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…

Suddenly we think Freya has got it. No longer is this about play. Freya now eats and eats and takes a good long time over it too.

Tony cooked for the first time that we have been weaning Freya on Sunday and we had sausage pasta. We have given up just now with the pasta so Freya gets a slice of toast instead with the sauce, but this was the first time she didn’t seem to want to get out of her Bumbo. She carried on exploring and eating long past us finishing our dinners. It was especially amusing to see her examining the toast towards the end. It looked as if she was considering the quality and vintage – turning it over and over, having a little nibble, feeling it. It was great fun to watch.

I have been a little more adventurous with what I take out with me now. On Wednesday I took melon, chicken and rice cake. I think bringing breakfast into the equation has led to a decline in lunch so she just has a nibble now.

Breakfasts… Well, she has always enjoyed toast and bagels so that stays on the menu but we do get a bit fed up of the crumbs and sharing our breakfast so I bought some fruit and custard pots from Heinz I think they were. I do like the idea of her eating more fruit and since she finds it easier to spoon feed herself rather than pick up slimy fruit I thought we could give it a go even though it may count as goop. They are just fruit and milk, nothing extra, no added sugar or anything. We tried a little for breakfast Wednesday morning and she seemed to like it although we decanted half a pot and she had maybe half of that. However, that was the morning come the evening…

Tuesday evening was very unusual. I was planning cottage pie but in the end did jacket potato with a mince topping. Freya had scooped out potato mixed with the mince and baked bean mix. Since we hadn’t had too much luck with mince so far I didn’t expect her to eat much. We loaded the spoon and wondered what would happen and whether I would be going back to the toaster for our reliable back up. No need. She loved it. Spoon after spoon went in. She still hasn’t grasped the idea of filling the spoon herself but after it’s loaded and handed to her it goes straight in. She ate more that night than I had ever seen her eat.

Wednesday the same thing happened (even though i can’t remember what it was we had). This time she still seemed hungry after having nommed on everything we had given her. I ran to the fridge and cut some melon, but she’s actually not too fussed about melon. Then I remembered the half a pot of fruit custard. She finished it completely. Admittedly there was quite a lot on the bib afterwards but again I was amazed at the quantity that she managed. She was still looking round for more food after so back to the kitchen again for some rice cake. After a brief feed on the rice cake she was finally done and went for a much needed bath.

Last night we had the evil burger and chips. I had bought some veggie burgers as I thought they might be lower in salt as the veggie sausages were. How wrong can you be? The veggie burger had twice the amount of salt that the beef burger had! I cut just a sliver of each off for Freya and gave her some chips which have practically no salt at all unless you cover them in it yourself. Ugh! She loved it all although we didn’t share our burger bun this time. She was again hungry after so I got a whole pot of fruit custard for her and some melon. She had a quick suck on the melon before going back to the discarded chips, but the fruit pot… She ate the whole thing and I suspect could have managed another one if we’d let her.

Damn you Heinz! Making it so easy for me to give my child fruit in the form of mush. Still, since she feeds herself I think it can still count…

I am posting from work, so I will have to be brief.

Last night, we tried another new food.  It seems that Freya likes meatloaf (the food, not the aging singer) and so we might be getting a little more of it in future.  I think the consistency is good for her; it falls apart without needing to be bitten through, but it holds together well enough to rip and tear without crumbling.  Also, it is meat.  She seems to like meat more than vegetables, like her daddy, and that can be no bad thing…

Earlier in the week, we tried cous-cous.  I am not sure what we were expecting, but it worked. We loaded it onto her spoon and watched her stuff her face with it, to the exclusion of even the chicken she was given. She must get on well with the texture and the lack of chewing.

Finally; breakfast today. I have no idea what it was; it looked like porridge, smelt a bit like it, but Linda would know what it was. In her infinite wisdom, Linda handed a bowl of sludge to Freya while she was in my lap in bed. She painted her hands, face and neck, but somehow managed to miss me or the sheets luckily. It is amazing to see how good her coordination is; she sometimes misses her mouth, but rarely by much, and it is useless even trying to spoon-feed her because she will just take the spoon off you and do it herself.

Freya got her tooth through and then a canine, right? That’s odd, but I can live with it. Now I don’t know what is going on. The canine has gone again. How do teeth appear and then disappear? No-one told me about this. It’s now been missing for two days so I’ll assume it has changed its mind and doesn’t want to come through yet. Becoming a parent is full of mysteries.

As for food, we thought we’d go mad and let her have a tiny fairy cake all to herself. Oh, we know how to live dangerously in our house. It was holding together ok until she thrust it with both hands into her mouth and it exploded – over Tony, over the sofa, over the floor. As we’re really bright in this house we didn’t even have a bowl for it! It was amusing though and she played with the crumbs for a while, feeling the textures, clearly enjoying herself and that’s what it’s all about.

Dinner was cottage pie again. After the success of last time we tried this I couldn’t help but be a little disappointed that Freya fell asleep just before I served up. Ever the optimist, I put some aside for her and she did wake up just before it went completely cold. We tried the spoon again and I am still amazed at how quickly she has picked up which end goes where. She still doesn’t have the skills to load the spoon up herself, but once that’s done it goes straight in the mouth. She ate a fair amount of the meat and potato, but was happier just sucking on the spoon for the most part. I did have to turn the television off though as she would keep turning round in her bumbo to watch. I wouldn’t normally have it on at all, but I really like Strictly Come Dancing and so, it seems, does Freya.

See also:

Last night’s meal for us adults was sausages, mash and carrots and so that was what Freya had. I wondered about trying her with a spoon as she always seems upset that we get cutlery and she doesn’t, so mashed potato seemed like the ideal starting point. To our amazement it worked. She worked out straight away what the spoon was for although she did keep trying to eat the end that we hadn’t loaded with mashed potato. She couldn’t of course actually get food onto the spoon but if we loaded it for her she could eventually get it into her mouth. She had a little sausage and a little suck on a carrot but the mash was what she loved best. Surprisingly it wasn’t as messy as I thought it would be. She did have an amusing potato moustache at one point but we didn’t get it on camera, sorry.

Yesterday we also had a pooey nappy of the most impressive kind. If ever you doubt about whether your child has eaten anything, just wait for the nappies. Although Tony has already reported on nappies, this one was the worst so far. Yes, the one before smelt, but this one had a completely new consistancy. A lot like mashed sweet potato actually… Why is it that I’m proud about this..?