but the avocado wasn't as ripe as I thought it was so she didn't eat as much of that. Pudding was a rusk and some mandarin segments. Perhaps unsurprisingly after her first try of them, Hannah ignored the mandarin completely other than throwing one or two bits onto the floor. The rusk, however, was completely eaten, for the first time ever! I felt so proud of her it was ridiculous :o) And I gave her another half a rusk, and that all got eaten too!

I was expecting her breastfeed before tea to be on the short side, but it wasn't noticeably different from normal, which surprised me. Tea itself was a breadstick, some swede mash, and some sweet potato mashed up. She liked all of it but had some difficulties with the mash, I think it wasn't solid enough for her really.

There are no photos today, as we've had workmen in fixing a leaky pipe so it's all been a bit chaotic. The good news is that the pipe is fixed and the water is back on though, hurrah!

I was wondering, by the way, about this whole baby led weaning thing. It seems that people doing BLW are more likely than other people to be using cloth nappies. I don't know how true that is, it's just an impression from talking to other people doing something similar - do let me know if it's true or not, leave a comment below.

For the record, we currently favour Tots Bots Bamboozles and Original cotton, with Motherease Airflow wraps in the day and Tots fleece wraps overnight. I can tell that this weaning lark is working, we've had to move Hannah up into the size 2s in the past few weeks, so her cousin George will be borrowing the size 1 nappies and wraps.

First refusal

Breakfast today was fruit, on account of us having forgotton to buy any cereal at the supermarket, d'oh! So Hannah had some pineapple and a banana for her breakfast, which seemed to go down very well. She's definitely eating more and more of the items she's offered.

For lunch I roasted some veggies, there was sweet potato, normal potato, carrot, and parsnip. Today the carrot went down quite well perhaps she preferred the flavour of the roasted version to the steamed one she was fobbed off with yesterday.

Dinner was more roast veg, this time accompanied by an Asda meat free Southern Fried Chicken style thing. We'd never tried these before, Neil and I had them for lunch and they were spicier than I was expecting so I wasn't sure how Hannah would react. Obviously she loved them.

For pudding I gave Hannah some Bramley apple, which I peeled and cut into pieces and cooked with a bit of water, some butter, cinnamon and a tiny bit of sugar. As a result, we had our first ever refusal - she really wasn't interested at all. At first she looked at the apple, eventually she picked it up and got it to her mouth, but pulled a face and spat it out. When she's done that with other food she's gone back and had another go before deciding to eat it. Not this time. After that the only time she bothered picking it up was to throw it straight over the side of the high chair: definitely not a winner!

I noticed something new today during dinner, for the first time Hannah was trying to fish out bits of food that she'd dropped onto her lap. Normally I get them out for her and give them back for another go, this time she watched what I did - really concentrated on it - then next time she dropped something, wiggled around in the high chair and had a go at getting it out herself. What's more, it even worked, at least some of the time! Now we just have to get her to stop dropping stuff on the floor and we're there!

Cauliflower and mandarin segments

Hannah had lots of new things to try today - but not at breakfast, which was the last of the Raisin Wheats with a dash of whole milk.

Lunch was the first of the new tastes, as well as some old favourites. She had a rice cake with lentil pate on - a thin rice cake, which it turns out are much easier to cut up than the normal thicker ones. This was followed by a steamed carrot and a couple of cauliflower florets, and finally there were some mandarin segments for pudding.

I don't know if you've noticed, but Hannah usually has a combination of hot and cold food at meals. This is because I'm usually in a rush to get something served and in front of her, and she doesn't have much patience with sitting in the high chair waiting for stuff to cool down. So a cunning trick is to offer something cold to keep her occupied while the hot food gets to the right temperature. I have in the past just run things under the cold tap, but I don't find it works quite as well.

Anyway, the cauliflower was dumped straight on the floor after the first taste, and generally greeted with suspicion. After another few attempts she changed her mind and decided to give it the benefit of the doubt - still not the most popular item ever served though. She also didn't pay that much attention to the carrot, in the past this has been a favourite so I'm not sure what was going on there.

Mandarin segments, it turns out, are a lot more sour than I remembered. Oops. To her credit, once Hannah had got over the first taste (see picture), she warmed to them and went back for more. She ate most of them in the end and seemed to enjoy it.

