Obsessed with Food

Today's baby menu-
Breakfast: Happy Baby Organic Whole Grain Baby Cereal (oats, amaranth, quinoa, fortified with probiotics) with fresh banana and blueberries. As I mentioned before I am still giving the baby cereal because it is an easy way to get a variety of whole grains plus probiotics into him. Starting tomorrow we are going to start mixing it with goat milk for extra protein, calcium and fat. He's barely in the 4th percentile of weight (98th or "off the charts" for height) so I am trying to sneak fat and nutrients into everything.
Why goat? http://www.abundalife.com/goats.asp
Snack: Half a container of blueberry goat yogurt.
Lunch: Palmful of baked sweet potato, one egg from our backyard chickens scrambled with fresh spinach and a bit of organic cow milk mild cheddar, cooked in a bit of organic unsalted butter. He LOVED this, ate every bit of it.
Snack: Organic raisins
Dinner: Chicken with some sweet potato and broccoli, pear.

Bonus: I am still trying to figure out a way to use up some of the purees I still have in the freezer. He went so quickly from purees to more chunky foods that I was left with a bunch of prepared items in the freezer and I hate to waste anything. I cooked up some brown rice pasta and mixed it with a chicken, leek, potato and pea puree. It tastes awesome! That's what is going to the nanny's for lunch!

Goat!

I am so excited, my big boy (one year and 4 days--- a "toddler" now!!! still my baby love) is finally liking goat yogurt. It took a few tries but today he had half a container of this, blueberry flavor http://www.redwoodhill.com/yogurt
for his snack. Goat milk is easier to digest than cow milk, easier to break down the enzymes, and has really great health benefits. I want to try to avoid giving him a ton of cow milk dairy, so this is a big triumph in my little world.

PS I tried sheep too- I am going with this goat one because it is easier to find and comes in flavors.

The diet is still my big project and I am really enjoying finding new ways to nourish the little man. Now he can have dairy, eggs (we have our own chickens so this is super exciting!) and honey so that opens up a lot of options, including easy items like the yogurt or organic cheese that offer protein and fat while being easy to chew for a guy with six teeth. This little man is barely 4th percentile in weight but 98th in height! He is walking and never stops moving, just like from the time he was in the womb, so he burns his calories quick!

We are home in the snow today. Breakfast was Happy Baby organic multi grain cereal http://shop.happybabyfood.com/our-products/happybellies/multi-grain-cereal.html with banana and blueberry in it. I keep giving this baby cereal even though he could eat regular oatmeal because grains are always a challenge for me to get into his diet, and this is made with amaranth, oats and quinoa and has probiotics! Snack was half a container of blueberry goat yogurt. Now we are ready for lunch- we will do avocado and chicken.

More lentils!

The latest baby news is, he doesn't like mushy food anymore. This is problematic on a few levels, one being that lots of very healthy foods, like lentils and hummus, are mushy, and two... well, he has six teeth at best (two being just barely through). Laying in bed last night I started thinking about meatballs. I previously created a little recipe with organic turkey, potato and spinach, turned into meatballs that could be frozen, cooked in a sauce, etc. and easily broken up to pieces that he can grab, but since the ingredients were mushed up before cooking, also easily gummed. It occurred to me that I could do a lot more with a meatloaf, which would also be easier than rolling a whole bunch of meatballs. Another downside to the meatballs is that they are very easy to overcook. So, today I managed to whip up the meatloaf while the boy took a blessedly long nap. I wanted to use ingredients that I already had in the house because I'm on a freezer clearing mission.

I used-
1 organic russet potato and 1 small sweet potato- chopped and boiled until soft
1/2 cup of organic red lentils, cooked
about 3/4 cup of frozen organic spinach, defrosted
2 organic turkey burger patties, raw
about a tablespoon of olive oil

I mashed the potatoes, mixed in the rest of the ingredients except for the olive oil, formed it into the loaf and brushed the top with the oil. I baked it at 350 until it was firm but not dry, about 30 minutes or so.

