Owen does this at quite a few meals… cute, but we tend to get sprayed a little. 🙂
Category Archives: Food & Feeding
Dinner, ugh.
Salmon?
No.
Red pepper?
No.
Lettuce?
No.
Tomatoes?
No.
Avocado?
No.
Just another frustrating dinner with Owen?
Yes.
Real food!
The real food thing is going a lot better now!
Since the last update, he has tried (and liked) a lot of things including red and green grapes, spaghetti (any shape noodle), and Kraft cheese slices. We tried fresh strawberries again (for about the third time) and he finally ate some! YAY! He also really loves fried eggs now, and can easily eat a whole one by himself. He is still really liking Cheerios and of course he still LOVES his yogurt. He wasn’t too keen on broccoli, although he did eat the tops. And he’s LOVING his whole milk.
This past weekend Grandma Marsha and Uncle Rob came down, and we went out for lunch. Owen ate chicken and grapes, tried shrimp (he ate it!), and had a lot of fun squishing (and eventually eating) orange pieces and jello.
It’s really fun to try new foods, although it’s still frustrating when he will scarf something down at one meal and won’t touch it the next meal. He’s pretty much off baby food, although now and again he’ll get some (I fed him a jar when we went out to lunch). Some times it does feel like a challenge trying to figure out what to feed him (if what we’re eating isn’t really acceptable) but there’s always yogurt. 🙂
Food Update
We’ve been trucking along, trying new things and retrying old things…and things are getting somewhat better.
- Tom said he ate TWO WHOLE PANCAKES one morning (the morning I was sick in bed after the stomach flu). The next morning he scarfed down a bunch of french toast and fried egg.
- And he’s even been eating some small chicken pieces (which we gave him from our dinners of Pad Thai and chicken/spinach/alfredo pizza)!!
- We tried avocado again—this time with some salt and lime juice (since he seems to like spices on his food)—and amazingly two small bites went down without any funny faces (way more than before) but then that was it.
- He will chew on an almost-ripe pear and bite off pieces—but he won’t eat it.
- He will eat Ritz crackers, although I don’t like to give him too many since I don’t want him to stop eating the less-flavorful snack crackers I have a ton of.
- He now likes Cheerios (and will often stuff 3-4 in his mouth at once, which freaks me out but I’ve watched him a lot and he does just fine. He does the same with puffs, too.
I think the biggest thing, however, is that it has finally gotten through to my brain that he will NOT be eating as much as he used to, since weight gain at this age is supposed to slow waaaay down. Which means if he picks and nibbles and doesn’t seem to want the three things I’ve given him, then he gets a yogurt and that’s that. He will get his bottle (well, milk sippy cup) a bit after his meal and that will be good enough. Once I came to that conclusion, meal times have been better for me…although they can still be frustrating. 🙂
Lunch. Ugh.
I’ve been keeping my online friends updated on Owen’s food issues, and one of them said today (after seeing the beaver picture):
Maybe you should try adding wood to everything.
Hee. 😀
So, today’s lunch was frustrating…BIG surprise, right?
No to mac and cheese (a previous winner).
No to Swiss cheese.
No to kiwi (a usual winner).
No to banana (loves it mushed in oatmeal, but apparenlty not in pieces).
No to plain tuna fish (new today, didn’t have high hopes).
No to my tuna fish (big surprise after the plain tuna).
No to puffs (what? whoa!).
No to bread.
Sigh.
I ended up giving him Stage 3 Broccoli & Carrots with Cheese.
Raspberries
We just tried the raspberries…and as I thought, no dice. BUT if I crushed them and put them in his oatmeal he ate them just fine. So it’s more texture than anything else, I think. Which means I will keep adding them to his oatmeal, while slowly making the chunks bigger and bigger. 🙂
More new foods.
So I went grocery shopping today and thought I would get some new foods for Owen to try, that other moms have recommended. Since not a lot of fruit is in season, it’s all EX-PEN-SIVE. Yet I got the $5 pint of blueberries from Chile and the $3 half pint of raspberries from I forget where. I also decided to try avocado again (cheap at 79¢) and lima beans (at $1.39, more expensive than normal because I was at the fancy store).
