How to Prepare a Meal for a Toddler

Plan a balanced meal, taking care to ensure there is a protein, carbohydrate and a rainbow of vegetables. Choose only the finest organic ingredients and be careful not to add any salt or sugar.

Begin to prepare said meal employing any number of tactics to distract your charge. Be ready to abandon preparations when you hear screaming or, even worse, suspicious silence. Complete the meal with your charge wrapped, screaming around your ankle because you wont let him play with the knives.

Cram reluctant toddler into his high chair and quickly clip him in lest he wriggle free. Place your homemade food, lovingly prepared in front of him with flourish.

Sit next to him for the next 45 minutes while he smushes it into his hair, chews tiny pieces and spits them out, chucks it on the floor, offers it to the dog, screams at it and finally upends his entire plate onto the floor. Dilute a glass of wine with your own tears.

 

Things You Can Do with Food Other Than Eat It

Hold it in your hand for a really long time until it becomes soggy and disintegrates.

Sneak it to the dog when your mummy isn’t watching.

Rub it on the dirtiest surface you can find.

Post it into a small nook or cranny.

Save it somewhere for later.

Chuck in on the floor.

Rub it in your hair.

Push it up your nose.

Store it up in your cheeks like a hamster then choke on it and regurgitate it all out again.

Push it under you so your mummy things you’ve eaten it all.

Push a huge piece in your mouth, chew it then spit the whole thing out.

 

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My Own Greek Goddess Moment

You know those painting of Greek gods lounging around while some someone feeds them peeled grapes? I’m wondering if the painter used some artist license.

I’ve never seen a painting where the grape feeder licks the grape first before giving it to the god though.

 

The Supernatural Link From the Baby to Me

I’ve noticed that there is a creepy, almost supernatural link between the Baby and me. My mood is directly affected by his stomach.

Some days every meal is a battle with the Baby. I am forced to applaud every bite, entertain him with songs featuring his name for 45 minutes and I have to dive every few seconds to catch the food he chucks on the floor. Or, if I’m honest, retrieve the food from the floor and angrily deposit it back on his tray.

On these days one of us usually has a meltdown. I end up with a headache and am pouring my first vodka and diet coke as the Mummy takes him upstairs for his bath. Baby’s empty tummy influences my mood strongly.

However some days are easy. Some days the Baby quietly gobbles what he is offered. Only half of it winds up on the floor or in his hair. He finishes after 30 minutes or so, happy, with a full tummy.

Again the creepy link kicks in. I feel lighter, happier. I might wait half an hour before cracking open the hard stuff. Some days I might even skip it completely!

Spooky, huh?

 

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Dairy/Sugar/Grain-free: One Week In

It has been 7 days. 7 days and I’m kind of used to the absence of sugar but right now I’d give my right arm for some pizza.

It’s not made any easier when I preparing the Baby’s breakfast- lovely fresh, seedy bread with soft Philadelphia. Mmmmmm….

Ahem, anyway, the Baby has this cute thing where he tries to feed us. Sometimes it is a little less cute in that he is trying to feed us something which was being swirled around inside his mouth moments before.

The look on my face is not horror at being offered a moist, partially digested piece of bread and cream cheese. My horror is due to the fact I was really tempted to gobble that little morsel right up.

Send help….and by help I mean pizza.

Standards and Mum Logic

I decided to take the Baby to the end of our last day of school to say goodbye to the teachers who wouldn’t be returning after the holidays and, lets face it, to show him off a little.

True to form the Baby was winning hearts left, right and center. At times he got a little overwhelmed with the amount of people keen to prod and poke him and snuggled closer to me, which only served to increase his cuteness.

The school ordered a lot of pizza so the staff could have lunch together before we went our separate ways. The Baby sat beautifully on my lap, eating almost all of my share of the pizza.

Standards, dear readers. It’s all about the standards and mum logic.

 

Weird Baby Eating Habits

I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the baby’s weird eating habits. Just when I think I’m getting my head around it, he throws me a curve ball.

There are the ‘Heck yes! Gimme gimme gimme’ foods:

These are the fall backs, the ones he will almost never refuse or waste chucking on the floor or sharing with the dog. Examples are cheese, Cheerios, raisins, plain yoghurt, tofu, rice crackers, humus and baba ganoush (I never thought a baby would go nuts for roasted aubergine/eggplant mixed with roasted garlic but ours is apparently special). With the exception of raisins there is a definite color trend among these foods.

