Schedule Meals for Guests to Bring at www.mealbaby.com

When you come home with a new baby it is customary for guests to bring a meal.  Meals are a great welcome home gift, as the last thing you want to do is worry about making your next meal.  It was such a relief to have nutritious homemade frozen meals as a go-to.  Thanks to everyone who sent over meals!  

There is a new website, www.mealbaby.com, which provides a calendar you can share with relatives and friends.  Guests can sign up for free days and indicate what they plan to make.  You can indicate foods you like, foods you dislike, allergies etc.  Out-of-towners can even buy gift cards at restaurants that deliver in your area.  It’s a fun and easy way to help your guests treat you without causing a lot of hassle. 

It sounds like a great new gadget for parents of new babies.  

Constipation is Sad

“Sad” is probably not the first word that comes to mind to accompany the word, “constipation.”  But it’s exactly how I feel when Henry gets constipated.  Like many babies who start solid foods, Henry has a tendency to get stopped up.  I have to ensure he eats good “poo foods” every day.  If I am successful we have great soft stinky poos 3-4 times a day.  If I am delinquent, he will not poo for an entire day, and when he does poo he tearfully screams in pain.  It is so hard to watch. 

Great poo foods for Henry include:  peaches, pears, plums/prunes, pureed lentils, blueberries, and pear juice.  Bad/constipating poo foods for Henry include:  bananas; apples; tofu and avocado.  Note:  every child’s digestive system is different, which explains why I specified that these foods work for Henry.  Lentils were the magic poo food at the beginning. 

It also helps to massage his belly and do bicycle kicks with his legs pushing up on his belly.

I have a constant battle with poo.  We have a love hate relationship.

Finger Foods!

Starting finger foods was such a fun milestone for us.  As someone who loves to cook and eat, it’s been so much fun introducing Henry to new foods.  He loved the independence of feeding himself, and it was less stressful for me.  All I had to do was watch for choking and insert some pureed foods now and then.  We started with Gerber puffs, which melt in baby’s mouth, and once he mastered puffs, we tried Cheerios.  I started slippery fruits and steamed vegetables a little early, which was a mistake.  It was very stressful for Henry, as he had trouble getting hold of the slippery food.  I read that sprinkling baby oatmeal on the outside can decrease slipperiness, but it didn’t work.  We went back to dried grain finger foods until around 9 1/2 months, when he really had the pincer grip mastered.  Now at 11+ months, he still gets purees, but a large portion of his nutrition comes from finger foods!  A great starter gadget for solid pieces of food is the Sassy Baby Safe Feeder.  Place a piece of banana in the mesh and baby will suck on the mesh without risk of choking.

Suggested Finger Foods

Vegetables

Broccoli florets – frozen or fresh - steamed or boiled

Cauliflower florets - steamed or boiled

Carrots – diced and steamed

Peas – steamed and crushed

Avocado – beware, very slippery

Sweet potato – roasted or steamed, long fingers for holding and biting

Fruits

Pears – very ripe – either sliced in long pieces for him to bite off or in bite sized pieces

Blueberries - halved

Raspberries - halved

Strawberries – quartered or diced

Bananas – ½ inch slices

Grapes – quartered and peeled

Watermelon

Cantaloupe or Honeydew – very ripe

Baked Apples - diced

Protein

Chicken Breast – roasted, baked, poached – shredded by hand or ground

Turkey Breast – roasted or baked – shredded by hand or ground

Fish – baked or poached – shredded by fork or hand -- avoid high mercury types

Dumplings – in bite sized pieces
Turkey meatloaf balls

Tofu – silken tofu is easier to chew -- beware, very slippery and messy

Cheese – start with shredded then move to cubed

Grains

Rice Cakes

Toasted Whole Grain Waffles

Pancakes

Whole Wheat Toast

Gerber Puffs

Mum Mum rice crackers (oblong rice crackers that is easy for baby to hold)

Cheerios

Whole Wheat Pasta – rotini is a great shape for easy pick-up – overcooked to very soft

Starting Solids: Purees to Real Finger Foods!

After his 4-month pediatrician well visit, the doctor gave us the green light to start solid foods.  At the time he was nursing 5 times a day.  Until 6 months, baby’s solids are just “for sport” as the pediatrician called it.  His nourishment should still come from formula or breast milk.

The first month of solids, I supplemented Henry’s nursing with solids once a day.  I chose the 2^nd feeding of the day (11am). After one month of trying solids, I supplemented nursing with solids twice a day – 2^nd and 4^th feedings of the day.  Around 6 ½ months, Henry ate solids four times a day (breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner).  He gradually ate more solids, which allowed me to cut nursing back to 4 times a day (9 months). 

