not hungry

the doctor said that it's normal for her to have lost her appetite due to the cold. the bad news is that we could be in this situation for another week or so. i also read somewhere that it's normal for babies to have 8 or so colds in their first year - this is her 3rd so does that mean we've got 5 more to come in the next 4 months? what a depressing thought!

so until she gets her appetite back (unless something very exciting happens in the meantime) there's not much point in me posting.

back soon (i hope)

doctors again

hooray, charlotte is sleeping upstairs, so i have had a few minutes to upload some video and pics to our online albums. i have also worked out how to put video onto the blog which will be great when i actually get around to videoing charlotte eating something!

we're off to the doctors again in a bit. she's had a temperature and been off her food for a couple of days, so it's time to see what a professional thinks of the situation. she did manage to chew on some rice cakes and apricot compote last night for tea, but apart from that has had nothing but milk for 2 days now.

copycat

i have stolen the idea from billy's mummy and hopefully will have a video of charlotte below. she is playing with an activity centre that i used to play with when i was a baby:

too tired for food

naps did not go well yesterday. teething and a cold have made getting to sleep and staying asleep very difficult. we are all very tired today after a busy night.
not much else to say, but monkey did have a little bit of tartex vegetarian pate on rice cakes for tea last night. no dairy in it, and it's savoury unlike all the fruits she normally has so it should make a nice change for her.

i made a lot of papaya, melon and mango lollies and ice cubes yesterday and also some banana and mango puree. hopefully these should keep us going on the sweet front for a while...

poorly again

another cold has caused charlotte to lose her appetite for solids completely. she kept picking up her beloved courgette sticks and bread sticks then touching them on her tongue and throwing them back down again. as she's all bunged up i guess she can't taste much so i don't blame her. it hasn't tempered her appetite for milk though, so i'm being kept busy.

since starting "the no-cry sleep solution" tom and i feel that she's not been napping for long enough in the day and that has disrupted her night time sleep. well, today she has already napped for 1 1/4 hours until 10am and is now back in bed for her long lunchtime sleep. good girl. hopefully she'll sleep until 2pm and maybe even have another nap later in the afternoon.

out and about

we had a busy day yesterday. up to visit my mother in law first, then on to wandsworth common for a lunch date with a friend who is pregnant. we sat on the common and played, which was lovely and had lunch in a little cafe. charlotte had the usual breadsticks, organix carrot snacks and dried apricots.

she was then very well behaved as we nursed on a bench on wandsworth common. she pulled my pashmina tightly around her so nobody could see. i enjoyed this experience very much, and was glowing with pride at both of us for feeding so well in the busy park.

then on to an engagement party in streatham, where charlotte met lots of new friends and tucked into the crudites (but no dips) after demloishing the rest of her breadsticks. she didn't swallow any, but sucked on a celery stick for ages.

busy day

we were out all morning and charlotte did not sleep at all. as she missed her morning nap i put her to bed early for her lunchtime sleep and she missed lunch. she did have tea though - courgettes and then a mango and banana lolly.
we had another go with a bottle today, but with infa-soy formula instead of expressed milk (until she gets the hang of the bottle i'm not bothering to express again). she chewed on the teat a bit, but didn't really drink any. i'm going to persevere though, and try the bottle at the same feed every day for a few days to see if she'll remember how to use it.
we took her passport pics this afternoon. very cute - i'll try to upload one at some point.

peach

just a quick post to say fresh peach went down well for breakfast.

rice cakes with n-d. cream cheese and apricot compote went down well for dinner last night.

no other news really.

melon and non-dairy cream cheese

ah-ha, another winner! i pureed some melon (not sure which one it is but it is small and orange inside) and added a dollop of the n-d. cream cheese it still looked a bit sloppy so i added a bit of baby rice to thicken it slightly. she had it for tea last night and again for breakfast this morning. it would have been mango, but M&S fruit stocks were rubbish yesterday. lucky really, as i now have another fruit to add to the list of acceptance. i want to try papaya too, but none available.

