Poor Snotty Edward Bear :o(

Why Ello Monsier Mange Tout!

Poor little Edward-Tedward is indeed as I suspected not a well bunny. After being unsettled and grumpy all evening yesterday he actually started screaming and crying just as Luke and I were about to go to bed. We cuddled him and gave him capol and put saline drops in his nose, eventually he fell asleep in Luke's arms, but we kept him in the bed with us all night as he kept waking and it was easier to keep an eye on him and keep him comforted in with us. By morning he'd cheered up significantly and seemed alot less snotty so I took him out with me as I had a few things to get done around town today.

Breakfast - Banana and porridge

Lunch - Apple puree and yoghurt

Snack - Rusk

Supper - He tried some potato mash which he pretty much refused so I gave him some more banana and porridge. For the first time he tried mange tout with Philidelphia and some with hummus, he didn't really eat the mange tout but he enjoyed sucking off the Philly and hummus.

Sadly this evening he's obviously feeling rather rubbish again, he's grumpy, has been crying a little bit , is quite snotty and generally not himself. I know it's just a cold and nothing major but it's so upsetting to see him crying real little tears :o(

The cat in the hat comes back....

This is a series of photos I've been taking, I meant to do it each month but have forgotten a few times, even so I still think they are very cute and it's amazing to see how much he's grown!

Grumpy Day

Breakfast - Apple puree and baby porridge

Lunch - Chicken pie and Apple puree

Supper - Chicken pie and Yoghurt

Edward has been a beast all evening grumping and grizzling for no obvious reason, I know I shouldn't complain as he's so rarely like this, but it is frustrating when he is and actually kind of upsetting as I just want him to be happy. I'm not sure if it is a bit of a run on from last night, he was awake and crying a few times which is also unlike him, I'm not sure if it's the heat or if he's teething or what, poor boy!

I WILL have three meals a day!

Very late Breakfast come brunch - mince in pasta sauce with banana and porridge

Supper - Carrot with banana and baby rice

Second Supper - Yoghurt and muesli

Things got in a bit of a pickle today as I had annual review and so had to leave the house early. Luke thought I'd already given Edward his solid breakfast before I left, I popped home at lunch time and Edward was asleep though I awoke him crashing my way in! Poor boy! Later in the day after having had a big supper and his milk he went to sleep, I thought for the night, but after an hour or so he woke up and demanded more food hence his second supper...he has obviously got used to three square meals and any less is substandard!

Pear Porridge and RED meat!

Breakfast - Pear and Ready-Break. I thought he might revolt if I offered him the Peach and Banana baby cereal again and so stole a pear nuked it in the microwave and mashed it with a potato masher, it was kind of lumpy but worked ok, I added the Ready-Break in an attempt to try and get Edward's poo's to be more solid as I think it's important that his bowel starts to get the hang of passing more than just liquids.

Lunch - The last few teaspoons of the Pear and Ready-Break and an apricot yoghurt.

Supper - Luke and I had the pasta sauce with mince and pasta tonight. There wasn't enough pasta spare to include it in Edward's dish so he just got the mince and sauce pureed, which was quite exciting as it was his first taste of beef. He wasn't terribly impressed and whilst smiling smeared it all over the pair of us! For pudding I gave him about half a banana pureed and mixed with some baby rice.

Picnic!!

Mmmm Tasty Playmat!!

Breakfast - Peach and Banana baby cereal (guess who forgot to pack much of a variety)

Lunch - Peach and Banana baby cereal. I did offer raspberry's but I think they were too sour for him as he spat them out. Edward also had some pita bread and some chicken and some normal bread out on the lawn at the family picnic.





Supper - You guessed it Peach and Banana baby cereal .... in my defense I did actually take some of the pasta sauce and the jar from John Lewis but he was so distracted and over excited by all the people milling around I knew it was pointless to even try so stuck to things I knew he would eat.

Other things Edward sampled that I don't strictly think come under weaning include; his playmat, grass, flowers, a dragon and a tennis ball...well until we decided said tennis ball had probably already been sampled by Frank the dog and so probably wasn't ideal!!