So, how did it go?
Yeah…not so much.
I cut the blueberries in half to be safe…but it didn’t help. He opened his mouth like he’s good about—but as soon as I put the berry in, out it came. So I left some on the tray for him to think about. He did pick one up a time or two and attempt to eat it, but it just wasn’t happening. Then he squished some and that was, of course, much more fun. So those came off the tray pretty quickly so we didn’t get a big staining mess.
I tried the lima beans…and that was not just a no but a MAJOR no. The bean barely even got in his mouth before it came right back out. I cut one in half. Nope. I smushed one. Nope. I left some on the try and he didn’t even look at them or touch one.
Sigh.
Tomorrow we’ll try the raspberries and avocado, although I’m not holding out much hope (this will be like the fourth try with avocado).
BUT!
I had made some whole grain blends (think rice/couscous-y stuff) and…he liked it! AMAZING! I was so excited he was eating real food—except, of course, as boxed things go, it wasn’t particularly healthy—but he was eating it! And then, after maybe 5-6 tiny spoonsful, he was done. He didn’t want ANY more. Sigh. I guess it was a good start, right?
Then we tried leftover mac and cheese and he wanted nothing to do with it.
Fun, fun, fun!
Issues, issues, and more issues.
What kind of issues? Well, food issues, nap issues, playing, and then more food issues.
So today I asked some parents (on my online boards) what I can do with Owen and his eating. Meaning, we keep trying real food but he just isn’t loving it—but he should be getting off jarred food and eating more and more “real” food. So they gave me some ideas, which I had already mostly tried. But the big idea was
Babies/small children are MUCH better than adults at recognizing their own bodies’ signals for “hungry” or “need nourishment”. Some of the best advice I ever got about kids and eating was from my MiL. If a child gets hungry, s/he will eat. Period.
So anyway, just to share my response (so you know what we’re dealing with!):
We have tried frozen corn, peas, green beans, and carrots and he doesn’t really like them. Meaning he won’t eat them plain (heated) but he would eat a few of them when used in fried rice.
I have tried doing sweet potatoes a variety of ways—the consistency of jarred food (which he ate for awhile, but no longer likes), baked chunks, steamed chunks, a steamed mash, with cinnamon, etc., and he didn’t like any of them.
We’ve tried sliced cheese, chunk cheese, grated cheese, and melted cheese – none of which he’s thrilled with.
I tried cooking peas and beans (from dried) and those were a BIG no.
I have tried minced, chopped, and pieces of chicken (all a big no), roast beef and burgers (he likes it! he likes it!), and grilled pork (okay for a bit, but not terribly interested).
I have tried grinding/mashing various meals into a slurry and just chopping them up—no dice.
He does love pears and does okay with bananas—but doesn’t like watermelon, fresh strawberries, or apples (although he likes dried).
He does love yogurt, but he can’t live on yogurt, right?
So we ARE trying…it is just extremely frustrating because there’s really not much he likes so far.
All that said, I tried at lunch. (I really did.) I cut up half a banana, gave him about four rigatoni noodles with meat and sauce, and a tiny handful of puffs and dried fruit…with a sippy cup milk chaser. He ate about half the banana, half the noodles, and his pile of puffs/fruit. Which is about 1/4 of what he normally eats. I then tried to feed him the pieces and didn’t get much more down. And he was giving me his cranky “I’m hungry” cry. So I buckled and gave him a yogurt and that was it (still way less than he normally eats). About an hour later, he was giving me the hungry whine again, so I gave him a cracker—he didn’t want it. I tried puffs—no dice. I tried milk—nope. We cuddled on the couch and he got tired…so then he took some milk and…
On another note, it drives me insane how he is so tired and practically falling asleep on my lap so I put him in his crib and he cries and whines and screeches and cries and whines and screeches because he doesn’t want to be in there—but I leave him anyway, hoping he will just fall asleep…but this afternoon it’s been 30 minutes and it’s still going on. Ugh. I hate letting him win (LOL) but I can’t leave him in there forever.