Tea today was tomato, basil and mozzarella tortellini, which I was expecting her to really go for. She did sort of go for it, but I spent the first five minutes of the meal picking pasta up off the floor. Normally stuff is thrown mainly to one side of the high chair or the other, but in a new attack of being perverse, Hannah developed a decent shot put action to alternate sides, so I think I ran the 1500m over the course of the meal. To be fair she didn't throw the apricot halves around quite so much, which was a relief.

To drink today, Hannah had her first taste of juice. We diluted a small amount of fresh fruit juice with a rather larger amount of cooled boiled water. For the first time I had to refill the sippy cup before the last meal of the day, as she'd managed to drink more of it than I was expecting.

In summary then, an interesting day!

Pancakes

Raisin wheats again for breakfast, today with slightly less milk to see if it helped the wheats stay together - it did. They didn't break apart as quickly which meant that she seemed to eat more of them.



Lunch was batons of courgette fried in butter, oatcakes with lentil pate and finally baby plum tomatoes cut in half. She enjoyed the tomatoes, as well as sucking out the innards she also gave the flesh a good chomping and seemed to make some headway eating it. The oatcakes, or at least the lentil pate, were as popular as usual, but she rejected the courgette - several times she picked it up but threw it down as soon as she tasted it, so we took it away and left her with the tomato and oatcakes.



For pudding she had rusk and apricot halves, both of which were a hit. She ate most of the rusk and a fair bit of the apricot.



Dinner saw a new food on the menu: pancakes! Hannah had one half filled with cream cheese, the other half filled with a mix of cream cheese and blackcurrant jam. The pancake was rolled up then sliced into lengths of about 1 1/2 inches. Hannah really enjoyed them both but the cream cheese on its own actually worked a lot better: it tended to glue the rolled up pieces together quite well, so it stayed more intact. The jam made the pieces slide apart so had the opposite effect.


She really enjoyed the pancakes and polished off a large amount, so that's definitely a success and will be appearing again, which is no bad thing because we all enjoyed tucking into pancakes together! We had lemon and sugar on ours, maybe Hannah can have a little of that next time.


Here she is with a roll of pancake:

Return of The Sausage

Breakfast was again raisin wheats with full fat milk. Similar amount of mess to yesterday, but I think she may have eaten a little more today.

Lunch saw the return of sausage and mashed potato, this time with apple & rosemary veggie sausages. Hannah seemed to like these just as much as her first taste of sausage, as seen in the photo. She did a better job of chewing up the sausage this time, possibly helped by her teeth, and because she was able to chew it into smaller pieces I think she also ate more. Quite a lot of potato also disappeared.

For pudding she had a rusk. She started with it whole, but then we broke it in half which she found a lot easier, she ended up eating quite a lot of rusk actually.

Also in the photo you can see the hairbands around the cut-off wrists of her bib, we've been using those for a few days since we cut off the arms and that's working well - a lot easier than rolling up the sleeves every time.

Dinner was cut short because it started late and she was getting a little tired, but she still had a determined go at half a dozen eggy bread soldiers, including a few games of throw it over the side then peer after it. The late start was due to an emergency post-nappy change bath...least said soonest mended.

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.

Beany Baby

Breakfast today was a slice of toast, half with cream cheese and the other half with blackcurrant jam. As yesterday, she sucked the topping off the bread quite enthusiastically before giving the toast a good gumming. Her two teeth don't seem to be having much impact yet when it comes to chewing or biting, so most of the toast finished soggy but unbowed.

Lunch was oatcakes spread with home made lentil pate, plus breadsticks. As with the toast, she was a lot more interested in the topping than the oatcake itself - I think she had quite a bit of the pate but the oatcakes seem to have been crumbled and gummed but not particularly eaten. She was keen on the breadsticks and seems to be getting the knack of crunching away at one end while holding the other one-handed. That's just showing off!



For dinner she had a one-egg omelette with mature chedder served with a small portion of baked beans - first taste of baked beans!

She went for the omelette first, she's had it before and seemed to like it again this time. We tore the omelette strips. She ignored the beans for a while and just focussed on the omelette. When she noticed the beans she had some difficulty picking them up, but eventually got one into her mouth. She seemed to really like it but got a bit frustrated because she couldn't manipulate them too well, so not many were making it to her mouth. Cate then tried holding the beans up on tip of her finger like a golf tee which worked really well, every time Cate held up a bean Hannah pounced on it like a starving man. So I think beans might be appearing on the menu again!