Concentrate...Concentrate!!

Eating Pitta Bread is a serious business!

Friday

Breakfast - Apple Puree eaten in Ann Summers whilst flirting with the manikins!

Lunch - He turned his nose up at the free jar of lentil bake we got from John Lewis and instead had a slightly warm yoghurt.

Supper - Banana and Peach baby breakfast cereal...much to Cousin Emily and Duncan's dismay apparently I will confuse him for all time by giving him cereal at night!!

Exciting New Things For Edward

Breakfast - Baby rice and Pear puree

Lunch - A very naughty lazy rusk and a yoghurt

Supper - Butternut squash, Baby rice and Pear puree and most excitingly some homemade pasta sauce which contained tomatoes (fresh, tinned and puree), courgettes, mushrooms, carrot, broccoli, red onion, garlic, basic, oregano and ricotta, it went down surprisingly well I'm planning over the next few days to give him this with some pasta and with some mince to introduce different meat, we eat pasta bake quite regularly with a mix of veg like this and so it's very encouraging that he liked it.

There were also lots of solid poos today which was very exciting as they are SO much easier to clean up!! Hurrah!!

I have bought Edward some custard pots made by Heinz and some Baby Porridge just to add some more variety with things that are convenient for when we are out and about. I really think I need to get some on those flexible ice-cube trays for freezing veg as it's not practical to have them all in pots. It would also enable me to give him more of a mix.

Three Square Meals

Breakfast - About a quarter of a banana and a few tablespoons of apple puree

Lunch - Chicken Pie, quarter of a banana and a yoghurt

Snack - Nice cool apple puree

Supper - Broccoli and muesli

Edward did well today, especially with the broccoli, I tried giving him a spoon of the broccoli and then a spoon of the muesli so that he would eat the veg a sneaky trick that was most effective....now if only Luke would fall for it!

Piggy Wiggy Day...well that's what happens once you are over 7 months old :o)

Check out that monkey-baby concentration hehe!

Breakfast - Apricot and banana cereal followed by a Yoghurt

Lunch - Chicken pie and rice pudding

Supper - Half a banana

Edward has done very well today and eaten lots of food. He's also been pretty good about opening his mouth so that I could feed him and swallowing his food without spitting too much of it out again in the process.

I felt it was high time the monkey-baby finally had fresh banana, I have been wossing out up to now as someone warned me it leaves black stains if you don't clean it out quickly, however my worries were unfounded as all of it went down the hatch and in an impressively lumpy state, to start with I actually gave him the banana whole to play with, and then when he got bored I diced it up really finely and tried to mush it though it's was perfectly ripe and so still a little too firm to mash easily.

He gagged a little a few times but my reaction to this has always been to just tell him calmly that it is all ok and it is just lumps in a nice calm voice, it seems to do the trick, and is a much better way of dealing with it than screaming and panicking as that would only panic him and make him frightened of lumps.

We have found Edward a fantastic website for him to play on as he loves hitting the keyboard to the point he makes a dive for it whenever he gets remotely close to one! Though I have reservations about him playing on the computer as I don't want him to end up like his parents I can see that in moderation they are fun and goodness knows I spend enough hours on mine so I can't criticize, for those who are into bright colours and loud simple noises head here!

A Good Day

Edward did very well today, for lunch he had a small portion of the chicken pie which I pureed for him, followed by a yoghurt. I actually kept intermixing the yoghurt and the chicken pie to encourage him to eat both, it seemed to work quite well even if it was a bit sneaky of me.

For supper Edward had another portion of chicken pie, it was quite late at night though so I didn't give him any more.

His face has looked a little sore today and he slept alot, though there are still no teeth I think maybe they may have been hurting him as the only thing that really soothed him all day was his frozen teething ring.

