So I haven’t used ‘weaning’ in the title of this blog because…are we now weaned? We’re off formula so is that it done? We have completed the weaning mission? Who knows.
Since last writing about baby and her food exploits though, a few things have occurred:
As a reminder on baby’s diet which is personal choice not allergy related:
Here’s the thing about me. I have to jot out on my phone every night, what baby is having for food the next day. Is that odd? I’m not very good, no no, I’m terrible (no guilt here though fellas) at making edible stuff off the cuff. Remember those adverts for something or other (eggs?) years ago where someone would open a fridge and see next to nothing inside and still rustle up a fantastic omelette? NOT ME. We would starve to death in that scenario in this household. Or just get a takeaway as a less dramatic, more frivolous solution.
Anyway.
Breakfasts
Since the last update we have whittled baby breakkies down to the same god damn thing every day. Because, she loves it? It be:
Lunches
I *try* and make this a fairly substantial offering as then if she likes it, the pressure is off for dinner, knowing that she’s had a belly full of goodness already.
I’ll always offer some fruit and/or some soya yoghurt afterwards.
Dinners
Again, fruit/yoghurt or rice pudding for afters.
Snacks
Now that we are on two of these a day they might be:
Timings; our days tend to shape up like so…
Kicking the bottle to the kerb
At the time of the last blog we were still on two bottles a day; morning and bedtime. It was lovely actually, bringing her into our bed of a morning for her morning bot bot and a story or 19 before heading down to breakfast. But I knew we had to make a start at getting her more used to cups or free flow beaker things for a few reasons. It’s of course everyones personal choice, no judgey vibes.
So one morning I heated her milk and poured it into a tommee tippee free flow cup thing and brought her into our room. She wasn’t impressed. I caved and poured it into a bottle. The next day I tried something different and took the cup into her room and handed it to her in her cot. She got INVOLVED. Had loads of the stuff while I nervously danced and sang about the place. We then headed to our room for the usual bed playtime. And from then on there was no morning bottle. Sob/yay in equal measure. Well done baby. Well done mummy.
For the bedtime one, I opted to be a bit more creative and chose to deliberately make bedtime look different in a few ways. So less of a trick all about the milk thing, more of a wow look at how cool bedtime is all of a sudden and also you don’t have any bottles anymore, yay!
The normal routine for bed was bath, PJs, in to her dark room with white noise, bottle, bed. But to make things super cool I prepped her room by lighting a little battery cloud night light on the window ledge, selecting a few books, white noise playing and a tommy tippee of milk next to the light. After her bath and her hollering BYE to her dad as I carried her to her room, the minute she saw the light she was AMAZED. Honestly like WOW MUM. We sat in the rocking chair and the next big wow came when I started reading her a book, usually only reserved in this position for nap times. So amazing light, a fucking book and now what do you have up your sleeve mamma? Some warm milk in a big girl cup? GIMME. She totally bought it. Bedtime bottle booted. Me an emotional wreckage.
Milk
If you recall, I combi-fed Elodie for the first 6 months. More on the breastfeeding thing here. She was half boobie, half Holle Goats Milk Formula, which she loved. We didn’t want her on cows milk, personal preference. So when the time came to start getting her off formula, my initial thinking was pure full fat goats milk, that would seem obvious right? Except that tastes like shit and I cant expect baby to have something that I think is rank right? So we started looking at the plant based alternatives; almond, soya etc. Something rang in my head about soya and its hormone tampering issues so I steered clear of that (although I think thats actually been disproven? Anyway.) So we started a few weeks of Almond, unroasted, unsweetened. Except when you compare the nutritional content of that with full cows milk, which health visitors and doctors still benchmark against, it really doesn’t compare at all, especially on the calorie front.
Enter, pea milk.
No, not green peas. It’s not green. It’s made from yellow split peas. We’ve opted for a make called Qwrkee. They need a rebrand. You can check it out here.
So full fat cows milk based on 100ml:
Qwrkee unsweetened Pea Milk per 100ml
+ vitamin A and D
I’m hap-pea with that.
Her birthday cake
I absolutely didn’t make it. I bought the tins and the fiddly cake bunting, I screenshot the recipes. And then I thought fuck that because I am no baker and sometimes I need a simple life for Pete’s sake. So, I opted for a refined sugar free banana and coconut cake made and delivered by the Heavenly Cake Company. I threw some fruit and sugar free sprinkles on top. Her and her mini friends devoured it. One little boy literally and purposefully face planted into it. Job done.
I will one day make her an edible birthday cake.
A visit from a paediatric dietician
Because baby’s diet isn’t that straightforward, see above, and because I love nutrition, I called in the expert support from a kiddy dietician just to make sure we were doing things a-ok and where we could make changes if need be. I’d kept a food diary for a week and sent it to her prior.
Now obviously baby was napping for England when she came over so we couldn’t get her weighed but the lady – Andrea Fines, details here if you’re Hertfordshire way and interested – spent over an hour with us going through the diary and coming up with some alternative ideas. Half way through the food diary she noted that we had made the switch from almond milk to pea and she was happy with this. She did also suggest that soya milk for one of her cups of milk might be a good idea too but now that we’ve found Qwrkee I feel as though the differences in nutritional composition is negligible.
Because we’re not on cows milk or cheeses etc, she suggested we add soya yoghurt in at lunch and/or dinner, or other milky based puds like rice pudding which luckily baby devours anyway.
One big learning from the visit was that if baby refuses to eat something you’ve put in front of her, do not scuttle off and whip up something else. I have done this SO MANY TIMES. The lady in the know said that their fussiness can peak at 18 months and if they wise up to the fact that mummy can and will make something else, they will use that. It’s better to say ‘ok baby’ and just take it away. And quietly weep in the corner. Ok, don’t do that. You’re rocking it.
Another thing. Organic produce can’t be fortified with extra goodness. Like vits and minerals. Because then it cant be labelled as organic. You’re welcome.
What’s next?
Well maybe it’s less about food and more about the nap thing. I wonder when it will shift to one? And what this will mean for my morning shower and drawing on my eyebrows?
Until then…
Vx