Then there are the ‘No, nope, nut and never’ foods:

These may accidentally be scooped into the Baby’s mouth but will be immediately expelled with velocity, or stored but not swallowed in a rodent-like fashion. These include broccoli, meat (of all varieties except the processed kind), peppers, lettuce, spinach, kale, egg and rice…so far. Again a colour pattern.

Then there are the ‘Keep you on your toes’ foods.

These will be gobbled up one day, disappearing faster than my Friday night cocktail but screamed at and launched the next. Examples might be mango, carrots, purees of any variety, spag bol, oatmeal, chilli, pesto, banana, watermelon and apple…again, so far. This category is the one that drives me bonkers. It get my hopes up, thinking he’s finally bringing a new food into the first group only to have him laugh in my face, chuck it at the dog and start looking for his egg tofu. *SIGH*

 

Add to this the Baby loves to steal food from his mummies’ plates, even if it’s sore-butt-spicy but refuses the same food offered on his highchair. He only eats food which is room temperature or below. He refuses to drink water from a sippy cup and will only drink it from a normal cup after swirling his food covered fingers in it. He will only eat food which has been marinating in his bib pocket for a couple of hours or that has been dropped on the floor a few times.

I miss the days when we only worried about bottles.

 

Part Baby, Part Hamster

Mama: There you go, Baby. All ready for your swimming lesson.

Mama: Hang on, are you eating something? What is that?

Mummy: We’re not supposed to feed him half an hour before his lesson!

Mama: I haven’t given him anything. What is it?

*struggles with Baby lockjaw

Mama: Ew, chewed up chicken.

Mummy: He had some chicken with his lunch at 12.

Mama: It’s 1.45 now! I don’t remember reading about this in the Baby Led Weaning guide!

Six Steps for Eating

The Baby has a strict process for eating. How else could he stretch a meal into an hour (plus) long activity?

1.

The Mama has nicely laid out some pieces of food perfect for grabbing. The Baby isn’t interested. He has his eye on an infinitesimal spec, barely worth bothering with. He will spend several minutes chasing the spec around his tray.

2.

The Baby will check that the Mama is watching, ready to catch a falling piece of food with ninja like reflexes. The Baby may proceed to the ‘Too Slow’ or straight to the ‘Oh-So Close’.

3.

You took your eye off the ball for a second, Mama. Another snack for the Dog.

4.

The spec is on it’s way, tantalizingly close to the goal. From this step the Baby could go back to the ‘Are You Paying Attention’ or move on to either the ‘Butterfingers’ or the ‘Wrist Deep’.

5.

Dang it! That slippery spec has escaped. Return to stage 1.

6.  

He has made it. The spec is too small to place into the mouth alone. All fingers must accompany the spec, down to the wrist joint, if possible. The spec may or may not be removed with the fingers. Return to step 1.

In the meantime I have developed an eye-twitch and am sitting on my fingers in an attempt to restrain myself from going and getting a spoon.

Does your child also follow these strict steps?

Baby Led Weaning: Dos and Don’ts

Baby Led Weaning is all about having your child move straight onto solid foods rather than first introducing purees. You can read more about it here.

We’ve been attempting BLW with the Baby with mixed successes, which you can read about here and here . Here are some lessons we’ve learned along the way.

 

Do inform other carer givers about Baby Led Weaning.

Don’t be surprised if they choose to ignore you because they are terrified of your baby choking.

 

Do give your baby finger-sized pieces of food.

Don’t given him whole steaks or pork chops.

 

Do offer a variety of food.

Don’t offer too much at once if you don’t expect him to chuck half on the floor straight away.

 

Do share your food with your baby.

Don’t share everything.

 

Do make allow him to pick up food and feed himself.

Don’t expect this to be a clean and tidy process. 

 

Do give your child soft food which can be crushed between the roof of his mouth and his tongue.

Don’t give your baby all soft foods.

 

Do offer the same food multiple times, even if he doesn’t seem to enjoy it.

Don’t expect that he’ll eat it the next day just because he wolfed it down on the first day.

 

Do give him a pre-loaded spoon.

Don’t give him the bowl.

 

Are you pureeing, Baby Led Weaning, or both? How’s it going?

 

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