Little Foodie

One of my friends recently emailed asking about what I've been feeding B lately. It seems to change like the wind as he seems to be growing like a weed. He managed to start crawling (no army, folks), clapping, pulling up, and talking massive amounts all in the course of 10 days.

The answer to the food question is, whatever is healthy that I can get down his throat. He feeds himself lately and his pincer grasp is pretty stellar, so that's helpful. However, now that he feeds himself, he's less inclined to allow us to feed him which means less is making it down the hatch. I have definitely been found on any given weekday feeding B as he's crawling across the floor or pulling himself up somewhere. Calories in are most important for me sometimes. Yes, I know kids won't starve and they'll let you know when they're hungry, but sometimes I want him to have some kind of a schedule to eat at a specific time. I may also be a little sensitive about having a small fry still. He's up at the 25th percentile now according to those stupid CDC charts, but it doesn't mean my mom ego hasn't been bruised plenty.

{Spoon}

If we want B to eat something off a spoon that we feed him, he needs some distractions. We often give him his own spoon while we attempt to use our spoon to feed the calories. He also loves chewing on straws and those allow us to shove more food in his mouth because they take up less real estate. I also alternate finger foods for him and a spoonful of what we're feeding him next. For example, we'd give him a sweet potato piece and then shovel in some pea soup between bites. We're faster than him, still, but it's all about trickery in our house. It's a messy process of feeding, but sometimes we just have to get the job done.

Here are some of the things we spoon fed him recently: split pea soup, peas, beans, rice, meat bites (small!), lentils, lentil soup, quinoa (usually mixed with a binding agent like pureed carrots), scrambled eggs, avocado, oatmeal, hummus...

He eats basically everything we eat, so these lists are in no way comprehensive, but more because I'm speaking on lately and what I have from memory to work with.

{Finger Food Meals + what to do with leftover purees?}

He's done with purees. But, funny thing. We have plenty I'm still working through from our freezer, but I've found some creative ways to use them in solid foods he can feed himself.

• I make pancakes a lot for breakfast because they're easy for him to feed himself and I can also eat some! I can also hide a lot of pureed goodness in them that he wouldn't normally allow me to feed him with a spoon easily. Some recent concoctions:

Avocado pancakes: (about 1 cup pancake mix prepared + 1/2 avocado)
Sweet potato, spinach & cinnamon pancakes: (2 cup prepared pancake mix + 5 cubes sweet potato + 2 very small cubes spinach + cinnamon)

Batch of sweet potato/spinach cakes this morning - lighting is poor-- working off the flourescent hood lighting. Eek!

I often make a batch and have breakfast ready for a couple days. I even feed them for a quick lunch sometimes. He can feed himself and it's not super messy. I made a batch of 10 sweet potato/spinach pancakes this morning and froze them. Now I can pull one out each morning for his breakfast.

• I also use the purees in his oatmeal. He loves oatmeal with mix-ins and also really loves oatmeal with banana and cinnamon. I mean, who doesn't?
• I even took a spinach cube from the freezer last night and stuck it in our spaghetti sauce. We all benefited from that little trickery and I didn't even have to taste it! {Spinach is one of those things I eat because I know it's good for me-- yay leafy greens-- but not because I find it particularly delicious.} This sneaky mom move might continue on well into adolescence as I have a sneaking suspicion that spinach or vegetables in general won't be on the top 10 list of things teenagers like to eat.
• I make quesadillas often with squash & spinach purees, but I'm having a hard time cutting them where the contents don't completely escape. I use a pizza cutter and that works well, but it's not perfect. Some quesadilla contents: a small amount of cheese as a binder, hummus, smashed peas, beans, shredded chicken, spinach... basically whatever I can get in there!
• Smoothies - he likes these, but doesn't drink them super fast, so I usually only entertain the idea when I'm making one for myself. All the fruit purees work well. I suppose spinach would... but I detest the idea of ruining my perfectly delicious smoothie by adding that beast in there.

{Finger Food Snacks in between meals}

As a snack, B usually gets a number of things to feed himself: sweet potato baked fries, Cheerios, puffs, and these things that we've recently started buying from our produce aisle. He's had graham crackers and obviously loves those, too. To feed him hummus, I sometimes stick it on the end of a carrot and he shoves it in his mouth. He won't eat the carrot, but the hummus is eaten! Trickster, I know.

{Hardware}

Finally, the hardware. We use some Ikea dishes, nothing exciting there. But the utensils and his sippy cup?

Utensil set: Boon Adaptable Utensils (will be able to feed himself with soon!)

Spoon: mOmma spoon (sits up on its own and fun to chew on)

Sippy cup favorite: Playtex First Gripper Trainer (still loving this one!)

{Help: Question for YOU}

Now I have a question for all of you. We're planning to transition B to milk around a year and we'd like to know what you're giving your kiddos. Our pediatrician recommended we give B whatever we drink (none). She said whole milk is out and skim, 1% or 2% is in. I'd want it to have some fat content, but I don't think whole milk is necessary for him. Also, I'd love to have the milk to use in recipes, and I cannot bring myself to use whole milk. What about the rest of you? What have you been using or plan to use?

I'm also genuinely nervous about how we're going to handle milk in the sippy cup. What happens when I'm done breastfeeding and he wants milk at 5 a.m.? How does that work? #nervous