For the love of family food

While I am a qualified children's doctor, I'm only relating my experiences with my children on this blog. The NHS has plenty of information available for mums and dads in the UK about weaning and other children's health issues.

I'll be honest right off the bat and say that this isn't Sam's first tastes of food. He started with cucumber ten days ago or so and we've just returned from a big family holiday where my mum and my siblings delighted in offering him bits off their plates.  Whenever I recommend baby-led weaning to anyone, their first question is always "what sort of foods do you give him/her?" My answer, whatever we're having, doesn't seem specific enough so I guess this post is me fleshing that out a bit.

When I say 'whatever we're having', I do mean it literally. That did require some changes to what I was cooking at first (more fruit & veg, less salt) but with two children already eating with us four days a week, our family meals are pretty baby-ready these days.

We've literally just got back from a week-long holiday in the Lakes so there's pretty much nothing in our fridge and I had no plan for dinner. That usually means oven-ready food or pasta and sure enough I scavenged up the ingredients for tuna pasta bake. Since the replacements straps and padded insert for the highchair arrived while we were away, there was no reason Sam couldn't join us.

I started off with some pasta and 'bits' in a bowl but he's not quite tall enough to see into it yet so we quickly moved on to using just the tray.

This is a new experience for Sam; it's only the second or third time he's been in a highchair so he has no idea what to expect. He's fed-up! I hand him a single pasta twirl and he takes it to his mouth to suck.

He struggles to pick up the pasta initially and gets frustrated so I pass him pieces of pasta. I also put smallish bits of tuna and sauce on my fingers and offer them to him. He takes the food eagerly and moves it round his mouth. I'm not sure he's swallowed anything yet but he's very happy just 'playing' with the food.

After a little while, maybe 10 minutes, he's getting frustrated with the pasta so I slice a nectarine into quarters and offer him one. Again, he doesn't know what it is or what it's for, so I gently wipe it across his lips. He licks the juice and realises this is good. And then he's off. Nectarine is a winner!  He struggles occasionally to pick up the slippery fruit but for the most part he's doing this all himself.

After finishing most of the nectarine, he goes back to the pasta. Random food combinations are a big feature of BLW; strawberry petit filous and king prawns, anyone?! He's getting the hang of it now and quite confidently brings pasta to his mouth for a suck and a chew. I'm sure I've heard him swallow at some point but I guess we'll know for sure with tomorrow's nappies!

This is all going on during a family meal. We're talking about our favourite parts of our holiday with the children and discussing our upcoming house project. All four of us, the children are great at this, are positive and encouraging to Sam. Lots of smiles and praise for what he's doing. We've also introduced the signs for 'more' and 'finished'; these are the two I found most useful with Isaac at this age. It'll take a while before Sam joins in but the repetition is key to getting it to stick.

A note about the floor; weaning is a messy business. No, sorry, children are a messy business. And never more so than when they eat. Isaac knocked his cup over, spilling his squash. Anna doesn't wear a top whenever we have tomato-based sauces. We have tile flooring that wipes clean beautifully. Usually anything that hits the floor comes straight back into the bowl to be played with/eaten again. But like I said, we've just got home from a week away, leaving the cats in the house and I haven't cleaned the floor yet. Plus tuna and pasta are a pretty good cat-attraction device!

On clean-up; start at the top and work your way down. I wear rubber gloves and remove the food first. I wipe the tray, knocking leftover bits onto the floor mostly. Then I wipe the child and remove bibs or dirty clothing. As it happens, hubby is running a bath so I offloaded Sam to him but if I'm on my own, I get the baby something to do before I carry on. Quite a lot of meals are easier to clean up once they're dry anyway. Then I wipe the highchair from top to bottom, not forgetting the rails on the floor. And finally the floor. I don't generally use disinfectant unless there's some stuck-on mess or it's really gross. Hot soapy water on an e-cloth is enough for me; wearing gloves means I can use really hot dish washing water.

And highchairs? I love our East Coast folding wooden chair. I bought it for Isaac along with a traditional, padded PVC one, which was a nightmare to get clean and went mouldy in storage. I've just ordered a new insert (from Argos but look online for the best price) and new straps (from east coast) and it looks great. The tray lifts over the top so you can sit them right up at the table too. But if I were buying again today, I'd get the ikea highchair. I can almost guarantee you've seen it out & about. A white plastic seat with a removable tray (both dishwasher safe!!) and long grey legs. It's so easy to clean, light and it's only £12 (£16 with the tray)!!

On knitting for baby

Milo Vest in Rico Essentials Merino DK in Khaki | This was such a quick and lovely knit.  I actually cast it on just before I had Samuel and finished it in the first couple of weeks afterwards.  It's my first attempt at cable knitting and it was a lovely introduction piece.  You can choose your cable pattern and since it's such a small section with plenty of plain stocking stitch in between, it's not too taxing for the brain.