At the start I began each feeding by nursing, and then I would supplement with purees.  Henry has always been a good eater, and when he’s hungry he wants to eat immediately.  Some babies won’t eat purees if they are full on milk, so you will have to gauge your little one.  In the case where baby won’t eat solids on a full stomach, try feeding solids before milk.  Or try feeding a little milk, solids, and finish off with the rest of the milk.   

We started with baby rice cereal (found in the baby food aisle) mixed with enough breast milk to make a very soupy consistency.  It’s not surprising that Henry gagged, rice cereal tastes like cardboard, and he wasn’t used to swallowing anything but milk!  I tried feeding a few more spoonfuls of the watery mess, and quit.  We tried rice cereal for 3 days, but he never warmed up to the rice cereal.  In fact, he still doesn’t enjoy plain rice cereal.  After 3 days of rice cereal without any allergic reaction, we tried pureed Yukon potatoes for 3 days.  We tried a new food every 3 days, and when there was no reaction we would move on to another food item for 3 days.  After Yukon potatoes we tried sweet potatoes, carrots, bananas, applesauce, peas, oatmeal, pears, peaches, avocado, green beans, yogurt (6 months), etc.  He loved all the foods I gave him, except the peas and green beans.  Now he’ll eat them without much protest.     

At 10 months I started encouraging more real people food, and supplemented with purees.  Henry now enjoys feeding himself whole grain waffles for breakfast with fruit, supplemented with baby oatmeal.  For lunch and dinner he’ll have pasta with shredded chicken or fish and soft cooked vegetables.  As a late afternoon snack, he usually has rice cakes or puffs and fruit.  (See Finger foods entry tomorrow).

Solid feeding requires patience and persistence.  It can take 45 minutes to finish a meal, and a lot of it ends up on the floor, in the crevices of the high chair and of course on baby.  It’s amazing where food particles can burrow: between baby’s neck rolls, behind baby’s ears, between baby’s toes, in baby’s hair etc.  Just have fun with it, and don’t get too stressed out if baby wires his mouth shut and shakes his head.  

5 Day Old Baby -- Guinness' Youngest Ad Model

This baby boy, Park Eun-sung, will be memorialized as the youngest Ad model in the Guinness Book of World Records.  He was only 5 days old when he "worked" his first job.  He couldn't open his eyes yet, but he's now famous for his adorable expressions.  Maybe the first days of a baby's life should be held sacred.  Or maybe a 5 day old baby doesn't notice the intrusion.  I'm glad we got to keep those first few quiet and delicate moments just for us.  I wonder if the advertising agency trolled the halls of the postpartum floor looking for funny looking newborns.  Hopefully he got a big fat check.      

p.s. I finished "Breaking Dawn" and am learning how to Tweet!

Breaking Dawn Hiatus

That's right.  No posts yesterday or today, because I'm spending every free moment reading a trashy tween novel -- Breaking Dawn is the 4th book of the Twilight Saga.  It's better this way.  No one wants to read about how Chris' feet are burning hot like a werewolf's feet would be.  Or how I was relieved that there were no vampires around when I sliced my hand open with a kitchen knife.

I'm back next week ... assuming the vampires don't get me.

Henry's First Thanksgiving

Henry’s first Thanksgiving was one we’ll always remember.  I made 2 pumpkin pies and an apple pie with him crawling under foot.  I gave him wooden spoons and plastic bowls to play with as I rolled out the dough.  He quietly sneaked small scraps of dough that fell to the floor.  Thankfully, I didn’t see any serious allergic reaction to the butter – just some more eczema.  It’s virtually impossible to bake precisely with a toddler underfoot.  Thanks to www.cooksillustrated.com, I was able to put together a “fool proof” pie crust that was also baby proof.  Although I burned one of the crusts and myself in the process, it turned out tender and flaky.  Cooks Illustrated recommends using vodka, which evaporates off in the oven.  I plan to use this recipe every time I make pie.  At dinner, Henry tried butter free Stove Top stuffing (due to his allergy), and had his first Turkey leg.  He immediately fell in love with both, and screamed bloody murder when the feast ended. 

After Thanksgiving the Andersons went on their annual tree cutting expedition.  Last year, we took home the prickliest bush in the world, a Scotch Pine.  I wouldn’t even call it a tree.  It was so spiny we couldn’t decorate it.  In the end, we dragged it down our hallway and chucked it out our back balcony, instead of causing us major injury by dragging it down 4 flights of stairs.  This year, with the memory of our last tree still fresh and our new curious toddler, we decided to get a smaller softer tree.  Chris’ brother found the softest tree in the world – White Fir aka. Concolor.  The needles are so soft you can hug it.  Perfect for Henry!  We trimmed it yesterday.  There are no low hanging ornaments, and we put chairs around it to prevent Henry from getting to it.  We know he’ll try to eat the fallen needles and will probably knock it over, but having Henry’s first Christmas tree is worth it. 

Happy Holidays!