Personally I'm quite happy about that because currently I'm the only bean-eater in the house, Cate doesn't like them so they rarely get served ... but I'm looking forward to a future in which Hannah and I out vote Cate and get beans back on the menu. Hahaha.

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.

Only 2 meals, and bib trimming

For breakfast Hannah had raisin wheats with full fat milk, pineapple batons, melon chunks and mango wedges. She seemed to go for the pineapple most today, giving it a pretty vigorous going over. She also did better today with the raisin wheats than in the past as she's getting better at picking them up pincer-style, rather than grabbing and crushing them in her fist.

The plan was to have lunch while we were out at playgroup, taking a packed lunch with me - roast dinner leftovers from yesterday, along with her cup of water. But she got quite cranky from all the distractions and the disruption to her morning nap, so I decided not to bother with lunch as she wasn't in the mood.

Dinner, you might not be surprised to learn, was roast dinner leftovers! Quorn fillet, two roast potatoes, roast parsnip and roast carrot which she went at with gusto, managing to eat a surprising amount of everything, possibly due to the lack of lunch.

In other news, we've modified one of the ELC painting bibs by cutting part of the arms off. The problem was that the size is age 2-3 years so on a 7 month old it's a bit ... roomy. Previously we've been rolling the sleeves back but that's become a chore plus she's been getting food down in the folded cuffs, which is a pain to clean out. The sleeves are now approximately the correct length unrolled, but without the elasticated cuff they are a bit gaping, so food could get in. Hmm. For tomorrow we'll be experimenting with something along the lines of a hair band around the wrist.

Roast dinner

Today we had another family breakfast, which was really nice. We all sat round eating chopped bits of fruit, and Neil and I also had yogurt and coffee (I don't think Hannah should have coffee yet, although by the way she tries to nick mine, she disagrees!). There was fresh pineapple, melon, and mango all round, and we had grapefruit too but didn't give Hannah any.

Lunch was pitta bread, toasted and filled with grated cheddar which I pinged in the microwave so it had melted, an oatcake with butter and marmite on, some tomato and boursin tart, then there were more pieces of fruit for pudding.

The tomato and boursin tart was a surprise hit, I wasn't actually going to give her any of it but there was some leftovers in the fridge so I thought it'd be worth a try. It's just a block of puff pastry rolled out and covered with boursin mixed with creme fraiche and topped with sliced tomatoes. Cook for about 40 minutes at gas 6 or thereabouts, nice and easy and went down really well. Hannah coped really well with the pastry, I had thought that she might struggle with it as it was fairly flaky. Next time I make it I think I'll try doing individual size tarts, rather than one big one.

Obviously being Sunday what could I serve her for dinner but a roast? Well, sort of. She had her first Quorn fillet, accompanied by some carrot and parsnip batons, and an avocado that was in the cupboard and needed eating. She followed this up with half a rusk - it would have been a whole one, but Neil ate half of it. Again it all went down rather well, not bad for so many new tastes in one day.

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.

Yummy in her tummy

We do seem to be back on track after the difficulties of the last few weeks, and Hannah dove right into the veggie sausage and mash I offered her at lunchtime. Well, I say mash, it was boiled potato to start with but that didn't last long! Five minutes in and it definitely looked more like mash than potato to me. The sausage got demolished too, there's hardly any of it left at all.

Sausage and potato makes quite a tidy lunch too, there's only a limited amount of mushing possible, so that's good. It's a shame the sausage is quite salty, so won't be served very often. All I did was cut it in half lengthways, perfect finger food!

Breakfast was Raisin Wheats, served with a tinned pear this time instead of banana. Hannah preferred the pear to the cereal, she only deigned to notice the cereal once most of the pear had been eaten.

Ooh, and there was another pear (the last one) for pudding after lunch. Better get another tin of them next time I go shopping, she's eaten the lot!

A good day

Neil was in charge of today's breakfast, and it was a repeat of yesterdays - Raisin wheats with full fat milk and a banana. As you can see from the picture below, we don't usually give Hannah a bowl to eat from, she's not quite got the hang of them yet!

I was back on duty for lunch, and offered carrot, parsnip and sweet potato along with a breadstick and some lentil pate (which is now stored in the freezer), and a rusk and tinned pear for pudding. For once Hannah wasn't that impressed with the sweet potato, she preferred going at the breadstick. She really liked the pear, and since there's half a tin of them left in the fridge she's in luck! The rusk went down well again too, in fact more of it got eaten today than last time.