They then agreed that he was being a stinker, and to just keep trying new foods. So, to continue the story…just to show you can never expect what will happen.
We ordered Thai for dinner, which was too spicy for him, even as Mild. But we did share tiny pieces—my chicken, egg, and carrot (from Basil Fried Rice) which he did eat (chicken, yay! except it took a few tries) and chicken and potato from Tom’s Massaman Curry. So we’re excited. He’s also eating some Graduates apple pieces (which he never ate before!) and puffs. And drinking milk. But even though he was eating, he wasn’t really eating that much.
But I wasn’t going to give him any jarred foods…but I was going to give him a yogurt. But before I did that we had some fun (which, of course, completely made up for him being a stinker earlier today at nap time):
And then, after playing, without warning, he barfed his entire dinner. So, was it from the raucous laughing? Or too many new things for dinner? Or something else entirely?
Sigh.
But wasn’t he cute in that video? 😀
Oranges
Today we tried oranges and while he wasn’t overly enthusiastic, he didn’t spit them out. But he didn’t want a lot of them, either. 🙂
Beans & Potatoes
Today for lunch we tried leftovers from Owen’s birthday dinner—Easter potatoes and baked beans. And he liked them both!
YAY FOR LIKING NEW FOODS!
Gramma Jean’s Beef Barley Soup
Gramma Jean brought soup for the lunch before Owen’s party…and of course I gave some to Owen so he could try a new food…and he loved everything in it! The beef, the barley, the carrots, the mushrooms, the celery—YAY! So he ate the leftovers for the next few meals and today we finished it! YAY, OWEN!
12-Month Check-Up
I couldn’t wait for today’s appointment, because I was VERY interested in how much Owen weighed—I was positive he had gained a few pounds from the last visit when he was 26#. So imagine my surprise when he weighed…26 pounds 4 ounces. Big whoop, he gained four ounces. I guess my back is just getting worse and worse and I thought (assumed) he gained more then he did. 😳
So, his stats:
Height: 32″ (95th percentile)
Weight: 26# 4oz (95th percentile)
Head: 47cm (75th percentile)
His head size also surprised me—his head looks so big that I couldn’t believe it was only in the 75th percentile.
And he apparently doesn’t like anyone to touch him now. He fought tooth and nail when the doc was trying to look in his ears, listen to his heart, and whatever other things she was looking at. Sigh.
He did, however, enjoy playing with the vertical blinds and spinning the doctor’s chair:
We now get to transition to whole milk in a sippy cup (not even a bottle!) AND get to brush his teeth after each time. That means an entirely new routine. IF he even likes the sippy cup for milk. IF he even likes the milk. I can’t wait. |-|
Then it was time for his immunizations. Four of them (well, three plus a flu shot). Two of which apparently sting like the dickens. Oh, there was screaming and crying and tears…poor kid. He was pretty okay a few minutes later, but I am guessing that was the Tylenol kicking in. He had a bottle on the way home and is now napping.
Mac & Cheese!
Today we tried macaroni and cheese (which was made with those small seashell noodles, which were just the right size) for lunch…and Owen loved it!
Barf.
Tom fed Owen tonight while I was working on dinner. I was amazed, because he went through a 3.5oz veggie, then a 6oz veggie, and then during the last bit of a yogurt, I asked Tom if Owen had burped at all…and just as he was saying no, Owen barfed.
Yeah, I thought it had been too much food too fast, but I didn’t make a big deal about it because it’s rare that Tom feeds him so I didn’t want to criticize anything (love you, babe!). We just cleaned him off and put him in the bath.
Then, since he had barfed up most everything, I made a big bottle, which he sucked down crazy fast. Before I put him down, I wanted to make sure he burped…and boy did he. I heard it coming, but it wasn’t just a burp.
