Feed Me

We had heard of the idea of Greek Yoghurt somewhere, but it seemed to us to be too close to mush.  Freya likes lumps, but we must constantly show that we are unafraid of mess.  As such, we added banana one day and later pineapple and papaya to this plain white substance, then prepared to see what happens.

What happens, it appears, is that it took two spoons to keep up with her.  I would not recognise a papaya to see one, but Freya loved it.  She took some chunks that we had thought too big from the spoon, grabbing spoons as fast as we could load them.  In the end, she was taking fruit from the bowl.  Banana on the first day of the trial, papaya and pineapple in the following days.

It made a mess, as expected, but deft intervention with a warm damp flannel and a trip straight to the bath helped.  We only knew that there was a mouth inside the white mess because it kept opening to accept more food…

All in all, a resounding success.  A messy success, but all of the best ones are…

Now although we follow a Pagan path in our household, we enjoy Christmas dinner as much as the next person, and presents, and lights, and decorations etc. So we were obviously excited about Freya’s first Christmas. We had bought her a few present, but didn’t go overboard as at 9 months I don’t think she was really aware of anything except that there were all these boxes that she wasn’t allowed to touch. Dinner was going to be a simple affair as we were having Christmas day alone and then seeing family on Boxing day. I got a large chicken breast joint thing from Sainsbury and did mashed potato, carrots, broccoli and cauliflower. Tony isn’t that keen on roast potato so I didn’t see the point and I don’t mind mashed potato. The idea was to have this at lunch time but we didn’t dressed until late so by the time I was ready to cook Freya was already begging for food so instead we put her out of her agony with some lunch and did it for the evening meal. It was almost perfect. The mashed potato was creamy and smooth and the chicken well cooked, but I couldn’t help thinking that there was something missing. It wasn’t until three days later, when we had come back from visiting relatives, I realised that in the oven lay some roast sweet potatoes now all cold and shrivelled. Never mind. Freya really enjoyed what we gave her anyway.

Boxing Day we went to my sister’s house for a party. I had to be more careful about what she ate there as it was mostly processed snacks and crisps. She was a little tired and overwhelmed to eat properly anyway, but I think she had a mini sausage, some bread and some pineapple and cheese on sticks. My sister in law was very impressed that she was drinking from a cup, but remained sceptical about baby led weaning even though Freya did demonstrate that it was perfectly safe. She even showed her a little gag and was very surprised to find herself being patted on the back.

That night we stayed with Freya’s great grandparents and she decided that this was so exciting that she couldn’t possibly go to sleep before 11.30pm and even then she tried to put up a fight when I realised she was getting grumpy. I had packed a small selection of foodstuff so that if she got hungry I had something for her. A banana, some plums and a rice cake. As she hadn’t eaten much at my sister’s, she ate the plum before bed and I think I gave her the banana in the morning. The poor old rice cake didn’t get a look in.

Although I’m glad I took the extra snacks, it was really liberating to have her just eat what was available and enjoy it. She really isn’t that fussy and will eat whatever is put in front of her with minimal fuss. We had taken the Bumbo with us so wherever we were we could sit on the floor with her. She certainly doesn’t mind sitting at the table but until I can get hold of one of those seats that you can strap to the dining chairs it’s the floor I’m afraid.

The only other thing to report is that Freya is now showing signs of preferring certain foods (pasta) over others and we are also getting to the stage of her eating things one day and then not touching them the next. I’m not worried. All I can do is offer it and, if she doesn’t want it, I eat it or it goes in the bin. It’s not like I’ve gone to any extra effort making food just for her. That’s the beauty of baby led weaning.

Freya has two teeth now. The second one is coming through a bit crooked, but then she is my daughter so it’s not entirely surprising. I had to have a brace for two years for all the good it did me. As soon as my wisdom teeth came through my entire bottom set just went back as crooked as they ever were. I really hope she gets better treatment than I had if she needs it.

Food has still been going very well. I read about other people have blips and bumps, but as yet we haven’t had any although every day I expect her to turn around and just not eat anything. Even when she has a cold she loves solid food. I guess it’s easy to eat than her usual breast milk in some ways.

She was weighed at 8 months and hadn’t put on very much weight at all. She had dropped below the 9th percentile, if you take much notice of those things, but I am only mildly concerned. I know that I have a healthy, happy and hugely energetic little girl. She looks so long and slim though just like Daddy!

We went out for Tony’s Christmas meal on the 13th and I was really torn about leaving Freya. A friend of ours looked after her and I knew that Freya would be perfectly safe, but I was worried that she would cry the whole time we were gone and the friend would never look after her again or even never want to see us again!