Hannah's been very tired for the past two days, sleeping a fair bit more than she has been of late, but if anything this has made her feed better than normal - both with solid food and with breastfeeding. We've moved to mixed feeding this week as well, so she's having one bottle of formula in the evening before bed and the rest of the time is breastfed. It means that I don't have to express first thing in the morning and makes it much quicker to get up and about with Hannah. So far so good, but if anything changes I'll keep you posted.

Omelette and using a cup

Breakfast broke with tradition today, Hannah had Raisin Wheats (like mini shredded wheat with raisins on the inside) and seemed to quite like them. I only used a little bit of milk with them, so they didn't disintegrate too badly, and she managed better than I'd feared at getting them to her mouth. A couple of times she managed to suck the end off one to get the raisin out of the middle, and this made her splutter a bit as the strands of wheat detached and went to the back of her mouth. She followed the raisin wheats with half a banana (I ate the other half!) and even managed to use her cup by herself for the first time - I caught it on camera:

For lunch she had more new things - this time a one egg cheese omelette. She pulled a very strange face at her first taste, but did go back and try it again after a bit of thought. Then she decided she liked it, and ate quite a bit of it, so all in all it was a success.

As well as the omelette she had some sweet potato, carrot and parsnip sticks that were left over from yesterday, and a strawberry flavoured fromage frais for her afters. Again she drank a bit out of her cup, so she's definitely starting to get the hang of that - it's only taken about three weeks!

Exploding nappies :o(

Over the weekend we experienced a couple of nappies that exploded out of the wrap and onto Hannah's clothes, so I've decided to keep her diet rather bland for the next couple of days. So breakfast today was toast and jam and her first ever Farley's rusk. She really liked the rusk, although it looked quite funny - imagine an adult trying to eat a biscuit the size of a football. Not necessarily a bad thing...

Lunch was steamed veggies and a banana, the sweet potato went down best, the carrot and parsnip were tolerated but Hannah didn't pay them much attention until she'd eaten the sweet potato. The banana seems to get more popular each time Hannah tries it, she made short work of today's. In the end I had to hold the small mushed bits up for her to eat as she was getting very frustrated with not being able to pick them up. She'd get them half way to her mouth and they'd shoot out and land back on the tray. There was hardly any of it left at the end of the meal.

She did much better today at drinking from her Tommee Tippee cup too, although she still pours most of the water down herself rather than into her mouth. I think she might have done better because I put more water in it, so she didn't have to tip it up quite so far to get anything out.

In other news, I've found our camera again (I'd put it away somewhere safe...) so there should be more pics appearing in the next day or two.

Toast with added toast

Today's meals pretty much all consisted of toast, but the good news is that we went to the supermarket too, so tomorrow should have a bit more variety.

Breakfast was a slice of toast cut into four pieces. Two were spread with marmite, the other two had blackcurrant jam on. I hadn't given her blackcurrant jam, I thought she wouldn't like it because it's quite tart, but Neil was in charge at breakfast and she devoured it! Once the jam had been seen off, the marmite got a look in too, and actually most of the slice was eaten.

Lunch was more toast, this time with emmental cheese on, along with an avocado cut into chunks. Cheese on toast worked fairly well, at least until the toast and the cheese parted company. Hannah certainlyseemed to like it, at any rate. The avocado was rather ripe and disintegrated a bit while she was trying to get it into her mouth, but on the whole she managed fairly well.

I think we'll move up to three meals a day some time this week, so any suggestions on what Hannah might like for her meals would be very welcome!

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...

Banana on toast a hit!

Fairly standard day today really, nothing much exciting to report. Two slices of toast for breakfast, one with cream cheese on, the other with half a mashed banana spread on it.

The banana on toast was a hit, most of it was sucked off in fairly short order. Hannah's also now properly chewing her food, albeit with gums not teeth, not sure exactly when this started, but we've been noticing it more over the past few days.

For lunch she had a rice cake with pate (again - she'll be eating that pate for weeks, there's loads of it!), an avocado cut into BLW-friendly pieces, the other half of the breakfast banana, and a slice of melon. There's some pasta sauce sat in the fridge for her to eat at some point, will try and introduce pasta tomorrow I think...

Better late than never...

Sorry this post is a day late -Virgin broke our interweb and telly yesterday, it only came back about noon today. So, here is yesterday's report, today's will follow shortly!

Breakfast today was back to normal, a slice of toast and jam, which Hannah found much easier to cope with than yesterday's porridge.