That’s right, folks. He vomited all over me. Then turned to the other side and barfed some more, which got in my hair. I immediately yelled out — HELP! HELP NOW! — and Tom rushed up to see me and the boy covered in barf. He took the boy to get changed. I hopped in the shower. Then Tom got out the Rug Doctor and cleaned the green bean vomit (first in, last out!) while I played with the VERY HAPPY boy.
I was scared to try another bottle, but he needed something before bed—so Tom took a turn (he called me a wuss for not wanting to try again) with a 6oz bottle but I don’t think he even ate 2oz.
Poor baby.
Poor mom.
Wonderful dad for rushing to my aid.
Fun with chopsticks!
Grandma Linda got Owen his own chopsticks for Christmas…and he LOVES them. As soon as you get them out, he smiles and laughs—and he loves it when you click them together. He will even take pieces of food from you!
I dropped a puff (hey, give me a break—I was using my left hand because I had the camera in the other hand!) and he tried to give it back to me (the chopsticks)!
Scrambled eggs!
So, Owen and I just ate some scrambled eggs with turkey and potatoes and cheese for breakfast. Well, he ate some jarred peach muselix for his main breakfast, but then I tried out the eggs…and he really liked them. (I was pretty sure he would, as he likes the eggs that I put in fried rice.)
The funny thing is, I tried just the plain turkey first. No way, out it came. I tried a plain potato. Not interested at all. But scrambled in eggs, with a little butter and seasoning? Nom nom nom.
Except that I’ve noticed (or at least it seems to me) that he isn’t so much chewing (gumming) but just swallowing. I know he can “chew” because I can hear him crunching puffs, but when I gave him a pretty big bite of egg/potato/cheese, I didn’t really see him chewing at all. I guess he could just be swallowing (the stuff is soft so it would go down easy) and he doesn’t seem any worse for the wear, but it just seems off/wrong to me that he’s not chewing.
I’m not terribly worried, because I know he does chew/gum things…but it just seems very odd to me.
Dinnertime fun!
Food issues
I always say food issues would never bother me. But now that I’m having to deal with them….
Owen can drive me nuts. One day he will love pears and eat, I swear, half a pear. The next day, he won’t touch one piece. One day he loves real corn, the next day he won’t touch it. Or he will eagerly eat two spoonsful of a jarred food, but then refuse to eat any more.
He won’t eat ANY food I make, regardless of the consistency (he used to at least eat my sweet potato). He loves the dried strawberries, so I got fresh berries and he pretty much won’t touch them (although I did manage to get two pics and a short video).
He started eating chunkier food (and will pick up pieces) but doesn’t really like chunky stage 3 food. But he will still eat the hell out of stage 2 food, so I still give him that so he gets some veggies.
I think if he could live on YoBaby yogurt and puffs, he’d be thrilled.
So we just keep plugging along, knowing that every baby is different and this is all normal.
Sigh.
Big boy oatmeal!
We tried steel cut oats instead of Owen’s baby oatmeal this morning… He didn’t quite love it as much as his oatmeal, but he did eat it!
Egg noodles
Today Owen tried buttered egg noodles…and LOVED them! Of course, he probably only ate a total of one long noodle, but it’s a start!
5:15pm
He ate three noodles with dinner! THREE! I guess those get a thumbs up!
Chicken Fried Rice & SOOOO BIG
I was eating chicken fried rice for lunch, and I figured I might as well give some pieces to Owen, since it was rice (which I know he likes somewhat—well, at least he’s eaten it before) and soft veggies. And he LOVED it. He ate the rice, zucchini, fried egg, green beans, carrots—and he even ate a few tiny pieces of chicken! 88|
Unfortunately, however, he must have gotten a piece that he either didn’t like or that made him gag…because half his lunch came back up. 🙁
But at least now we know he can/will eat real food! YAY OWEN!
I have also been trying to teach him how to raise his arms when I ask how big he is…so here is today’s attempt:
Dog food & a parenting YUCK night.
