Food

I took Kathleen to Plunket for her regular 9-month checkup three weeks ago. They weighed her and found her to be in the very bottom weight range for her age. Their advice was to feed her more, make sure she gets enough iron, and let her have dessert as well.

Up until then Kathleen had been eating pureed and "slightly-chunky-but-still-pureed" food that I had cooked up in big batches and frozen into ice cubes. Things like pumpkin and potato and carrot and spinach. For her lunches and dinners we would defrost two or three cubes for her. She seemed quite happy with this arrangement and never seemed to ask for more food when it was all gone.

As we were intending to be moving house a week after the Plunket appointment, we used up all the ice cubes of food so that there would be none left come moving day. But then moving day got cancelled and suddenly Kathleen had no food in the freezer.

She ate tinned baby food for a few days and then I decided to try something I'd been thinking about for a while. One of the main reasons for making Kathleen's food myself has been so that she would get used to eating the same things Peter and I eat, so that one day we could all sit down together and eat as a family. (But the main reason for making my own food is to save the waste of tins and jars - what a Greenie!).

Then I found out that from 9 months she can eat just about any food that the rest of us eat. I had thought it was 12 months and was aiming for that. But when I found out it was 9 months, and she was now 9 months old, and we were all out of frozen food anyway, I knew it was time to experiment.

And so with Peter away living in Wellington Kathleen and I have now settled into a new routine. We both sit down together at 6.30pm and eat our dinner together. We eat the same thing, with hers chopped into small pieces. Usually I let her try to feed herself. Often there is a big mess afterwards. But she has really surprised me with how much food she will eat (sometimes).

The benefits of this new arrangement are:

• Kat is learning to eat more foods, and meals that Peter & I like.


• Kat is eating as much as she wants, rather than as much as I defrosted. I just keep giving her food off my plate until she says no.


• Kat is putting on lots of weight.


• I don't have to worry about wasting food / defrosting food she doesn't eat, because what she doesn't eat I will.


• I am actually making time to eat as well, which I haven't been doing much during the day.


• I don't feel quite so lonely without Peter here, as I have someone to eat my meals with - even if she's not much of a conversationalist.

Meals that have so far been successful are:

• Beef and Lamb casseroles. More successful as leftovers for lunch, but still enjoyable.


• Macaroni Cheese. With luncheon instead of bacon.


• Moroccan Lamb with Couscous. She loved the couscous even if she had trouble getting it into her mouth. I think more of it wound up on her face, down her bib, down her top, down her nappy, in her hair and on the floor than in her tummy.


• Mini Meatballs in a Tomato Sauce. Very messy but very yummy.


• Chicken and Broccoli in a Cheese sauce. She loved it the first night. Didn't want to know about it as leftovers the following night.

Meals that haven't worked:

• Fish Fingers & cooked carrot sticks. In fact anything she can hold one end and chew the other she doesn't like. I don't know if it's the size or the feel of it that's putting her off. Cut it up into tiny pieces and she'll consider eating it.


• Rice Risotto. Homemade, not out of a packet. Doesn't like the rice, I think it's too hard to eat.

That was the first couple of weeks, however in the last few days Kathleen has started going through a very difficult phase. Doesn't want to eat, doesn't want to drink, doesn't want a bath, doesn't want anything. Just wants to sleep and be held and scream a lot. I think it's probably either teething or missing Daddy (or probably both).

Anyone got any other meal ideas that are yummy for adults and babies, please leave a comment.


-Megz