04/9/13

Hunter: 10 months

My little baby Hunter is turning into such a kid!

This stage he is in now —- the crawling from room to room, chasing the cat around, pulling everything off shelves, leaving a whirlwind mess behind him, standing, stepping, smiling, and making funny faces stage —- is so much fun! Every month it keeps getting better and better. His independence is growing at a rapid rate. He’s gotten so good at just playing by himself. Even though he’s independent, he is still my little cuddler. It just has to be on his terms.

His crawling is crazy fast. He pulls up to stand in a second flat. Now he’s also balancing and almost to the stage of taking a step. Beginning on Sunday he started balancing, then moving one foot forward like he is about to step, but then he falls. I bet this is going to be changing quickly. Once the steps starts, the running begins! I can just picture him running around screaming at the top of his lungs with a huge smile on his face. Chasing after the cat of course.

One thing I haven’t really talked about are how the animals and Hunter along. We have a dog, Joe, and cat, Stoner. Joe’s a jealous kind of dog who likes attention, and for a while was not doing too well with Hunter. Joes worries about Hunter when he cries, but then is annoyed by him at times. Nothing ever happened between them, but he’d growl at Hunter. Not okay. Now he’s doing much better and will let Hunter pet him, pull on his tail and bounce on him. When he doesn’t like it, he gets up and walks away.

Our cat Stoner, surprisingly does amazing with Hunter. Hunter pets and pulls his fur, lays on top of him and chases after him. Stoner will just lay there like nothing is happening, and then once he’s done being played with, he gets up and walks away. Hunter then goes after him and he just keeps slowly walking away. Not even like he’s trying to get away from Hunter, just like he’s deciding where he wants to lay down next. Again, super impressive.

{{ Lindsay – Hunter LOVED your cheesy mexican quinoa }}

This month we dropped from 4-5 nursings to 2-3 a day. The day I decided to try it out, Hunter instantly ate so much more food. Makes sense, he’s a hungry boy! He was already a good eater, and cutting the nursings to just 2-3 made him a great eater.

A typical day with his new nursing schedule:

When he first wakes in the morning (ranges from 5am-7am) I nurse him. If he wakes before 6:30am I can typically put him back to bed for another hour or two of sleep.
After he’s up for the day, breakfast is usually around 8am.
He takes a morning nap, then lunch happens anywhere after that from 11am-noon.
If he’s going to nurse again, it’s an hour or so after lunch. Usually I will if he’s fussy, but if he’s fine I’ll just pump.
After his afternoon nap I feed him a snack, typically around 3:30-4pm.
Dinner is anywhere from 5:30-6pm, and then a final nursing session at 7pm before we get into our bedtime routine.

The average hours of sleep a night –> 12.5. I love that. He’ll be asleep around 7:45-8pm, and then wake for the day between 7:45-8:15am. Typically. Sometimes it’s less, but usually not more. The boy likes his nighttime sleep. Naps, not so much. He takes two a day, and they are between 20-45 minutes. Short and effective I guess!

With the nicer bit of weather we’ve had (yup past tense there as I look out at the rain) I’ve been trying to get us outside more. He does really well sitting and playing on a blanket in the front yard while I get a bit of weeding in. Sticks help to entertain the kid.

Swinging with his BFF is a fav still, and just getting to play with Mabel in general. He crawls all over her now and is definitely more rough than he used to be before he was crawling around.

Hunter still has no teeth, and no real signs of teething lately. A-okay with me! I wonder when his fuzzy blonde hair will fill in?

How many hours a night do you sleep? Has it changed over time? Like for me, before Hunter I typically slept for 6-7 hours a night and felt great. Now? I feel a bit tired on 7 and function better on 8 hours. 9 hours makes for a great day.

Heather

02/7/13

mama and munchkin meal at 8 months

Lunch at home with Hunter is so much fun. He’s happy, having typically just woken up from a nap. I thought I’d join in on this week’s Munchkin Meals, put on by Brittany from A Healthy Slice of Life.

At 8 months old, here’s a typical lunch.

Black beans
Avocado
Steamed carrot and broccoli

And he ate all of it! Plus some extra avocado from my plate. He pretty much just uses his pincher grip now to pick foods off. Thank you baby led weaning.

{picture of Hunter not from yesterday’s meal}

Speaking of avocado from my plate, here was my lunch.