Owen is fast. Which is why the new gate normally stays closed:
But sometimes I leave it open so he can crawl up the step and into the kitchen. So tonight, he actually bypassed the water bowl and headed straight for the island…which is where the dog food is. He was fishing in the bowl, which made Maggie come running because she thought she was getting something good. It was funny because she saw him in her bowl, and suddenly she wanted to eat her food! I actually called Tom to tell him, and while I was talking to him, I saw a piece of food go in Owen’s mouth. Stinker! I wasn’t terribly worried, but I did try to get it out—to no avail. So Owen has officially eaten his first (and certainly not last) piece of dog food! He seemed no worse for the wear and I laughed about it.
Fast forward to dinner, when he becomes Mr. Crankpot. I am sure it has to do with him teething right now…but he’s fine ALL DAY and only turns cranky in the high chair. So he’s either becoming a fussy eater (some nights I’ve had to open three or four different jars of food to find something he’ll eat) or there’s something about eating while teething that’s the problem. Regardless, he’s just been off kilter for a few days—but he always ends up eating his normal amount (it just might take longer…and more patience).
So tonight I tried homemade carrots and that was a no-go for the second time. Then he finished the Zuchinni and Squash Stage 3 jar we started at lunch. Then I tried to give him some itsy bitsy noodles with some butter, and he ate a few small bites but he didn’t like that (although he has been okay with those same noodles mixed IN something). All this was interspersed with puffs, cheerios, freeze-dried corn, and veggie straws—all typical meal snacks. He still needed to eat more, though, so I got out some green veggies.
And he was eating just fine.
And we were almost done.
When he started coughing.
Which turned into almost choking.
I was just starting to get him out of the high chair when he started vomiting. There was nothing I could really do except let it happen. Yuck. The only good thing was that it stopped the choking. But it was all over everything: him, his clothes (jeans, onesie, and socks), the high chair (tray, seat, and foot ledge), me (jeans and shirt—he missed my shoes), the dining room chair cover—and as I learned later while cleaning it up…there was spatter in the entryway to the kitchen, the wall behind where I had been sitting, the floor under the high chair (and the inside underneath of the high chair…and the dog. Yes, the dog. And it was all green.
And speaking of the dog, yes, she cleaned it up. I didn’t want her to, but I was too busy taking care of and cleaning up Owen to worry about her. So I got him in his PJs and he was no worse for the wear. He was sitting, playing, and watching Sesame Street while I went to clean up the dining room. Egads, what a mess.
Definitely a parenting YUCK day.
New lunch game
I love that you can NEVER predict what will make a baby laugh.
First apple crisp!
Well, okay, maybe just some of the mushy apples from the apple crisp…but he LOVED them! (Mom made the apple crisp and assured me there was hardly any extra added sugar in it, so it was just the natural sweetness of the apples.) So, now I need to try cooking apples for him again!
First Cheerio!
We were at our twice-monthly moms’ group and the babes were all rolling around, taking each others’ toys, and it was just so. damn. cute. Of course, while we are there, it’s usually snack or feeding time, so we had our puffs out. Another mom had Cheerios. I’ve been wanting to try Cheerios, but I really didn’t want to buy a whole box because I probably wouldn’t eat them if Owen didn’t like them. And I’ve been hesitating on “real” food like that because he really doesn’t like textures much, and he’s just now mastering the really airy, melt-in-your-mouth puffs.
So I gave him a Cheerio. Broken in half, but still a Cheerio. And he opened his mouth readily, took the Cheerio, munched for a few seconds, then opened his mouth for more! YAY OWEN! Then I set him on the floor, and moments later, he was at the feet of the mom (with the Cheerios) who had happened to drop some on the floor…hence Owen crawling over there. 🙂 So cute! 😀 So he reached for one! I grabbed it, broke it in half again, and he eagerly ate both pieces! So it looks like we may be able to go up to Cheerios! Maybe after we finish our bottle of puffs!
Holding his own bottle!
Just now, for his afternoon bottle, he grabbed it and fed himself! Such a big boy!!
A TOOTH!
So Owen has been somewhat cranky over the past few days, but we really didn’t think too much of it. People said he might be teething, but we’ve been thinking that for weeks, if not months—with no teeth ever appearing.