He ate two slices! And I was able to freeze half, because it made plenty. The best thing is it's a "one pot meal", which means I don't have to run around thinking of components to make him a balanced meal. He ate the two slices and some pear chunks, and that was dinner for my almost one year old baby love bug.

Yay!

On Lentils and Blueberries

I am very interested in food in general and my son's nutrition in particular. For the past 11 months he has had almost nothing that was not made by my hands with the best possible intentions. I think what he eats, particularly at this early age, is of utmost importance. I have to say I am in no way a perfect eater myself, but that little tummy is only so big and I don't want to put anything in it that does not have true value. I try not to be judgmental on this topic, I really do, but it KILLS me when little ones eat junk. I figure I have about 5 years at maximum to push my diet agenda before he is overly influenced by his friends and ends up eating McNuggets. Oh, my heart! In the meantime, the only things I have given that I haven't made myself are: Babys Only Organic Formula (would have breast fed until a year but could not keep up when I started working), Happy Baby cereals (I use the organic whole grain cereal now and it's made with excellent stuff), Happy Baby Puffs (only at day care because he needed something for when the other kids have snacks- I also send raising and blueberries), canned organic beans now and then and just recently Trader Joe's freeze dried mango, blueberry and banana. These are great; while they are unfortunately not organic, which gives me chest pains, they have only one ingredient, which is the fruit itself, and the freeze dried consistency melts in your mouth. It is a challenge to make all of his food, that is for sure. That is why I myself will occasionally pick up a rotisserie chicken or even order out. I work full time! But I had this baby because I wanted to try to do it right, and damn it I am going to try to do that! So far it seems to be going super great. He loves loves vegetables, fruit and meat. He will eat just about anything with gusto. Dinner tonight was steamed broccoli with lemon, red lentils, meatballs made with turkey, potato and spinach with a little olive oil and baked (everything organic needless to say) with blueberries and some freeze dried banana for dessert. He also drinks water like a champ, no fruit juice. I always through fruit juice was healthy but when I had gestational diabetes I learned that it's just not that good for you. I have to say I am proud of myself. I have looked longingly at the jarred baby foods, especially the high end organics, and thought "ohhhh I could just grab one of those..." but I have always refrained and now they are less of a temptation since he likes chunky foods. Of course on that note things have gotten easier as he has grown, since things don't need to be pureed anymore (except I still make applesauce to put in his morning cereal) and he can eat many things that we eat too. It is my sincere hope that as my friend at www.notjustkale.com says, I am setting his palate for life!

The Battle of the Spoon

My son began eating rice cereal at 4 months. I was eager to introduce him to solids for many reasons, topping the list being that he is long and skinny and I thought it would be helpful in bulking him up some, and I also thought that giving him plenty of time to get used to solids and eating from a spoon would be beneficial to his eventual eating habits and oral motor development. He loved his baby cereal from day one, eating from the spoon like a little bird, that little mouth popping open for bite after bite. On a complete side note I switched to baby oatmeal rather quickly because the rice gave him bouts of constipation, and now he has moved on to happy baby organic multigrain cereal which is made with oats, amaranth and guinoa. Good stuff. We mix it with various fruits for breakfast. Time passed as it always does and after 6 months he began eating various single item purees and then pureed baby stews and eventually moved on to feeding himself soft foods like banana. He has become an excellent eater and happily chows down on spinach, brown rice, quinoa, any fruit you can think of, broccoli, peas, sweet potato and on and on. BUT!!! In the last few weeks he has taken a dislike to the spoon, especially when it comes to dinner. He wants to feed himself and will eat a ton from the tray but just does not want me to feed him. At first I could sneak in a few mouthfuls here and there but he is getting really upset with the whole situation and I am getting frustrated and upset at dinner times because I don't want to be fighting with a 9 and a half month old and making his mealtime miserable for both of us. I've done a bit of research online and spoken to a few friends, and I have decided that I am going to give up the spoon battle when it comes to dinner time. He is still accepting the spoon at day care and when daddy gives him breakfast. I initally thought that I should keep insisting on at least a few bites with the spoon so that he learns that the spoon is part of meals and not an option to refuse, but I don't want to make it so aversive that it affects all meals and I absolutely despise upsetting him in any way. The real battle here is that he continues to eat a variety of foods, not really HOW he eats them at this stage of the game. My plan is to get a bit more creative with getting grains and smaller foods into some kind of finger food consistency and let him try a suction bowl. I want dinner time to be pleasant again. I guess the real lesson here is adaptability and creativity.