Leftover vegetables (carrot and parsnip) were served for lunch along with some fingers of emmental, a rice cake with lentil pate, followed by some Greek style yogurt mixed with a bit of raspberry jam and some raspberries I defrosted for her.

Everything was fine until I offered her the raspberries. First of all, they're exceedingly mushy, and when she picked the first one up it all squished out between her fingers. So instead I placed one on the end of my fingers and left it up to Hannah to guide it into her mouth. This worked really well, she got the idea straight away, but was definitely not impressed with the taste of raspberries. You know the face that you might pull if you sucked on a lemon? Imagine that on a 6 month old baby. It also made her shudder, twice! Mum managed to catch part of the face pulling on camera:

So all in all I don't think raspberries will be back on the menu very soon. Fresh raspberries might work better as they would hold together better than the defrosted ones, so perhaps we'll try them again next summer. Oh yes, and once she'd got the raspberry in her mouth and immediately spat it out all down her bib, it looked like she was dribbling blood, making the clean up operation quite exciting.

Porridge = mistake

Well you live and learn I suppose. Today I learnt that giving a 6-and-a-bit month old baby porridge for breakfast isn't the brightest idea. Hannah seemed to like it, but it was hard to tell on account of her not really being able to get it into her mouth terribly well. I cooked it so it was quite solid, just oats with full fat milk and a teaspoon of raspberry jam stirred through, but it didn't hold together in the way I was hoping, so ended up spattered all over the dining room. We won't be offering it to her again for some considerable time!

Lunch was more successful, there was carrot and parsnip chips, plus a rice cake with homemade lentil pate, followed by gently cooked apple pieces and a slice of melon. The carrot and parsnip went down well, and after pulling a funny face at the first taste of the pate (I'm not offended, honest...) Hannah did seem to like it, at least she sucked it off the pieces of rice cake. Once again the melon completely disappeared, the apple wasn't so popular and caused her to screw her face up a bit.

I remembered to give her a drink with lunch today, although it seems Hannah prefers drinking from a cup with no lid on, so that was interesting! She managed it fairly well with some help from me in holding and tipping the cup. She's still feeding strangely though, and I don't know whether to put it down to the fact she's had a cold for the past few days, or whether she's genuinely changing how she breastfeeds. I don't think we've had a feed longer than 10 minutes in the past three days, today's pre-lunch feed was a magnificent six minutes long.

Launchable lunch

Today's brekkie was the fast-becoming-standard-issue toast, with cream cheese and jam spread on it. Lunch was rather more interesting, Hannah had a rice cake with hummus and half a fresh tomato for her main course, and a fig, a slice of melon, and some natural yogurt with half a banana mashed up in it (to sweeten it a bit).

She's definitely making progress in being able to eat melon, there were two pieces fully munched, plus two other pieces half eaten. There wasn't that much fig left either, but by the time we got to the yogurt Hannah was losing interest. She's recently discovered a new trick, of throwing things on the floor and then peering over the edge of her tray to look for them, and quite a lot of lunch ended up victim of this. Yogurt, it turns out, spreads quite well when the spoon lands, and tomatoes explode on impact. Maybe I should revise my opinion on splash mats, I only said we didn't need one yesterday!

There was a brief moment during lunch when she managed a pincer grip, the first time I've seen it, so I'll be looking out for that in the coming days and I'll see if I can catch it on camera.

Now she's eating more food I must remember to offer her a quick feed before she has her lunchtime nap - today's was postponed briefly as she started yelling as if she was hungry when I took her up to her room, so I fed her but she only wanted three or four minutes, so she must have been thirsty. Bad mummy forgot to give her a cup of water, will try that tomorrow and BF after the meal as well.

Oatcakes and BLW equipment

Today's meals were toast for breakfast with marmite and jam, then oatcakes with cream cheese, hummus, and boursin for lunch followed by a fig. I was amazed that Hannah actually went for the boursin, I thought the taste would probably be too strong but she continues to surprise me with what she's willing to eat.

A bit of oatcake was the cause of the first proper full on gag today, she got a big chunk to the back of her mouth and coughed it forward, it fell out along with a puddle of spit/mucus/something fairly grim. No harm done though and she carried on as if nothing had happened.