I packed Freya a lunch of pasta, creme fraiche, sausage, chicken, courgette and red pepper. I threw the courgette and red pepper in the water that I was cooking the pasta in and it worked really well. I think I used chives and paprika. I wasn’t expecting her to eat much to be honest. I thought she would miss Mummy and Daddy too much but I made much more than I thought she would eat just to be on the safe side. To be honest it tasted so good that I wondered if our Christmas dinner was going to be as nice!

How wrong can you be? Not only was she grinning happily when we arrived to pick her up, she had eaten most of her dinner (a few lonely pieces of pasta and courgette hadn’t made it and lay strewn across the floor – sorry Emma) and she had only had a little grizzle once in the four hours we were gone. I was proud, relieved and perhaps oddly a little hurt. There is the realisation that actually she doesn’t need me and Tony as much as we would like to believe.

Anyway, Freya eats three meals a day now, even if we have to wake her up for dinner. The day we didn’t she woke at 11pm, was really angry and would not go back to sleep! Banana still seems to be the best food for breakfasting in bed (although she makes us laugh when she eats it) although she has been trying to steal some of our toast again lately.

Lunch remains pita breads, normally with cheese, carrot and cumin, as they are so very easy and I know that Freya will eat them and enjoy them. Plum for afters.

Dinner is whatever we have although I did give her fish the other day instead of burgers. Since Tony hates the smell of fish I was very careful about washing up straight away and dealing with Freya eating it. It seemed to be successful and Freya liked it. I’m glad, as fish is supposed to be good for them. Much more is going in now than ever before. We pick her up afterwards expecting to see stuff all over her legs but with the exception of rice there is very little mess. The other day I noticed that when she dropped something, even if it was seemingly on purpose, she would reach down and pick it up and continue eating.

Just one last tip – When your baby is eating and you want to take a photo, don’t leave the knife you were using to cut the pita breads up in front of them… :-p

I hoped to get some seasonal fruit for us all to eat, as in these times of soaring food prices, I suspected that they may be cheaper. When I looked at what was in season there seemed an awful lot of vegetables and not a lot of fruit. There are apples obviously but I’m still not sure about giving Freya apples yet. Plums and blackberries appeared to be in season but these are two fruits I haven’t really tried except in jams or sauces so thanks to Freya I now have. Freya loves them both. Really the blackberries were for Tony as I thought Freya would have trouble with them, but she actually loves them. The mess, well, you can imagine! Bananas are still going down well although I did buy the lunch box sized ones. They looked much riper and nicer.

We tried cucumber which didn’t go down very well and we also tried one of Aitch’s recipes from the babyledweaning website of pita bread with melted cheese and carrot. It’s a good way to get babies to eat vegetables apparently and Freya really thought they were yummy.

Of course the most exciting news of the week has nothing to do with baby led weaning. Freya said ‘Daddy! Yeah!’ on Monday. It was in response to Tony saying ‘Who’s a silly sausage?’ so it’s even more amusing. She hasn’t said it quite so clearly since, preferring the classic ‘dadadada’. She is also pushing herself to her feet while in the bath. When she managed it she was so happy. It was great! She is also moving around the floor very fast now. It’s not a crawl as such, but it’s very effective.

One problem that we have noticed with baby led weaning (if you can call it a problem) is that whatever we eat and whatever we drink Freya wants some too. That’s fine with most things but it gets a little surreal when you’re trying to drink a nice cup of tea and this tiny hand appears up from your lap and pulls your mug down to her lips. She really is too adorable, but even we stop her sometimes!

There are two items which seems to be considered ‘must try’ food for baby led weaning and I confess that, up to now, we hadn’t.  These are broccoli and bananas. Well we have now.

The broccoli I wanted to try as it is supposed to be very healthy and easy for babies to grasp. Freya didn’t seem to mind it and, considering it takes moments in the microwave, it will probably be something I will do now and again. She wouldn’t use the handles on the trees though. She did it her own way.

Today at lunch time the bananas I bought a week ago finally looked ripe. I don’t know where I got this tip but it worked wonders. Cut the banana in half or thirds and gently separate into sticks. Bananas naturally divide into three. You get three really nice fingers that stay together really well when grabbed by little fingers, but are soft enough to be gummed. No slippy mess. As we hadn’t tried banana before I gave her it first and I had pita bread on standby in case it wasn’t liked. With baby led weaning it really doesn’t matter so much about savoury/sweet. She ate most of the banana but then wanted her tray taken away. She still seemed to be interested in food though so I then gave her the pita which she ate without the Bumbo tray. There was very little mess. A few blobs of banana and that was about it. I made sure that there wasn’t a huge amount of hummus in the pita so it would squish out.

Yesterday dinner was a disaster for us adults so I won’t even bother to mention it, but at lunch time we were out and I took rice cakes with us. I tried them with hummus this time and although I didn’t think the hummus travelled well, very dry, Freya ate practically a whole cake. The most I’ve seen until now was half. I need to think of other things to take out with us though. I don’t want to bore her.