Aylas food ventures

So I thought I'd share things I've been going through with Ayla after reading our recent posts:
Ayla has started to reject the spoon...she wants to feed herself or at the very least be finger fed by us. Unless it's covered in yogurt, or she's cutting a tooth she only wants to put fistfulls of food in her mouth.
So I've been left steaming fruit or squash-like veggies that I cut into chunks she can put in her mouth or rolling pureed foods with a grain so it forms into finger food. The other morning she wouldn't even eat her oatmeal for breakfast (which has been our morning staple) so I ended up putting some joe's O's in her bowl and then covering them with breastmilk. She LOOOOVED it! I've also been experimenting with how much chunkiness she can handle. She loves cherries and toast and is starting to really get into mushing hard things with her gums and tongue. I'm in shock because this has been something that has happened over night. I still offer her pureed foods, and I'll get a few spoonfuls in, but it is hard. The only thing I've been trying to do is always have a different protein offered. So yogurt one meal and then tofu or beans the next. We also have embarked on fish and the other day she went crazy on my meatball sub from Bay City Deli...but I was going crazy on that too...Best Meatball Sub I've EVER had!!

I also think she's weaning herself, which seems pretty natural, given how she's been eating. It's made my nipples sore...I never knew that was possible, and now...you know it's possible too!!

Hide Your Veggies in the Beans

In response to Sarah's post: I try to cook all of Miles' food too and I worry about all the same things, am I feeding him the right amount of vitamins and fiber and protein and bla bla bla. But my challenges are a little different because although Miles will eat pretty much anything, most things make him constipated. So getting him to eat fibers and drink enough liquids is what I'm constantly obsessing with!

But for your problem, lets see. You said Luca likes beans, right? Well, Miles eats just about every kinds of beans (he is half Latino after all) and to make them more tasty, I cook his beans the same way I cook ours, except I don't add salt and pepper.

And you can hide all kinds of good for you veggies in beans! I make a lot of black beans, lentils, black eyed peas, green beans, chick peas, pinto beans, etc. I cook them with celery, carrots, onions, kale, spinach, chard, broccoli, cauliflower, turmeric, cumin, oregano, etc etc. You can really mix them with just about anything and they're very tasty.

I also cook pots of just veggies, like cauliflower, broccoli or chard, with some veggie stock, onions and all kinds of spices. That makes them tasty and fragrant and he'll eat them with quinoa or brown rice. Or you can mix them with sweet potato or whatever else he really likes. I feel like the key is has to cook with the herbs and spices which make the food yummier. And certain spices, like turmeric and cumin, are also good for digestion. I even add nice Turkish curries sometimes and he gobbles it up!

Now, if anyone has advice on some fiber rich foods that might help my little man, I'll take it! The only things he doesn't seem to enjoy eating are tart fruits (plums, peaches, berries...anything tart) and yogurt. He'll eat all of it if he's really hungry, but he can get picky at times!

Hope that helped a little.
L

Puffs and Olives

I am so impressed with Sarah's food for Luca. Some days Birdie will eat everything I offer (the beans, the spinach, the tofu)and other days refuses it all...including her favorites. Last week she had two dinners where she refused to eat anything except olives and puffs..they were the green kind but still. I'll spend an hour during her nap looking through cook books thinking up the perfect meal, then I'll sit her down and she will turn her face away. I would love to try Luca's breakfast of champions..is there a recipe?

The Big Pleasures (of a small amount of food)

Of all the things I imagined would be really difficult in caring for a baby, feeding solid foods wasn't one of them.  It is THE most challenging thing for me so far, 10 months in.  I figured the tough stuff would be colic (which Luca never had), or sleep training, or discipline (give it a few months and I'm sure I will be in a major discipline conundrum) - but I actually feel the most frustrated and hopeless when Luca won't eat what I have made him.  And when you feel that way three times a day, it's a real drag.


I'm still breastfeeding 7 or so times a day, so really solid food is still just a recreational, adventurous endeavor because he is still getting all his necessary nutrition from me, as I understand it.  So, the stakes aren't really that high, but I still get so invested in his eating what I make.  Oh, yeah, and I make everything he eats, so that adds to the pressure.  If I didn't prepare his food personally I wouldn't take it personally when he doesn't eat it!  (My fault, not his.  I know, 'just tweak your perspective', right?  Not that easy).  


I do enjoy making his food.  I buy organic and I make batches of things at once and freeze them in ice-cube trays to use when I need.  I'm not so sure that cooking and freezing and re-heating is making the absolute very most of every little vitamin and mineral the foods contain,  but at least I know where and how it's being made.


Lately, I have hit a positive stride and that is what prompts me to write.  I have - for now at least - cracked the code of a pretty balanced diet for Luca.  I feel like I just won a million dollars!  (Ok, not that good, but close).


In the morning:  He eats protein and grains with banana.  Organic oats, rice and millet is the base.  I mash a banana with some tofu, or sometimes I sneak a half of an egg yolk in there (hardboiled, of course).  I always add wheat germ, sometimes ground nuts.  I used to add breast milk, but recently I have been adding some New Beginnings Organic formula.  (He doesn't actually drink the formula, but I find that it's a great thing to add because sometimes formula is the difference between eating something or not.)
HE EATS IT ALL!  Well, to date, anyway.  I don't do this every single morning, but almost.  I love the idea that he gets all his protein and grains right off the bat in the morning.


In the afternoon:  This is my favorite new discovery; fruit with greens.  I have not been able to get that monkey to eat greens very well, but I've got him now!  I mix either spinach or kale (steamed and pureed) with his fruit; either pear, papaya, sweet apple, or mango (also pureed).  HE EATS IT ALL.  I can't tell you how happy that makes me, it's near ridiculous.  It really tastes pretty good.  It's just sweet with an odd texture.  
I also change this up now and then too. I do some yogurt with avocado, or yogurt with raw sprouted beans (steamed and then mashed with a fork).
I always add flax oil to the lunch or breakfast.  Sometimes blackstrap molasses in trace amounts.


In the evening:  Mostly veggies.  Often we revisit the grains and have some quinoa or rice or millet and add either zucchini, sweet potato (his fave), squash, avocado, perhaps more greens, legumes, oh and broccoli - which he actually likes sometimes.  By evening, he has usually had enough grains and greens for the day so I feel pretty relaxed for the evening dining session at Ristorante Benincasa.  I try to give him his favorites, which is usually a mixture of sweet potato and avocado, or a couple different kinds of squash (he's had about 4 varieties).
In the evening I always add a few sprinkles of kelp and/or nutritional yeast with tahini to his food.


I'm pretty sure he's on to me when I'm frustrated about the eating, so I try to do something to make him laugh at the first on-set of a negative feeling brewing.  It's a good way to shift the energy for me, his giggle always puts things back to good.  I'm so invested in the nutrition, but I try to remember that being happy in the highchair is the most important thing.  

     Please leave a comment with some favorite food combinations you have stumbled upon or some ways to make the eating fun!  I'm always looking for new ideas.  I'm also not always sure I'm getting all the vitamin combinations right - what absorbs best with what - so if you have some suggestions to tweak what we have here, suggest away!