We had a mini-drama at 5am this morning, I was surprised as normally Edward never wakes up that early. I went in to find Edward minus his nappy (which had somehow migrated off him and down the cot) soaked in widdle feeling very cold and miserable, poor boy!! A new nappy, a change of bed and some cuddles and he went straight off back to sleep... what a good boy :o)

Edward had a bounce in his bouncer today which we haven't used for ages, he seemed to have a good time and left some lovely slobber trails. Luke also tried rolling him around a little in the washing basket which both of them enjoyed lots :o) I thought it was a most inventive use of the basket, much more fun than smelly old washing and it's always a real joy to see my two boys playing together.

Carnivore!!

Sorry I've been a bit lax with this recently. Over the last few days Edward has done quite well with his weaning and tried some new things including pear and carrot. He liked the pear because it was sweet the first time he had some he had it just on it's own, the second time he had it he had it mixed with some baby rice. The carrot he was not that fussed about though I think he bit his finger half way through eating it as he suddenly started screaming and so we had to abandon things.

On Friday I gave Edward a little piece of chicken to nibble on and play with, he didn't really eat any but he had fun sucking it and enjoying the taste and new texture. For lunch today Edward had chicken again this time I pureed it with a bit of his milk and fed it to him with the remaining carrot. He wasn't overly keen but he did eat quite a bit. I then gave him yoghurt for pudding which went down very quickly as always!

This afternoon Edward sneakily stole and ate a coupon haha!! Seeing he was in a feeding mood I gave him a rusk to play with while I did the washing. He didn't eat much but had lots of fun smearing it everywhere :o)

For supper I think I'm going to give Edward some butternut squash as I think we still have a little left in the freezer, or I may try and give him some of the potato and chicken pie thing I'm planning to make for Luke and I.

I did try to cook swede but it all went terribly wrong, I don't think I cooked it long enough and so I ended up throwing it away as I was pretty tired and not really in the mood to figure the stupid thing out!

Yummy

Today for Breakfast Edward had a yoghurt.

For lunch he had a cracker bread with hummus.

For supper he had butternut squash and baby-rice.

When I had my supper I gave Edward a piece of pasta to try, I'm not sure if he actually managed to eat it or if he just sucked it, either way it meant I got to eat my dinner in peace!

We had a practice with the doidy cup and then his spout cup today, it wasn't terribly successful we just ended up with a soaking wet Edward, a soaking wet chair and a soaking wet Mummy!! I'm just glad it was only water hehe :o)

I'm planning to introduce some white meat this week which is quite exciting, however I haven't been to the shops to buy it yet.

I keep debating introducing fish, Luke doesn't eat it because he doesn't like it, and I don't eat it because it makes me sick, however I don't want Edward to miss out on all the advantages of having fish in his diet such as the Omega 3 just because we don't eat it. I am very much of the opinion that fish is an acquired taste and that if you don't have it from childhood it its unlikely you will ever get into eating it which would be a shame as I know a lot of people get a lot of pleasure from eating fish, it gives you a whole extra range of dishes you can have both at home and when out at restaurants, I feel it is my responsibility to do this for Edward, though I'm going to have to work out how to cook it as right now I have no idea!!

Overall I feel I've given up with the babyled weaning I am keen for Edward to eat normal food especially as he was premature it is important that he gets the variety of vitamins present in proper food as he doesn't have the same vitamin and mineral stores in his body that a full term baby would have.

Though baby led weaning is great in theory I think it would be more successful if a) Edward had at least one tooth to chop and tear with and b) we ate the kind of food I'm feeding him, but it's just not appropriate yet as we lots of bell-pepper and mushrooms and tomatoes as well as lots of meat none of which is appropriate for him yet. We also don't eat as frequently as him as we only tend to eat supper and not really any other meals, very unhealthy I know but I just can't be bothered to cook twice in one day and I don't like sandwiches. So in conclusion overall it's not practical to keep little finger-food portions of what we eat, and the puree is just much more convenient and gives him a better diet I feel.

Lots and Lots of Foodlings!

Edward had a very piggy lunch today, he had a bowl of muesli, a bowl of peach and banana breakfast and then a cracker bread with Marmite on it which he spread all over his face!!

That was all he had today plus lots and lots of milk :o)

Ooops!

