Bite Sized Pieces

Over the last month MiniMe has become more and more confident in feeding herself and ripping, tearing, gumming and chewing.  I'm sure she is still trying to swallow pieces of food that are too big and I think that she has been gagging more now than she did at the beginning.  She is obviously more comfortable and confident and is actually shoving as much as possible into her mouth as she can (like a whole  half of a crumpet) and then whinging and whining that it is too much...without figuring out that she could just open that little mouth and spit it out.

She has also been getting better at picking up smaller pieces and bits of food and getting them into her mouth.  No sign of the pincer grip yet though, she has just figured out how to open her fist in front of her mouth and shove her food into it.  

I've started cutting her food into smaller, bitesized pieces for her.  I am trying to contiue to offer some longer pieces of fruit and veg along side the cut up pieces to give her the option.  It is early days but there has been less gagging over the past few days. 

We are now 2 months into eating solids and MiniMe is certainly doing well.  There are some foods that she still aviods...broccoli and carrots, and some things she just can't cope with...pasta, but in general she is keen to try anything we put in front of her.  

This week we are going to try some cheesy brocolli bites to see if she can be fooled into eating it, as well as some tuna cakes.  We continue to combination feed foods spoonfed along with a selection of finger foods.  It is working well for us, and her.  

Recipe: Cottage Cheese Pancakes

I bought a huge container of cottage cheese last week to share with MiniMe.  She seems to really like it and I am convinced that the combination of the smooth cream with the curds is a good thing for her.  We usually spoonfeed some with lunch or dinner (also good mixed with scrambled egg or through pasta) along with finger foods but while trawling Pinterest a while back I came across some great looking pancake recipes using Cottage Cheese.  

While we were visiting The Grandparents last month I made some but they were too eggy...and weren't even given a second glance.  I enjoyed them, but when I think about it MiniMe obviously wasn't ready for something like a pancake.  A month later, however, her chewing, ripping, and tearing skills are much better, and she can grab smaller pieces and manage to get them into her mouth.  

I love this recipe for cottage cheese pancakes from babybabkas.com, it is simple and I easily adapted it for MiniMe.  

I have a really good quality non-stick frying pan so I don't bother using butter in the pan to cook pancakes.  For me, they just end up greasy.  This recipe makes about 8-10 pancakes that are the perfect size for little hands.  Once cooled layer inbetween greaseproof paper and then wrap in clingfilm to freeze.  They defrost quickly or you can always warm them in the toaster.  

In a bowl combine 1/2 cup plain flour, 1/4 tsp baking soda, and a pinch if cinnamon. In a measuring jug combine 1/2cup cottage cheese, 1/4 cup whole milk, 1 tbsp oil, and 1 egg.  Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ones and mix until just combined.  Heat up your frying pan (use some butter to grease it if you want) and dollop a Tbsp of the mixture onto the pan at a time.  Flip when little bubbles appear on the surface and the bottom is nicely browned.  Cook for a couple of minutes on the other side and then remove from the pan to a clean tea towel to cool.  Continue until all of the batter has been used.  

I usually cut MiniMe's pancake in quarters for her. She is able to get smaller bite sized pieces into her mouth now.  If I handed it to her whole she would most likely shove the whole thing in her mouth.  Apparently that is common so I just try to avoid it if I can remeber.  

Recipe: Quiona Bites

Now that MiniMe has started getting the hang of chewing, ripping, and tearing her food (even with no teeth) I have gotten way more confident and comfortable in the foods that I am offering her.  The past couple of weeks I've been able to offer her more and more of the foods that we are eating without having to really think about it but there have still been times when I've had to make her something different, like when have homemade pizza.  Even though I did offer her a piece of pizza I felt that she needed more options...cucumber, yogurt, plum, sweet potato...it is ok for me and Dad to dine only on pizza but not for MiniMe (yet).  This week I decided to make up a batch of something savoury that I could pop into the freezer and havevas a stand-by for those days when I've just not got it together.  

Over the past few months I've been compiling a selection of possible recipes over on Pinterest...mini muffin tin recipes, freezable snacks, stuff like that.  I've been waiting to make MiniMe a version of these Quinoa bites for a while.  Quinoa is cramed full of goodness and binds really well...making it perfect for little savoury muffins.  

I halved the original recipe and then tweaked it abit (I really can't help myself) and managed to get 12 mini muffins and 4 mini loaves out of the mixture.  MiniMe tried a muffin bute at dinner and gobbled the whole thing up.  They are soft enough to gum, easy to hold, and obvuiosly pretty tasty! 

Here's what I did...

In a large bowl grate 1 medium carrot, 1 small courgette and about 100g of cheddar cheese. Add in 1 cup cooked Quinoa, 2 medium eggs and 2 Tbsp of flour.  Mix really well.  Grease your mini muffin tin/baking dish/loaf tins and press in mixture.  Really pack it in. Bake in a 180 C oven for about 20-30 mins until edges are crisping and you can just prise it away from edge of tin.  Allow to cool completely before removing from tins.  Serve at room temperature.  

If you don't have mini muffin tins or mini loaf pans try baking it in a lined square cake tin and then slicing into squares.  