So for the past week or so, he has NOT been a good eater like he usually is—you know, where I basically shovel in food as fast as I can and he eats three whole jars of food per meal. Lately, it’s been maybe one jar or four bites from three different jars—not even really liking or wanting his favorite yogurt. 88| So we thought something might be up.
And then yesterday evening we noticed a rash! We googled and thought it was probably just a heat rash, as we’d had him in his chicken costume for a bit and it was probably too warm. It also might have been a contact type of rash, since he had the costume on for a few minutes without any barrier like a onesie (and it’s not washable, so we didn’t wash it after we got it). So we just thought we’d keep an eye on it and if it was worse (or no better) in a day or so, we’d call the doc. Again, someone suggested teething (apparently some crazy things can happen when teething starts) and we just said YEAH, WHATEVER, because so far there has been no teething.
So this morning he ate a good breakfast (which he hasn’t been lately). And then he wasn’t eating his lunch and he was fussy and screeching a bit and I happened to look in his mouth while he was screeching and I swear I saw something different! A little white spot! So I stuck my finger in and sure enough! A tooth is starting to come through! OWEN’S FIRST TOOTH! :>>
So I got out the teething tablets and those seemed to help quite a bit. I also gave him a frozen strawberry to chew on. He seems to be doing well, but I think we need some Motrin for the next few nights…
So much for [new] homemade food.
Since Owen loves sweet potatoes and eats the ones I make for him, I decided it was time to try some other foods (that other moms and websites have recommended). So I got dried peas and dried black beans, as well as pears and apples (both of which I know he likes).
I spent all afternoon (well, about two hours) peeling and chopping and cooking and blending…and the little stinker didn’t like ANY of it! I couldn’t even get more than one bite down—and some of the bites came back out. 🙁 And some of the bites made him gag! Hoo boy. It has to be a texture/consistency thing for the most part, since I already know he likes peas, apples, and pears—but I know he will eat mashed banana and thick oatmeal, so I’m flummoxed as to why he didn’t like any of the new home-cooked things I gave him.
So it all went in the freezer and we’ll try again in a few weeks.
That said, I just remembered I also did squash with a very thin consistency (that we haven’t tried yet because it was still too hot), so we’ll see if he likes that.
What a stinker!
First teething biscuit!
We’ve had them in the cupboard for quite some time—“just in case”—and Tom decided to give him one at lunch today—not because he was teething and needed it, but just for the hell of it. 🙂 (Tom was home for Owen’s lunch because I was at the vet’s office with Maggie and Bella.)
He didn’t take pictures of this momentous occasion :>> so I let him have the biscuit again later:
Tom said Owen loved it at lunch (liking it more than his puffs, even!), but for me he just kinda made a half-hearted attempt at it and wanted his puffs instead!
Weekend with Grandpa and Grandma
Tom and I went away for a long weekend (the first time I’ve been away from Owen for more than one night!) so my dad and Linda came down to watch Owen. We told them he was a REALLY easy baby, and after the weekend, they wholeheartedly agreed and gave him an A+ report!
He can now clap and make noise (before he just kind of clapped silently) and just does it on his own without our “Clap! Clap! Clap!” prompting. It’s adorable.
He can also now drink from his sippy cup pretty well on his own, although he isn’t quite able to tip it up as far as he sometimes needs to. He also can now eat an entire puff at once—as by the time it gets to his mouth it’s usually pretty wet (he doesn’t quite have the pincer grasp down yet, but it’s getting close).
Dad and Lin were telling us how they took Owen to the park and ended up on the swings next to Lily. In talking with her mom, they found out Lily was 12 months old and almost 20#. The mom, of course, thought Owen was MUCH older than he really was, and was surprised that he wasn’t even eight months yet—but weighed more than her daughter. We have only been guessing what Owen weighs, so Tom finally weighed him and he was 22# (meaning he’s gained about 2.5# in two months). Hoo boy! (Similarly, a mom in my group has an 18-month old that weighs about 20#!) He’s definitely a big boy!