i'm not sure if the n-d. cream cheese can be frozen, so i'm a bit worried about freezing the excess food. i'll have to look into it.

comments

i just found the bit where you control your settings for comments. i've changed it so that anyone can now leave comments for us. just thought you should know.
looking forward to hearing from you.
h.x

mango and more mango

lunch was a sandwich made with the non-dairy cream cheese and apricot compote, which the monkey really enjoyed. she then ate a defrosted cube of the mango and banana puree with such gusto that i wish i had defrosted more. i had missed her 11am milk feed, so she must have been really hungry!

we had a breakthrough on the nursing to sleep at lunchtime. she fed and then rolled over and kicked about for a bit before falling asleep without a murmer. it was amazing! my long term plan is to get her to fall asleep in the cot by herself and i think this is a great move in that direction.

finally, tea was steamed courgette and a mad mix that only a weaning mum with shopping to do could concoct - avocado, non-dairy cream cheese and some of the banana and mango puree to sweeten it. she loved it. i'm going to put mango in everything from now on.

feeling awake - hooray!

she just chucked all her breakfast on the floor, so no breakfast this morning. in an attempt to give myself more than 2 seconds of typing time, i have given her a toy that attaches to her clothes - she keeps trying to chuck it on the floor but it just dangles over the edge. i wish i could find food that did that...

on the advice of a person on a babycentre forum (where i get most of my advice at the moment!) i have purchased "the no-cry sleep solution" by elizabeth pantley. so, for the past 24 hours we have been keeping a log of sleep and nap times in an attempt to work out why charlotte is still waking for so long and so often at night. unfortunately for the book, and hopefully fortunately for us, charlotte was very good last night. she only woke to be fed at 10pm and 4.15am and both feeding sessions added up to 65 minutes - a far cry from the 4ish hours of night-nursing that we had seen.

anyway, i shall continue to work through the book and see if we can improve things further still - the ultimate goal is that she is not needing to nurse after 7.30pm. we'll see.

mango and banana lolly

last night we had a great success with food - a home made mango and banana lolly made in the annabel karmel lolly moulds. she ate nearly all of it, which really surprised me! she kept stopping and giggling, and by the end of it her top lip was really cold - i guess her mouth was too, and the strange sensation was provoking the giggles. so i think that the way forward for feeding must be to freeze everything into lolly shapes - gravy and potato lollies don't really sound tasty though.

on the bottle and milk front, not so good. tom tried her on the tommee tippee bottle with 4oz of hard pumped milk - she refused it and pushed the bottle away with her hands. i'm not going to try that again, as expressing 4oz of milk and throwing it away is a bit soul destroying.

this morning's breakfast of defrosted mango and banana was not eaten. for some reason i thought that as the lolly had been so successful, the warmed puree would be just as good. no chance. good old breadstick and dried apricot were substituted to great effect.

also, my mum has been teaching her to put her arms up in the air. as i write this, she is sitting in her highchair with all her toys on the floor around her waving her arms in the air. it started off with just one arm, and she had the look of a school child who wants to ask a question, now it's both and all of the time! i just took a picture:

bottles and sleep

i now have 4 oz expressed milk in a bottle in the fridge. hopefully tom will be able to give it to her tomorrow.... i am very excited, but trying not to get my hopes up too much.

on the sleep (or lack of) front, we are in the middle of a very wakeful time, with charlotte not settling well and waking often to nurse. i did tons of research today and have changed the night time routine. we went from fighting sleep until 8.30pm last night to blissfully sleeping in her cot at 7.10pm tonight. fingers crossed that the night goes as well as the evening!

casserole - the end of blw?

