I do it quite often, actually. Since becoming a parent myself I've found that my tolerance for cooing over other people's babies has risen considerably. (And it's a good way of keeping Babybear occupied - she finds babies fascinating and appears entirely unaware that she is one herself.)

Anyway, one thought just struck me but I'm unsure how to express it without causing offence. Here goes.

None of them exactly look like they're starving, do they?

I mean, it's the biggest worry about doing this BLW thing, isn't it? That they aren't going to get enough, that somehow we are depriving them if we don't spoon the food into their mouths. And yet one look at the photos on this blog confirm that simply isn't the case. It has made me giggle a bit, actually.


For the record, anyone who wants to put a photo up is welcome to send them to my email (press my name and you'll find it) and I'll stick them on for you with pleasure. More strange creatures for Babybear to stare at...



(Weird, I've also just noticed that some of our photos of the early months have dropped off... wonder if the folder has become too big? Will investigate further.)

I've been meaning to tell you this for ages, but Babybear has started saying 'yum-yum-yum' while eating. That's how she says it so that's how I'm spelling it. Occasionally she does veer towards 'nyum-nyum' if I'm honest.

I'm not a big one for the whole 'my baby does cute things' school of blogging, but in this case I'm prepared to make an exception as it is simply THE SWEETEST thing on the planet.

So here goes... get it out of your system. What Cute Things is your baby doing? (Weaning-related, if possible, or we'll be here forever.)

Boomer has recently had a bit of a snuffle and bizarrely this has seemed to see an increase in her appetite. This seems to be contrary to everyone else’s experiences when their LO is under the weather.

 

Now it may be that I don’t think she was ever really that unwell, or it may have just coincided with a natural increase in her self weaning process. I think that latter is probably more likely. So for all you out there concerned about when their appetite will really kick in , Boomer is now 10 ½ mths and it has only just happened.

 

Boomer is still breastfed so I have no real way of checking her milk intake, but she still has about 4-5 feeds a day. I have however left her a couple of days from morning to night with someone else and she has just had food and water, no milk.

I'd say it's about half as much as she was doing a month ago. That tummy bug really seemed to knock her for six, first of all, and after a burst of eating to make up what she'd lost, her appetite seems to have settled back down.
I'm assuming that it's to do with the fact that she seems to be cutting some new teeth, although I do wish they would hurry up as she's pretty miserable about it. Which makes me and her father rather miserable as well, because it is knocking her sleep out. The teeth, I mean, not the food - she's drinking plenty of milk.
Anyway, I'm not overly worried as she is still eating well, just not as well as she has previously done, the poor poppet.

So I'd have thought that after a week of nappies o'erspilling with yellow goo (and goo makes it sound so much cuter than it was in real life), Babybear's appetite would slowly build itself back up to normal.

Wrong. This morning, for her first breakfast since showing any signs of recovery Babybear consumed three small baked potatoes (the poor child often finds herself eating leftovers from the night before), some sultanas, two porridge pancakes, a banana, a piece of broccoli and (as I frantically rooted about in the fridge for something, anything that was left) some chicken.  Yikes.  She didn't want a lot for lunch, needless to say.

The poor wee thing, gastroenteritis. It's been very grim, to be honest... although Babybear's been relatively chipper in between mammoth bouts of diaorrhea and vomiting, which is a good sign. I have been far from chipper, however - I've been the one miserably scrubbing and cleaning doing copious laundry and disinfecting, all to no avail. It started a week ago yesterday and according to the doctors might continue for a while longer as even if she's over the virus her gut is now completely traumatised and will take a few days extra to start absorbing things properly again.

The funny thing is that she seems more reluctant to take her formula milk than she is the very bland food we've been offering her, which isn't the way I thought things would go. Perhaps breastmilk would have been more appealing under the circumstances? (Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa ad infinitum). I have sometimes been giving her half measures of powder to liquid to lessen the strength of the milk but keep her liquids up, as clearly that's the most important thing.

You'll all be surprised to hear that I haven't gone short of unwanted parenting advice, though, so that's been fun to deal with on top of everything else. If one more sodding person gravely tells me that 'you have to make sure she doesn't get dehydrated' while offering me no practical insight into how the hell I get more liquid into an unco-operative child without resorting to a canula and an IV bag (my paramedic brother's helpful suggestion) I will fling thirty newly yellow-stained babygros into their faces and dance off into the moonlight.

Babybear has dined on chicken risotto, plain pasta, roast chicken, peas, green beans, bread and butter and pears for the most part this week as I have been trying to keep things as bland as possible (better for the baby, yes, but also infinitely preferable when there's a good chance you'll be washing it out of your ponytail at two o'clock in the morning). I have been very surprised at how much she has eaten. Nothing like her usual intake, naturally, but about half as much, which I wouldn't have anticipated.

So do you want to hear my top tip, courtesy of my mum? Immediately I told the old dear about the vomming etc she said to get an old towel or two over the cot sheet, so that when (inevitably) they puke in the middle of the night you don't have to fanny around with changing the bedding. It works... you just take off the towel, checking for damp patches on the next layer down, and then quickly hose the contents off in the bath. Once the baby is sorted she can go back into bed immediately (after a wee drink of water and brief toothbrushing session) and so can you, knowing that at least you won't have to face the horror of dried-in sick first thing the next morning. That's when she doesn't refuse point blank to go back into her cot, of course, because she'd rather jump about on your head for the next two hours...

Because it occurs to me that we are not, and nor have we been for some time. I'm wondering if it's been since she got some teeth?

Keeping the carrots chip-sized definitely important when you are starting off, that's for sure, as it seems to be as important that the food can easily drop out of their mouths as get in there so a long, thin piece is essential. But as Babybear has got older and more active, I think her need for texture has increased to the point where she would now be most frustrated with a puny finger of food.

She likes full-sized tortillas, quartered sandwiches, big hunks of meat, individual Yorkshire puddings and whole new potatoes, bananas, apples and pears. She derives a great deal of pleasure from closely inspecting everything that is about to go into her mouth (well, on a polite day - to be fair she fairly often inhales things without giving them a second glance) and a standard-issue chip of veggie would not satisfy. She turns things around in her hands, bashes them on the table, rubs them in the puddles of water that inevitably cover her highchair before either eating them, dropping them off the side or popping them into her Tommee Tippee bib for later. It's a rich and rewarding sensory experience for a 10-month-old baby, and a monumental pain in the arse for the person who has to clean it up.