Someone was asking me the other day where we got our splash mat from for doing BLW, and I had to confess that we didn't have one - we do have laminate floors though! In fact thinking about it we have very little equipment for weaning with, and I've listed it here:

• A high chair - we have the Antelop chair from Ikea, cost about £20 inc the tray and the only one we could find that was completely hard plastic so it could be cleaned really easily. The benefit of waiting till 6 months or so to wean is that you don't need a highchair that reclines or supports the head or anything like that, and this highchair is as basic as they get.
• Painting aprons - bibs that cover as much of the body as possible! We got ours from the Early Learning Centre, I've also seen them in Ikea and Asda before, and I'm told that Mothercare sell them too.
• A free flow cup, we have a Tommee Tippee one from Asda that cost £1.
• Muslins - I wrap a muslin around Hannah's legs in the highchair as the painting apron doesn't come all the way down her legs, it helps avoid having to change her after each meal! I also keep one handy for wiping my hands on as I'm picking up bits of her food.
• A baby sized spoon - I've just been using the plastic one that came free in the Bounty pack I got when Hannah was about 3 or 4 months old. Only used when I'm giving her fromage frais or similar.

That's it, I can't think of anything else that we've found really helpful - apart from lots of flannels and hot water to clean up with! I'm mulling over whether a splash mat would be helpful or not, but we've done without it so far so I think we won't bother.

Hummus and breadsticks

Breakfast today was shredded wheat bitesize and a fig. The shredded wheat seemed like a good idea on paper, but when I'd added some full fat milk they became rather soggy and Hannah mainly mushed them between her fingers. She did eat pieces of them, but wasn't really that fussed. Also, it turns out that the suction bit on the bottom of our Ikea frog bowl is useless. I carefully stuck it down so she could help herself to the cereal, and within seconds she'd wheedled it off the tray and was merrily waving the bowl at me, tipping it up to get to the milk in the bottom.

The fig, by contrast, she was much more enthusiastic about - enough that we gave her another half a fig to have a go with. I think cereal is going to stay as an occasional thing until she can handle a spoon and bowl more neatly!

For lunch Hannah had her first try of hummus and breadsticks. I dipped one end of the breadstick in the hummus and gave it to Hannah, who immediately tried to stick it up her nose. Then she turned it round so was holding the hummus covered end in her hand and eating the end with nothing on. Eventually she managed to line up the hummus and her mouth, and did enjoy it. She also managed to crunch on and chew the breadsticks, which to be honest I wasn't really expecting to happen.

Pudding was melon chunks and a plum. She clearly preferred the melon, and in fact managed to completely eat one piece of it leaving just a thin covering of flesh on the rind. Once she'd tried all the melon she eventually moved on to the plum, but I think it was a bit too firm as she was having problems making much of a dent on it today.

No pics today, but I've added one to yesterday's post instead.

Lots of new things

Hannah tried lots of new foods today. For breakfast she had a slice of eggy bread - her first egg - and seemed to like it. She dived straight in, probably because she'd been made to wait for her breakfast while I did eggy bread for everyone else too.

Lunch was a sweet potato that Grandma cooked yesterday but didn't give her, plus two chunks of polenta left over from our evening meal a couple of nights ago. I spread the polenta with tomato puree to make it a bit more interesting, and at the first taste of it she wasn't sure, but a bit more investigation indicated it wasn't poisonous so she carried on trying it.

Polenta isn't a great food to give her though, as when she dropped it it exploded into tiny little grains that are going to be hell to clean up. I think we'll be finding it for weeks!

Oh, and she had a banana for pudding, this time I just cut it in half but previously I've cut it into smaller chunks. She got on OK with the halves, but I think the smaller pieces do work better so I'll probably do those again next time.

Grandma's in charge today!

As Neil and I had to go out all day today, Grandma was babysitting for the first time. For breakfast she gave Hannah some toast with a bit of jam on. At first she wasn't impressed, but a bit of additional jam soon solved that problem.

Lunch was rice cake, cream cheese, and a carrot. Since Hannah smeared the cream cheese all over the high chair tray, Grandma used the carrot bits of scrape it up, and apparently this was a popular move.

Hopefully normal service will be resumed tomorrow, and I went to the supermarket yesterday so there are some new things that will be appearing on the menu over the next few days.

Cream cheese again!

Hannah had toast for breakfast this morning again, as I still haven't been shopping - that should be sorted out this afternoon though, so perhaps the menu will get more exciting soon. Half of her toast was spread with cream cheese, the other half was cream cheese and raspberry jam. If you've never tried that combo before, it's gorgeous, in fact so much so that I nicked a quarter of a slice of toast from her, poor baby.

