August/September 2019 babies - #3

[Stroan]

Just spotted we were about to finish the last thread....

So what protein do you give your babies?! I thought I was onto a winner with the egg. Damn!

Tuna, smoked salmon, hummus, chicken, white fish... are those protein ones?

Oh yes we have only tried once with white fish.
And some chicken purée but no actual pieces of chicken cause I was afraid he'd choke.
Haven't tried tune..I thought we weren't to give then that yet but maybe I am wrong.

Tuna is fine, or at least I'm sure it's fine. Alice has had tuna few times now. I'm following the same rules as for when I was pregnant.

Though the NHS Website doesn't say anything about babies and tuna. So it must be ok.

Egg has the opposite effect for DD whenever I give her it it's like a newborns nappy so we stay away unless it's DPs turn for the next nappy change x

Haha that made me laugh @Dipsy77

Ah I'm getting mixed up with tuna and high mercury fish. Husband just reminded me we have given him tuna but not for a while, it's been more white fish and mackerel.
God I'm so concerned because he's eaten loads I'm the last few days. He still has an appetite but still no poop.
Even with the medicine so it's not working really. I'm gona have to call Dr again I think

@Horehound ruby has been badly constipated and when she does go it's been really hard and it gets stuck which is really traumatic for her. I've started giving her a couple of main course pouches a few times a week and that seems to work. She has our food mostly but the pouches help her to go and the egg of course x

Red meats are good too. Just in small amounts.

Alice loves meat. She picks it out from the rest of her meal to eat first. She once had a whale of a time gumming a chicken thigh bone with some shreds of meat left on it! I make sure there's no hard/crispy/gristly bits, and it's cut small enough that she won't choke. We've had the occasional gag (even up to last night), but she's never choked.

Spag bol, chilli con carne, keema curry, meatballs, bits of roasted/grilled meat (tried lamb and pork as well as chicken so far), hamburger. She has also tried sausage, but the salt content is quite high.

I cannot recommend spaghetti bolognese as a meal enough. It's hugely messy, but you can use any sort of meat/meat like protein source you want. The nature of how you cook it means that the mince becomes incredibly soft and easy to eat. Plus you can add so much veg to it to make it even healthier!

Peas are also good for some protein, as well as constipation. Probably better off mashing them still. Alice practices her pincer grip on them. They still mostly escape to the floor, but the occasional one gets picked up and eaten. TMI How do we know they get eaten? They're seen again on the other side.

He has more pouches than harder food though so this is why I can't understand it.

@dyra oh yeh we have tried sausages (just small amounts as you say) and he did love those and he has some pieces of meatballs we have.
We made a broad bean mash with other veg and some potato in it and he unclogged the first time after having that but it hasn't worked this time.

For spaghetti Bolognese I have given him an Ella's kitchen pouch if it but not our own one.
What do you do with the spaghetti? Chop it up to tiny pieces or?

Chop it up once it's cooked. Though recently I haven't been able to get spaghetti, so we've had fusilli instead, which is nice and easy to grasp.

Felicity just has ahat we have at every meal, so yesterday she had chicken curry and rice-hers is just a smaller portion but I give it to her exactly as it comes (It was chicken thigh pieces) and she just sucks on the meat until it breaks down. We never did any purees if anything as do BLW

Yesterday she also had:
B: Blueberry pancakes, half a piece toast with butter and some watermelon
L: Smoked mackerel fillet (small piece as it’s salty, some cheese sticks, tomato, cucumber, plum and a rusk (I had mackerel salad but she finds lettuce difficult so left that out).
D: as well as the chicken curry she ate a whole nectarine-she liked that but the 2 things went everywhere and she went straight in the bath afterwards!

Protein wise she has beef chunks in stew, steak, mince (lamb and beef) in shepherds pie, bolognese etc, homemade fishfingers and fishcakes, chicken in casseroles, pasta, roast chicken, curries, risotto, sausages in pasta sauce or on their own.
The only thing I don’t give her is ham/bacon because of the salt.

Yes pasta wise we tend to use fusilli or penne (fusilli easier). Felicity would eat it for every meal given the chance but we tend to try and only do it twice a week!

So @megan2018 for things like beef stew and BLW do you put it in a bowl and let her have at it?! I can imagine the mess and I hate mess!

Fish fingers is a great suggestion...why the hell have I not done that?!

Oh I gave Arthur a nectarine for first time yesterday and he loved it! And kiwi fruit a few days ago hehe

Well, before his nap I cycled his legs loads and now he's awake there's a poop! It's actually soft but quite substantial I think.