Bottles

Like everything else for baby, there are many choices in the bottle arena. Many people talk about Dr. Browns bottles, how they are great for gas and just all around wonderful bottles. Personally, I don't get it. There are 5 parts to each bottle: nipple, lid, bottle itself and a two piece vent system. You need a special little brush to clean the vent system. Also milk gets inside the inner tube and if you don't open the bottle to drain the milk, it leaks. I have tried several Dr. Browns including the 4oz, 9oz tall and 8oz wide. They all have the same problems. Why did I keep buying, you ask? Well, the 4's are a waste of money in my opinion. Yes, when the baby was little he only needed 4oz at a time, but that stage passed after a few months and now the 4oz-ers are packed away. There is no reason why you can't buy the bigger sizes and just fill them half way. Incidentally my nanny does not like the Dr. Browns either. She has been a nanny for over 30 years so she knows her stuff.

The other bottle I use is Born Free. I like it a lot better, the leaking problem is not there. It too has 5 parts to clean but the flat vent system is very easy to deal with both washing by hand and in the dishwasher. No special tools needed.

At this point in the game, with the baby approaching 8 months, I won't be trying anything new in the bottle arena. I do recommend stocking up on bottles so that you are not washing them constantly, and again, avoid the smaller sizes. They are a waste of money.

Of course don't make the same mistake I did (see previous post on things I've learned along the way). Buy some dishwasher baskets as soon as possible and throw all bottle parts right in there on the sterilize cycle! It's 2010 people!

Things I Wish I Knew

It has been months since I've had time to post. Working full time and taking care of a baby is hard! I have a lot of thoughts about the whole issue but I always have them when I don't have time or desire to put them down. Thus I find myself typing this during the last ten mintues of work, while I sit at my desk and pump.

Sitting at my desk and pumping is NOT FUN. Pumping while working in general is a nightmare. It's very hard to find two consistent opportunities throughout the day, let alone in private. I have found myself pumping in front of my boss, my coworkers, my MALE coworkers at times, and currently right at this moment in front of one of my female employees. Thankfully she is across the room and I am not exposed in any way. I have also been walked in on by various people on many occasions. Throughout all this, during the past 5 months or so of doing this, I have only managed to forget my pump once and my flanges twice. One of those two times was today. So I sit here pumping one side at a time, with the spare flange that I bought last time I forgot my flanges, to keep in the office for just such occasions.

Pumping one side at a time brings me full cirlce to the topic of this post. When I first started pumping I was doing one breast at a time, for like an hour every night. What!?? I even have a double pump. I was doing one at a time because I didn't want to hold both flanges at once. Eventually before going back to work I bought some stupid Pumping Pal contraption that hangs around your neck to hold the flanges up. Not comfortable, not convenient to carry around. Finally one of my friends found out about this craziness and .... DUH.... PUMPING BRA! Hands free! Two at a time! Can't live without it, especially now that I pump four f$%*& times a day!!!

Another thing that I slap myself in the head about: dish washer basket. For MONTHS AND MONTHS I was washing nipples and odd bottle parts by hand. It never even occurred to me to buy a contraption to use in the dish washer. Dish washer baskets are cheap and fit many nipples, spoons, tiny little lids, etc. Now the only things I wash by hand are lids, because they take up too much space and fit together in such a way that they don't all get clean. I still absolutely hate the whole bottle washing process, what with all of the parts to each fancy bottle. On average my bottles all have five or more parts: Born Free for example have lids, nipples, a two piece vent system, and the bottle itself. However the baskets really do help. One Step Ahead is a great catalog and they have these little mesh bag type things that fit a lot of various parts, pacis, etc.

And now it's 4:02 and I'm out of time!