Sorry my large and entranced audience I forgot to tell you all I was away this weekend and that there would be no riveting updates regarding the Edward nosh!

Today I returned however so normal service resumes.

Edward had a little yoghurt for 'lunch' and for supper had a very large pot of apple puree which disappeared at speed it's hard to tell which he prefers, but based on speed I'd say the apple. I wish it was something more wholesome like broccoli but I have to console myself that it is at least fruit and not sweeties...yet!

Mr Vince, Arron and Lady Chitzi all came over yesterday afternoon and it wasn't long before the 'how much does he weigh' question came up...answer according to our highly accurate plonking on the bathroom scales 8.10kg!!! What a fatty banger :o)

Butternut Squash on Cracker Bread

I began feeding Edward butternut squash for lunch, however he really wanted to feed himself so I got half a cracker bread and spread the butternut squash on it, he did very well at eating it, and I had one too so that he could watch me and copy my example as I want him to get used to chewing not just sucking. He managed a few chews but mostly just sucked it to death! He then had some yoghurt for pudding though fell asleep in his chair towards then end of the pot, bless him :o)

For supper Edward had some broccoli, I initially mashed it with a fork but unlike last time it wasn't overcooked and so didn't mash that well, so I took it back to the kitchen and pureed it with some milk, he ate a bit but wasn't that keen. He then finished off his pot of yoghurt and had a bottle of milk which I think is what he really wanted.

Demmand for Food

Karolina we've got competition for our Mango!!! If Edward gives you his best flirty eyes will you eat mango with him too?

Well it appears that Edward is much more fond of his food than I'd previously realized, though he eats what I feed him, but he rarely seems very enthusiastic. Today however things changed, all afternoon Edward was grizzling and winging, not ideal timing as I was feeling pretty exhausted and trying to sleep, Luke couldn't work out what was wrong, he tried sitting him in his bouncer, laying him on his mat, giving him cuddles, giving him milk and nothing settled him.

I eventually gave up on my nap and came in to try my best to settle him without any luck, then I started eating some dried mango and noticed he was watching me very closely, it struck me that despite him not wanting milk he was actually hungry for food!!

He had had breakfast a couple of tablespoons of muesli and apple puree but clearly he wanted lunchy-munchies or actually given the time it had got to supper. So I fed him some apple puree which he wolfed down, so I then offered him a rice-cracker spread with houmous which he didn't really want, he still looked hungry and so I gave him a strawberry yoghurt the first half of which he ate quickly, and the second half less so.

Usually he gets solids at lunch and dinner, however today I gave him his first portion of solids at breakfast time as I knew we were going to be out at lunch. It is very exciting and interesting that he clearly has identified that 'solid' food is now part of his diet and misses it when it doesn't arrive at the time he's come to expect it.

In other marginally disgusting news Edwards poo is finally starting to become more solid, I don't think I ever thought I'd be pleased about such a development but it really does make life so much easier, especially given the fact we use reusable nappies.

Clementine Drama!!

Edward has been quite adventurous today, he had some melon, half a crakerbread which was a new thing, he fed it to himself and I fear I will be finding for months down the back of the sofa as a resutl!

I gave him a celementine segment to suck on which was going well till he sucked so hard that it slurped out of my fingers and down into his tummy in one fell swoop! I expected choking, gagging, vomit but there was no such thing...now there's just the wait to see how it comes out the other end!!

For supper Edward had a big bowl of muesli, not very exciting except that it was an impressive quantity, probably about 3 tablespoons.

Rusky Peas

Mmm that's some good rusky peas!!!

For lunch Edward had some baby muesli, he still looked hungry after and so I gave him an apricot yoghurt which he liked as much as the raspberry one he had yesterday.

For supper we tried peas again, it was not a popular move, so I gave him a rusk instead which was much appreciated. I decided however that it wasn't good to reward him turning away something healthy with something sweet, and so I mashed the rusk in with the peas and added some of his milk on the basis that if I 'watered down' the taste he's not fond of with tastes he does like the whole thing would become more palatable, the plan worked and he ate the whole pot.