For lunch she had the last bits of courgette, along with a rice cake cut into fingers and spread with cream cheese and avocado. It all went down quite well, the discarded mush wasn't very plentiful so I can only assume that a fair amount actually went down.

Which reminds me. Yesterday for the first time Hannah didn't breastfeed very well. She fed as normal first thing, then had less than 10 minutes at each feed until her before bed feed at about 6.30pm and her dream feed at about 11pm which again were normal. One feed was a whole three minutes long. I'm putting it down to having eaten more than normal, so filled herself up on solids but I'm keeping an eye on things - so far today is much more normal, so perhaps the strike has been called off.

Cream cheese face pack

Apparently avocado and jam make a good combination of flavours - at least Hannah thought so judging by the way she was shoving multiple pieces of toast into her mouth at breakfast today.

Lunch was courgette cooked in butter (in the microwave), a rice cake spread with cream cheese, and a tomato that I skinned and cut into quarters. She liked the tomato, although was suspicious of it to start with. Once she got over that though, she took each piece in turn, sucked all the seeds out of the middle and nochalently dropped the flesh over the side of the high chair tray onto the floor. The cream cheese off the rice cake ended up mostly as a face pack (again), and the courgette was gummed to death and the stringy bits discarded. Sadly I wasn't quick enough with the camera to get a picture of her wearing the cream cheese, she wiped most of it off again with some courgette.

I think we'll be getting the bath out again later today...

Update: Hannah woke up just before we had lunch, so ended up joining us and ate two bits of mushroom and emmental ravioli with creme fraiche and red pesto topping. Not quite what I had in mind as her intro to pasta, but never mind!

An apple a day...

Not a very eventful weaning day today really. Hannah had her first taste of apple for breakfast, both dried and cooked fresh. The first taste of the fresh stuff made her screw her face up, but after 15 minutes of sucking on the dried stuff she gave it another go and seemed to like it better. I think she might even have swallowed some.

Lunch was chips of courgette and carrot cooked with a little butter in the microwave, with the last of our fromage frais for pudding. She was really tired though and didn't dive into the pudding with her normal gusto.

Poor man's guacamole

I made Hannah some poor man's guacamole for lunch today - just blended an avocado into a paste and spread it on tw0 rice cakes, accompanied by some cucumber chips. It turns out that you can cut rice cakes into fingers really easily with a sharp knife, so that made things much easier.


Lunch was fairly messy, Hannah sucked the avocado off each piece of rice cake. Well apart from the bits that she smeared on her face and the high chair, that is. I reapplied avocado to the rice cake pieces several times, and there's still plenty of it left for tomorrow.


Breakfast was toast with butter, jam and marmite again - not all on the same slice though! And for Rog, giving her marmite does not consistute child abuse I'm sure :oD I do need to find some alternative breakfast items though, not least because we've run out of wholemeal bread.

Lunch AND Breakfast

Happy half birthday to Hannah, she's 6 months old today. We celebrated by letting her have two meals today, instead of the one she's been used to.

Breakfast was done en famille again, Hannah had wholemeal toast, one slice with unsalted butter, one with seedless raspberry jam - didn't offer marmite today. It definitely works better when it's cut into four fingers per slice, so that's what we did today. Received well again today, but I put too much jam on one bit of the toast, so Hannah was rather sticky by the end of the meal.

Lunch was a rice cake with cream cheese spread on it, a steamed potato cut into fingers, some emmental and red leicester fingers, and finally some melon chunks for pudding. Hannah wasn't very impressed with the potato, and I don't think she spent much time trying to eat it, it mostly got thrown on the floor. The rice cake was popular, and a surprising amount of it disappeared, I assume she swallowed it. The cheese was gummed at but not much actually went down, and the melon was just as popular as it was the other day. Mind you, she seemed to spend most of the meal blowing raspberrys, I thought we were past that stage but it's back with a vengeance.

In other news, I saw the apron/bibs that Ikea do yesterday, and I'm glad we got ours from the Early Learning Centre, as they're definitely better than the Ikea ones. The problem (in my opinion!) with the Ikea ones is that the plastic bib bit doesn't wrap roundthe body, it's just a sheet of plastic that hangs down. Also they had a pocket at the bottom, which might make a good food catcher, but would be annoying to clean out, Also they only had them in green and blue, one of each colour in the pack.