Yoghurt, oh the yoghurt

Tabetha is now interested in learning to eat with a spoon.

Near's I can tell, it just makes it all messier, but it's still soooo cute.

Baby feedings pt. 2

(Part 1 can be found here)

I found early on that even with my super awesome beautiful diaper bag, I needed something to keep all her food stuff together, and I wanted it to be something that would contain any spills, but I didn't want to use plastic bags because I'm avoiding disposable wherever possible.  Oh, and it should also be cute.  And multifunctional.  But not too expensive.

So I bought an Itzy Ritzy Snack Happens bag.  It's the perfect size to hold a spoon and a few baby cubes, it has food-grade lining, and I can throw it in the washing machine.  So for now I use it to hold little bits, and later on I can toss a handful of grapes, or dry cereal, or cookies, or anything in there for her to munch on.  This isn't the pattern I have, but it is the pattern I want!  I have the matching wet bag for dirty diapers, and I need a second snack bag, I think...

When I first started giving Tabetha water to drink, she drank out of a small ceramic cup because she refused to drink from a bottle and couldn't figure out a sippy cup.  I was despairing a little bit of what she'd do at daycare - it's very carer intensive to have an 11 month old drinking out of a grown up cup - but last week she finally decided that sippy cups are good.  We have three kinds, two of which we've used enough to have an opinion on.

The Safe Sippy was the first one we bought when I decided I wanted to start getting her used to drinking from something other than me, around about the time she was starting to eat solid food.  It's stainless steel, it's easy to clean, it's great.  However, for a young baby it's also heavy, a bit large, and the rigid spout is harder to get used to.  I also wish it came with a cap, but apparently the latest version does.

We already had an OrganicKidz stainless steel bottle.  One of the reasons we bought it was that we knew they were releasing a kit to turn it into a sippy cup - perfect!  And actually it's my favourite.  It's long, but narrow so easier for her to hang onto.  The spout is flexible, which seems to be easier for her to drink from, and it's very easy to clean.  And it has a cap to contain any spills.  It's much sleeker and fits in the diaper bag better, too.

Finally, I wanted something cheaper for daycare, something I wouldn't care if I had to replace more often, but that was still good.  We went with a Dr. Brown's sippy cup.  It has a soft spout, and I can get replacement parts, so if something breaks I don't have to throw the whole thing out.  It's also light and small, so she's more likely to be able to use it without help.  I'll post more when we've had time to use it and get used to it!

The last thing I have to review is actually a set.  Untangled Living makes the absolute cutest set of stainless steel kids dishes, and from the moment I saw them I had to have them.  Now that Tabby is eating lots of finger foods it's become helpful to have a plate for her to eat of off - the food still ends up on the table, but we live in hope of her learning table manners!  The deep plate helps her scoop food out rather than just swiping it off, it's all adorable, and the set will grow with her until she's ready to use breakable dishes.  It also comes in a cute gecko design.

So far, that's pretty much everything we've used.  Oh, and lots of bibs!

Baby feedings pt. 1

Now that Tabs is eating solid food, feeding equipment consists of more than just an ugly bra with latches.  There are a few things we've tried.

We started with the Baby Safe Feeder.  It's really neat.  The concept is very cool and they work exactly as described.  Put food into mesh bag, screw onto handle, give to baby.  As they gum at it, food comes through the mesh but never in pieces big enough to choke a baby. We used them at first and they were great but Tabetha got teeth quite early, and we're not using them anymore.

Tabetha eats homemade food, other than the baby cereal (which I buy because that way it's fortified with iron, which I can't do at home).  I make it in large quantities and freeze it in handy dandy portions that I can easily throw in the diaper bag or what have you.  Lots of people do this using ice cube trays and then have containers they put the frozen chunks in; I use baby cubes because you freeze it IN the containers, which have lids, so it's one less step.  I love them - they're fantastic for purees, and also for holding Tabetha's favourite organic teddy puff thingies.  The only thing I DON'T like about these is that I've occasionally had the plastic break if I take them directly out of the freezer and pour boiling water over them to thaw the food, but if I remember to take her meals out a couple hours ahead, it's a non issue.

In order to get said purees into Tabetha, we bought  a spoon/spork set.  I like it because it bends, so when she's ready to start self-feeding I can bend it to whatever odd shape works best.  I also found it helpful to do that when she was first starting - for whatever reason she preferred eating from the side of the spoon rather than the front.  Plus, they're really cute!  The set we got are Boon.

I generally keep one in the kitchen for home meals, and one in the diaper bag for out meals, and it's been working out really well.

(to be continued shortly)

Recipe: Chai Poached Pears

I mash these with a fork, add whole grain baby cereal to thicken and feed them to my daughter, but they're fantastic for the rest of us too. Just add ice cream!

Ingredients

Herbal chai tea (I use the one from Silk Road. You want herbal so there's no caffeine for baby)

Pears, peeled, quartered and cored

Directions

Put the pears in a pot, cover with water, and add the tea ball. Simmer until the water reduces to a light syrup. Enjoy!

Baby Stew

My daughter, from the beginning, has preferred foods with flavour. Now that she's nine months old, I'm having a lot of fun experimenting. I called this one Baby Stew, and she loves it. So did a friend of ours, who had a lovely bowl of it for lunch one day!

The beauty of this recipe is that you can easily alter the veggies, and the proportions aren't really that important. I tried to provide something of a balance between protein, starch, etc so that it would be a meal in itself, and then I froze it in Baby Cubes so that I can easily serve it to her when I don't have time to make a meal.

Ingredients:

leek (white part only)

ginger (to taste)

garlic (to taste)

olive oil

red lentils

pot barley (pearl has the healthiest parts removed)

yam

sweet potato

carrot

fresh spinach (frozen would probably be fine too)

Method:

chop up all the veg. don't need to be too careful about how small. Panfry the leek until soft, then add the garlic and ginger. Toss in the lentils and barley to absorb the yummy flavours. Add the rest of the veggies, cover with water, and simmer until everything is soft. Add the spinach at the very last minute, so that it just barely wilts and doesn't overcook.

At this point, you could serve it to adults or older children. I used a hand blender to ensure there were no chunks bigger than the barley, but my daughter chews well. You could easily blend it longer for a younger child, or one who doesn't like texture as much.