In the evening Luke gave Edward a bath, it was a very noisy splashy affair! I had a peek through the door way but retreated swiftly before I got soaked by the monkey beast, who at that moment in time was doing his best to swim up the bath :o)


Swimmy in the bath!! Swimmy in the bath!! SPLASH THE DADDY MWHAHAHA!!!!

Yummy Yoghurt!!

Edward had his first ever yoghurt today, he REALLY liked it and ate the whole pot really quickly and with minimal face-spreading. It reminded me of the days when he had a mix of breast-milk and formula, he clearly preferred my milk as it would all go down the hatch whereas the formula milk would mysteriously leak down his face.

I have decided to wash up and keep the yoghurt pot for freezing puree in as it makes a good portion size.

For supper Edward had broccoli it took him a littler while to get into it but once he did it disappeared very quickly, some of it was really lumpy as I'd only mashed it with a fork, I wasn't sure he'd manage without gagging but by that point he was so into the swing of things it went down without any problems.

Unfortunately a bit too soon after dinner he rolled onto his tummy and some of it came back up.....mmm broccoli sick in the ears anyone??

I have been experimenting a little over the last few days with different places to sit Edward while he's eating as I find he often flops forward in the Bumbo and I can't get to his mouth and he squishes his tummy. I tried his bouncer chair which worked well, I also tried his car-seat mounted on the buggy which again was good, then finally this evening I just had him sat on my knee at the table. All worked well, sitting on my knee I liked in particular as it enabled us to sit at the table and both of us are easily washable unlike his car-seat or bouncer. I think we will be able to use the Bumbo more when he can sit up better.

We had lots of fun playing peek-a-boo today, Edward was squealing with laughter it was the most heart warming sound I think I've ever heard....apart from maybe that first little cry he made when he was born, even now the thought of it just makes little tears come to my soppy eyes!

Melon, Clementines and Mr Piggy!

I fed Edward banana and peach baby breakfast cereal today...he wasn't terribly impressed.

The honeydew melon was a little more successful though he struggled to hold it because it was slimy hehe! He also sucked on a Clementine segment for a bit and seemed to quite like it.

Sadly....and due to my cocky ignoring of the health visitor poor Edward took a tumble off the sofa, I think Mr Piggy went first and Edward followed haha poor boy got a bit of a bump and a shock, I had put a pillow in-front of him but somehow he wriggled round it....aw well you live and learn!!

This week I have been mostly eating....

...butternut squash!

Luke didn't feel too adventurous to start with and so Edward got given mostly butternut squash, however as the week went on he branched out into rusks, rice-crackers, apple puree and baby muesli.


Edward tried a bit of olive, I sucked the brine off and let him have a bit of a nibble, he seemed to quite like it....proper little Crossland :o) He has also tried Marmite we spread it on a rice cracker for him, and he seemed to quite like that, Aunty Shellie will be most disappointed in him I fear!


Skills wise Edward is getting much better at holding his own bottle, today I bought him a cup with a spout and handles to help him with this development, I chose the Avent one so I can combine it with his existing bottles and teats. I did get him a doidy cup but I'm not overly keen on risking the mess and feel it's a bit too big a leap for him at the moment. It was fascinating to watch him with the spout cup, you could see him trying to figure out how to drink from it and using the same mouth actions he would use on a bottle teat and being confused by the fact it didn't work, I felt a bit mean watching him struggle but he will pick it up soon enough. When he started to get tired and frustrated I swapped back to the teat, there is no rush after all, these sorts of things can go at his pace.


Rather cunningly Edward has finally noticed his feet, and since finding them has decided THE best time to grab them is when he is covered in food...mmm muesli in the toes!! MUESLI IN THE TOES!!
Muesli on my toes up my nose and in the eyes lalala!!


Today Edward tried peas for the first time, sadly he wasn't that keen, however I'm not going to give up that easily, I shall try again in a few days and maybe he will be more receptive, after all he HAS to like peas they are are the only green vegetable deemed edible by Luke.