Oh @megan2018 I've been thinking of blueberry pancakes actually so will do those tomorrow!
And I have remembered he has rated pieces of penne before.
I've never given him a tomato though because I thought he won't be able to eat the skin and just gag on it. So how do you prep the tomatoes?
I think he's had every other veg except that!

I watch Laura clery silly videos on Facebook and she actually spoke about Birch benders vegan pancakes that she added blueberries to and they looked so good I've been craving them. Amazon are out of stock though.
I mean, I'm not even vegan but I just wanted those particular ones. I have all stuff to make normal pancakes plus blueberries :)
I also had also been stirring in raspberries to his porridge.

I think I'll steer clear of egg then and maybe some other dairy stuff.
I just felt he wasn't eating much solid stuff more purée or very soft fruit and the solid stuff he was eating was stodge so didn't want to give him loads.

The thing I don't understand is it was soft poop...so why has it taken so long?!

We had to do purée or he wouldn't have eaten anything to begin with but he is interested now in fact he's maybe toooo Independent now! So I do need to up the stuff he can feed himself although I have always made sure he has at least one thing to pick up at each meal time be it fruit, cheese, veg, veggie puffs, piece of toast, avocado or egg plus the favourite blueberries.

Argh sorry to keep going on. If you give your baby part of your meal do you just not put salt and pepper in? We had been making some stuff then taking apportion out before we added salt and pepper or string flavours.
Just reading the Annabel karmel book and some recipes have paprika/worcestershire sauce etc and I just thought they'd taste too strong

Tomatoes I just cut in to quarters- she spits most of the skin out. Same with nectarines and plums etc. just quarters, skin on but stone out. She sucks the flesh off and leaves the skin.
You do have to embrace the mess, it goes everywhere. But it’s how they learn about texture. It all cleans up.
All her meals just go on the high chair tray but I don’t put the whole portion down at once, just a bit at a time as too much can overwhelm them.

Blueberry pancakes are fab, can freeze them too so I make a big batch. She happily eats them cold the next day or defrosted.

Regarding salt, we have bought these very low salt stock cubes by Kallo for all our cooking and don’t add any other salt. But we do normal amounts of pepper and herbs and spices. She loves garlic! Heat wise we do mild curry and chillies. If we want more salt we just add it to our portion when cooked.
Babies like flavour, it’s just salt and sugar to watch.

For fishfingers I find that polenta makes a good coating. Softer than breadcrumbs (I mix polenta with flour, so coat the fish in egg then the flour/polenta mix and gently fry). They are more brittle than a bought fish finger but don’t need teeth

They do Beef, Chicken, Veg - most supermarkets have them I think

Last night’s curry remains

Fab thanks I'll get those stick cubes.
Aw she looks like she enjoyed that!

Stock* obviously!

Yep, like Megan said- just (cooled) bits from the family meal. We try to remember to cut things into sticks (eg courgette sticks rather than sliced in veggie jambalaya), but mostly forget and she's figured it out fine. We don't use salt bar the kallo cubes and a bit in pasta water or bread dough, but other flavours are go go go. DC1 has always liked spicy food, but DCs 2 and 3 don't so we dial back the chilli these days, and add it on the plate.
She's no really had tomatoes yet as it's not been the season, but the only thing to worry about is making sure that little ones are cut in half (like grapes!).
Re protein, we eat tons of pulses, so she's had those, chickpeas slightly squished and then handfuls, or beans spread onto fingers of toast or rice cake. She had some strips of chicken just now for lunch, and fish pakora last night (checking for bones first!). But to be honest at this point you don't need to worry to much about a balanced diet, the milk is doing the heavy lifting. It's about introducing a range of flavours and foods which will form the basis of a healthy diet, as long as you're not shovelling in mars bars and irn bru you'll be fine. If your family diet is good, then whichever bits the baby gets stuck into are good too.

@Horehound love the parasol! Where’s it from?

Ok we gave him some burger for lunch and he loved it along with sticks of cucumber. He is really teething now so had to give calpol too.
I have done broad beans mashed onto toast before and also he dipped his toast into the veggie pouch- I just dolloped some on his tray and he enjoyed that.
Thanks for all suggestions. I am going to do some croquette things next and introduce more pulses and do the spaghetti Bolognese too.

@megan2018 it's from Myanmar! My parents lived out there recently and brought loads of nice stuff back and luckily we got a parasol!