Once cooled I put the bites in a bag in the freezer to use as needed, hope they continue to be enjoyed! 

Breakfast with MiniMe

We have hit week 6 of our adventure with solids, and for the most part MiniMe is really enjoying this new experience.  Sure, she still hasn't given broccoli a second glance (even mashed and mixed with sweet potatoes she shunned it) but she is now picking up and devouring chunks of banana and will give almost everything we put down in front her a try.  She makes exaggerated chewing motions, and is getting better at finishing huge mouthfuls before ramming some more in.  Also, in the past 2 days, or so, she is able to open her fist up a bit to get at the ends of whatever is in her hand.

When we started out I was trying to offer her something at every meal. I wasn't that worried if it was touched or played with or if it made its way to her mouth, I just wanted her to get used to the ritual of sitting up at the table, eating and talking, together.  In the beginning she wasn't too interested in breakfast...I don't know if it was because we were trying to eat too close to her waking up and nursing, or if she was still a little dopey from being asleep...but she wasn't even interested in picking things up.  

Over the last three weeks I've tried to be more aware of when we are having breakfast in relation to her last milk feed.  It is difficult.  Some days MiniMe nurses between 6 and 6:30 and then dozes for an hour or so. On these days we have breakfast about 30 mins after waking up and she will happily eat everything I offer her. On other days she will sleep through the 6:30ish feed and wake around 7:30 starving, nurse and then won't touch her breakfast an hour later, by which time I am starving! 

Regardless of her nursing time I still like to offer her a full breakfast on the off chance that she might all of a sudden be starving.  Sadly, I am just not able to read her signs yet.  

Anyway, here are a selection of breakfasts we gave had over the past couple of weeks.  Since we are combination feeding I always offer MiniMe something that I can spoonfeed her and some finger foods so she can also self feed.  The biggest change is her sudden u-turn with banana.  She is happily picking it up and shoving it in her face, so no need to mash it up any longer! 

Porridge made with water and stewed cherries and blueberries.  This was a big hit.  I wasn't confident with giving MiniMe the fruit yet, even cut up,so I mashed it and she had porridge with all the juices. 

Oatibix with banana (mashed for MiniMe) with buttered crumpet and coffee for Mum.  I read somewhere, I can't remember where, that crumpets are a better finger food to offer than toast at this stage because they don't compress the way toast does in the mouth and are easier to gum.  MiniMe loves them and they are also easier for her to hold.  

We slept in very late one day after a particularily horrible night so MiniMe and I had a lovely brunch of tomato and cheese omelette, cottage cheese (to spoonfeed), cucumber and toast.  Sometimes I hold the piece of omelette for her to bite a bit off of, sometimes she happily picks it up herself, every day is different.  

Porridge made with water, mashed banana and milk for MiniMe and brown sugar and cinnamon for Mum, toast and crumpets, and the manditory coffee.  The mashed banana was the only bit of fruit in the house that morning and while MiniMe was happily picking banana up by this point I didn't want it ending up on the floor.  

Blueberry yogurt, banana, and peanut butter on crumpet.  We started out giving MiniMe plain full fat greek yogurt, and she seemed happy with it, but after a few weeks I did a little bit of research and decided that the organic full fat fruit yogurt Dad and I liked didn't have much added sugar (especially for the amount MiniMe was eating) so we have been giving her the same stuff we eat for a few weeks now.  She tried peanut butter on her crumpet that day.  We have no history of allergies and I made sure not to offer any other new foods on the same day...and all was fine...phew.  

Now that MiniMe is eating more and is much more capeable chewing and holding different foods we are finding it much easier sharing what we are eating with her.  

What are some of your favorite breakfast foods? 

A Progress Report, A Confession and A Revelation

7 weeks into our weaning adventure and we are continually amazed at MiniMe's eating.  Sure, some days I feel like we are doing something wrong and I am going to end up giving her some sort of food complex but for the most part those days are few and far between.  It is hard not to second guess our choices and to compare MiniMe to other babies her age, or all those just starting out and stuffing whole sweet potatoes in their mouths on day 1.  I have to stop myself from constantly saying " why is she still not doing that?" And remind myself that in 7 weeks she has made so much progress.

We (read I) have come to accept that combination feeding is the best route for us and that MiniMe is more than happy to self feed chunks of fruit and toast and some veggies.  Sure she is still avoiding broccoli like the plague, but actually picked up and devoured most of half of a banana the other afternoon as a "snack".  She happily accepts spoons of yogurt, soup, porridge and mashed sweet potatoes and clearly shows us when she has had enough by turning her face away and keeping that little mouth clamped tighter than Fort Knox.  This morning she ate a good portion of scrambled eggs with a little help from dad holding chunks for her to gum bits off of, that is huge progress.  

Little events like this morning's scrambled egg adventure restores my faith in us as parents, it makes me proud of all of us, it helps me remember that MiniMe is her own little person, she is new to all this and is really coming along at her own pace.  Watching her gum down a frightenly huge chunk of melon reminds me of how incredible this journey we are on really is.  

Sure I still dream of the day she'll eat her way through a slice of lasagne, but I am happy with where we are.  This learning process is an experiement and we are doing just fine.