i used the lo-salt stock cubes to make a chicken and carrot casserole this afternoon. i am determined to get more food into the monkey as she has been very hungry when nursing for the past few days. for this reason i pulsed (not smooth, more like a lumpy puree) the casserole and gave it to her on a spoon.
not by any stretch of the imagination was this baby led weaning, and i am going to have to admit defeat on the strict guidelines as she did eat it and that was the most important thing for me today. i am not about to stop offering her finger foods, but i am also not going to rule out spoons either. she does sometimes take the spoon and feed herself, so i will encourage that too.

there, i said it.

on the floor

up until today, food had a chance of at least being tasted before it went on the floor. today, the entire tray was cleared in stages - first cucumber, then soya cheese went straight over the edge. then, bread sticks and sweet potato wedges after a brief taste.
i was not to be outsmarted, however, and then gave her the softest dried apricot in the bag. ha, ha, my plan worked perfectly, it was so soft that when she opened her mitt over the edge of the tray it stuck and wouldn't fall off! she then realised she did want it after all and has now deposited a sorry looking apricot skin over the edge.

soya cheese

just got back from a mammoth shopping trip (all for charlotte, as usual!).
she is currently sitting in her highchair munching on a chunk of soya cheese, which tastes a bit like processed cheese slices and is a bit salty, but i think she deserves a treat. we also have a tofu based cheese spread type thing, some vegetarian pate to try out and some lo-salt stock cubes all from holland and barrett.

i also bought the tommee tippee steriliser, which is chugging away in the kitchen getting bottles ready for use later today. i was very good and expressed milk this morning, so we may have our first proper go with a bottle tonight.

the lucky girl has new babygros as well. i think the 3-6 month ones were getting a bit tight!

back on the bottle?

on new years eve charlotte decided that she didn't like drinking her milk from bottles, only from the original source (ie. me). from that day she has refused to take a bottle and so tom and i have stopped trying to give her one.... until today. we saw some friends over the bank holiday and their boys use tommee tippee closer to nature bottles. i bought one today and a fast flow teat for it in the hope that charlotte may be coaxed into using it.

i got the steriliser out of the cupboard and it was broken. no idea what's wrong with it, but it's not the fuse. grrrrrrrr. so i put the bottle through the dishwasher and used it with some watered down apple juice at lunch time. she loved it. she drank an ounce of juice and wanted more, but i had to take it away so she would have a good milk feed before her nap. we were very excited about it, as it means that chance of a night out may be back on the cards - yippee! now i have to get a new steriliser so i can start expressing (not looking forward to that) again.

lunch was a couple of home made chunky chips and some mashed cauliflower and spinach. she loved the chips but wasn't so bothered with the veg (surprise, surprise). she did have half a plum afterwards, so i let her off her veg.

quinoa

a new food for charlotte today. breakfast was banana on toast, which was licked and sucked as she seems to like the banana more than the toast. lunch was mashed broccoli with quinoa, which she seemed to enjoy. i tried some and it was quite nice. i may have to start using the quinoa in more recipes...
last day of antibiotics and i can't wait until she's back to normal on the nappy front. poor baby has had a really upset tummy and the worst wind ever for the past few days.

avocado medley

i was mashing some avocado to put in a sandwich for the monkey and i thought i'd also try it on a spoon (seeing how good she has been with spoons recently). i mixed it with some baby rice and rice milk to bulk it out a bit. i gave her the sandwich and she wasn't really bothered with it. i then offered a spoon of the mash and she grabbed it and started eating. unfortunately she took to putting the wrong end into her mouth.


but once she got going there was no stopping her. she ate the whole lot and pretty much ignored the sandwich. she made a serious mess, but i don't mind as she ate so much.


i steamed broccoli for tea which she still won't eat. i then tried pear puree and weetabix again but no luck either. even a bread stick wasn't going down so i gave up and breast fed her instead.