Samuel's Blanket in Rico Soft Merino Aran, Various (Natural, Fuchsia, Mandarine, Jeans, Eucalyptus, Grey, Pistachio) | I've made a blanket for each of my babies, though I still haven't finished sewing the ends on Isaac's.  This yarn was recommended by a friend and it's lovely and squishy.  I chose a neutral colour palette because we didn't find out the baby's sex before he arrived.  The granny square is from Little Tin Bird.  I finished the squares and the cream border but ran out of the eucalyptus with about 6 inches left to do.  The colour has been discontinued but I found a ball at The Homemakery, I can really recommend this store, the service is excellent.

Puerperium in Sirdar Snuggly Smiley Stripes, Bambini Blue | I finished this little cardie just before Samuel arrived but didn't manage buttons for a few weeks afterwards.  I did it in newborn size, which fit for about a month but then I do breed decent-sized babies.

Magic Coffee Hat in Rico Soft Merino Aran, various | I didn't manage to make hats for Isaac or Anna but I used the odd ends of my blanket yarn to make a simple striped hat for Samuel.  This was while I was waiting for the extra teal to edge the blanket, which is why it doesn't appear in the hat.

On a little knitty fun

I still haven't scrapped these photos and I really must!  I bought some lovely lovely yarn, which was so soft and squishy in a gorgeous colour and decided to make a cardigan for Anna.  The pattern is called Granny's Favorite and I found it on Ravelry.  It was the first time I've ever tried any lacework in a project and I ended up starting it about four times before I finally got the hang of it!

It took quite a while and I had to go back to the shop for another ball of yarn to finish the sleeves.  God bless local yarn shops who will check their shelves to see if they still have the dye lot in stock and put some aside for you!  It took me ages to get around to attaching buttons so Anna could wear it but I'm really pleased with the finished result.

And she looks so cute in it!

On my desk

I've had precious little time to myself this last month; there's always something housework-y that needs doing at any given time.  But I'm not too far behind on my project life albums and I've managed to fit some 12x12s in as well.

I took these photos intentionally so I could make this page documenting Sam's love of his monkey toy.  I wanted to pull out the bright red and orange alongside the pale blue of his babygro so I dug through my scraps and paper collections to find some different options.  It's simple, but it's another important story ready to go in his album (once I actually buy one for him....).

I made this for a class over at Big Picture Classes; the Art and Science of Scrapbooking, which looked at the concept of right- and left-brain tendencies.  The challenge was to find a beautiful photo and use this to make a layout (this is how I make most of my 12x12s, left-brained anyone?!).  I love the way Anna is looking at Andy.  I made 10 page-bases recently, using up the left-overs of a few collections that I loved, and this was one of them so this page came together really quickly.  The little deer diecut comes from the Studio Calico Printshop line but I really didn't think the colour went with any of the papers I bought from the line so I'm glad it got used here.

The realities of a photoshoot with three children - you get twenty or thirty crazy shots before you get the perfect pose with everyone smiling or at least looking at the camera!

Samuel's 3 month photoshoot; I'm adding the vest stickers as embellishment on these pages, mostly cos I can't throw anything away!  For this page, I pulled papers to match the stickers from the Simple Stories Baby Boy stickers, those elephants are so cute!

These two pages go next to each other and tell the story of the Easter Egg Hunt we went on with some of my mummy friends.  We've never done an egg hunt before and the children loved it.  I think the bit they enjoyed the most was playing around in the park and woods with their friends.  These are two more page bases with some similar papers to tie them together nicely.  I got to use up some really cute Easter project life printables from last year and a few random bits and bobs hanging around on my desk.

On the 11th of June

At 5 months old, you;

eat | still exclusively breast-feed every 3 or 4 hours.  You're awake once in the night around 3am to feed;

sleep | in your moses basket in the cot in the nursery, under a pile of handmade blankets (I love this about your bedding, so so much).  You're having 2 short naps in the morning and evening and a 2-3 hour mega-nap in the middle of the day;

wear | 3-6 month clothes, mostly just babygros.  It's still an event if you're wearing proper clothing.  I have pulled out some rompers for the hot hot days and you're not wearing a vest under your gro much these days;

poop | in cloth nappies all day, disposables at night;

love | your big brother, so so much, he's the funniest thing you've ever seen! Having your nappy changed so you can grab at your willy, and the baby wipes, and the packet, and pretty much everything else!  Being naked!

hate | waiting to be fed and not getting attention, you've turned into a proper little diva lately;

do | you stretch and try to roll but you can't quite sort your shoulders out to get all the way over, you have rolled from your front to your back on one occasion but you won't repeat the performance!  You still love to stand up and look around.  You can sit with support and you're straining to pull yourself forward from lying down;

say | burbling to yourself and blowing raspberries, with plenty of spit everywhere!  You're a social little thing and love to smile at the people who talk to you when we're out and about.  You've learned to laugh properly this month too, a lovely belly laugh;

grow | you cut your first tooth on the day you turned 5 months, so early!  You're bringing everything to your mouth for a good old chew.