Tuna, black bean and oat patties. So simple and delicious topped with a little mango salsa and eaten with tons of avocado.

Tuna, Black Bean and Oat Patties

Makes 2 servings

Ingredients

1 tbsp oil (olive, canola or vegetable)

1 large can of tuna in water (7 oz), drained

1/2 cup cooked black beans

1/3-1/2 cup rolled oats (depending on the amount of liquid you drain from the tuna)

1 egg

Lots of old bay seasoning (2-3 tsp??)

Directions

Begin by heating a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the oil to the skillet.

Combine remaining ingredients in a bowl. Divide into 6 patties. Cook 3 at a time. Allow to cook for 3-4 minutes on the first side, flip, then cook another 3 minutes.

Serve with salsa and avocado!

What are you and/or your munchkin eating today?

Heather

01/25/13

baby led weaning, part 2

Two months ago we began Hunter on solids following the baby led weaning approach (check out part 1!). Now that he’s a few day short of 8 months, it’s a good time for an update.

Things have really taken off the past week. Something just clicked, and now he eats like crazy. Those first couple months were definitely about exploring. He didn’t quite understand that food made his belly feel full. Now, he most definitely does.

He’s gone from gagging down really soft pieces of fruits/veggies, to now gumming a lot more variety. The food still needs to be soft, but not super mushy. Before I would get a little nervous when he’d put a huge piece of banana in his mouth. Now, he still puts the whole thing in but can break off and ‘chew’ pieces. Even though he has no teeth in yet, that doesn’t stop him from eating and breaking food down.

A new development are his pincher skills – using his thumb and index finger to pick foods up. He still mostly grabs with his entire hand, but for those little peas he’s starting to pick them up one by one.

For a little while I was having him eat oatmeal with me in the morning. I would cook mine up with either sweet potato or banana, and pour some into a bowl for him. Spoon feeding for us is still more work most of the time than I want it to be, so I tried something new earlier this week. I cooked up extra oatmeal with sweet potato, poured it into a bowl and let it cool in the fridge. It looked like this.

A bit more congealed. Since it wasn’t as runny as warm oatmeal, he could pick up the pieces!

I did a similar thing with quinoa. I combined cooked quinoa with some mashed yam, which created a paste that he could easily pick up! Now when I make a grain like quinoa that would be really difficult to pick up, I can just mash some veggies into it and he’ll eat what we’re eating. That’s what I love about baby led weaning. It makes meals so simple!

Here’s a list of foods in categories that he’s tried and eaten. Honestly, over the next month I think it’s going to grow a ton as we add more actual meals in.

Vegetables

Yams/sweet potatoes – steamed sticks or mashed with a grain
Broccoli – steamed
Carrot sticks – steamed
Peas – defrosted

Fruits

Banana – ripe pieces or mashed with grain
Avocado – pieces
Pear – pieces with the skin removed
Kiwi – ripe pieces with skin removed

Proteins

Egg – cooked into oatmeal or this pancake
Tofu -firm pieces
Black beans
Beef – fully cooked pieces
Ricotta
Plain yogurt

Grains

Oatmeal – regular, not baby
Quinoa – cooked inwater with garlic granulates and Italian seasoning (no salt)

I’m sure there are more foods he’s eaten, but these are the more regular ones he eats so they come to mind. He’s had a few different fruits/veggies from jarred baby food but they are far and few between. When I make something that we’re going to share, I always omit the salt since he doesn’t need it. I don’t really miss it either.

How much food does he eat?

I couldn’t give an exact amount that he eats at each meal. I just keep offering him more food if he finished what he started with. Some food always ends up on his lap, but less is getting dropped onto the ground. I know he’s done eating when he begins hitting and pushing the food around on his tray. That’s when it gets really messy!

After each meal I offer him water from his sippy cup. We’ve tried drinking out of a cup a couple times and water ends up everywhere. Practice makes perfect though!

I always nurse first, then offer solids, with the exception of dinner. Since be eats dinner about 2 hours after his last nursing session, I give him solids first, then offer another nursing session after that if he’s still hungry.

Here is Hunter’s meal from last night. It was his first time trying beef, which I sauteed in a pan. We were having burgers so as I was preparing our burgers his meat cooked away, giving it time to cool before we ate. Along with that he had some yam/quinoa patties (mashed yams and cooked quinoa sauteed together).