big dinner

she must be starting to feel better. i've not seen her eat so much before.
at lunch tom defrosted some of the butter bean and spinach mash for her, which she ate from the spoon and on trusty rice cakes. at dinner, we sat and watched in amazement as first an organix corn ring, then 4 pieces of steamed courgette were munched, chewed and sucked. then, i defrosted a cube of the banana and mango puree from yesterday and mixed it with some baby rice. she took spoon after spoon of it and licked each one clean until the whole lot had gone! i think we have reached the point of no return!

more spoon feeding

this evening charlotte had mashed potato mixed with avocado. she fed herself with a spoon and seemed to eat a fair bit. for lunch i made a mango and banana puree with some rice milk and baby rice to bulk it up. she did feed herself with the spoon, but didn't eat much.
she's back to practically drinking the antibiotics from the syringe. maybe we could feed her expressed milk this way and give me a night off, seeing as bottles are out and cups are still too messy....

nasty medicine

wow, this stuff stinks! it didn't smell bad yesterday but today it is foul. i really think it has put her off her food. she refused everything up to and including apple rice cakes - this must be bad.

i put her on her playmat while i made myself some breakfast and when i popped my head back round the door to check on her she was on her tummy! the first roll and no one saw it. going to have to keep a much closer eye on her from now on...

sick baby

aaaah, she went to see the doctor and she is officially sick. she has a wheeze which the doctor thinks is bronchiolitis and has prescribed some antibiotics for. i opened the bottle and it is the same stuff i remember taking as a kid when i had ear infections - the smell really took me back. i gave her some and it dyed her lips and tongue bright yellow - i'm sure there's no need to put dyes in medicines - it's not like she's looking at it and thinking "oooh, i'll like that as it's bright yellow".

she had some toast for breakfast and i'll probably give her some veggies for lunch. nothing new for a few days in case she has a reaction and we can't tell if it's the antibiotics or the food.

she's pretty happy though, and currently bouncing in her door bouncer while i type. she's started getting grumpy when i take her out of it - she'd stay in all day if i let her!

mince and onions

i made chili for dinner last night, and before i added any spices i took some mince and onions out to give charlotte today. i even wrapped it in a spare tortilla and handed it over. she picked it up, pulled a bit of the meat out and put it into her mouth. she then grimaced, spat the meat out and flicked the tortilla so all the mince fell onto her tray. she then sucked on the tortilla and decided that is was no better and threw that on the floor. not a successful meal!


i gave her some rice cakes instead to appease her, and an apple fruit bar. she had a bit but didn't seem that bothered with these either.

poor coughing baby

charlotte's cough is still there. she's not really bothered by it but if she's still bad tomorrow she's seeing the doctor. she's all off on her normal daytime routine though. instead of sleeping at 9.30 and then again at 1ish she forced herself to stay awake until 11.30 (from 7am!) then suddenly got really grumpy and slept until 1.30pm. needless to say, she missed her normal lunch time and will now need to sleep during "dinner" so i'm going to have to give her some food in a minute!

she had veggie spread (like marge but def. no dairy in it) on toast and a piece of apple for breakfast. the toast went down a storm, but she wasn't so keen on the apple. i tried a bit and it was one of those fluffy tasteless ones - no wonder she threw it down in disgust! my daughter, the food connoisseur!

spoons

hooray, spoons seem to be getting used for putting food into her mouth - finally! we had a breakthrough at breakfast with a banana/weetabix/rice milk combo. she was taking a full spoon from me and putting it into her mouth, then swapping the empty one for a refilled one. i was amazed, as it seems she is finally up for eating instead of just tasting.

for lunch i made a puree (eeeek) of butter beans and spinach - very healthy. she did the same as breakfast to start with, but eventually lost interest and threw the spoon down. the picture shows how much food was on the tray...


...then i made the mistake of offering her some water from her doidy cup. with her lightning reflexes, she managed to upend the cup spilling the water all over the tray. she immediately started slapping her hands into the watery mess and managed to splash spinach water all over me, the wall, the table and the floor. well done. bad enough? no, then the doorbell went and i had to go and speak to a neighbour with spinach all over me. the joys of weaning!