Morning y’all and welcome back to Warm Beer, Cold Coffee! I always share what Keenan and I eat each week on my On the Menu Monday series annndddd I occassionally share some of what Andee eats. But I thought it might be nice to share the general plan I have set up for her meals this week.
Andee is only drinking cows milk now, so we start each morning with a full warm bottle (250 ml or 8.5 ounces). Then about an hour and a half later she eats breakfast. Eventually she goes down for her first nap, and has a snack right when she wakes up. About an hour after the snack is when she eats lunch. Then we repeat this for a snack and dinner once she wakes up from her second nap. She will have another warm bottle of cows milk before she goes to bed. The amount she actually consumes in this bottle varies each day, but I fill it up with 150 ml (5 ounces) regardless. I also will give her both water and milk in sippy cups throughout the day so that she stays hydrated.
If you read all that and thought about how much cutting, cooking and clean up is involved, then I 100% know you are a parent. Lol! As I have mentioned before, I am privileged to have this time to cut, cook and clean up for my baby girl, even if I don’t enjoy every second of it. So please read this as some potentially helpful information and don’t beat yourself up if you aren’t able to do the same thing for your kiddos. Or heck, maybe you are crushin’ it! Either way, you got this mama!
Now, on to the meal plan…
Breakfast
I really like giving Andee some overnight oats for breakfast as it’s super easy to prep a batch for multiple days. This week I just threw a bunch of stuff in the blender (frozen strawberries, milk, bananas, greek yogurt, peanut butter… I think that’s it) to make a runnier type smoothie. Then I put some rolled oats and chia seeds in mason jars and filled them up with the smoothie mixture. I had a bit of left over smoothie, so I put some in little popsicle molds and I kept some in the fridge to drink the next day. I intended on drinking it for myself, but I ended up sharing it with Andee, and she loved it!
Linked here is a page with six different overnight oat recipes. I made the peanut butter and raspberries recipe for Andee last week, and she really liked it. Keep in mind that overnight oats can be super messy, so if you are rushed to get out the door I would suggest to give yourself some extra time or to save them for the weekend.
Lunch/Dinner
I tend to make a few things each week that can be eaten for either lunch or dinner, so it makes the most sense to me to share it with y’all that way. On Sunday I made these super yummy vegetable savory muffins following this recipe that one of my mama friends shared with me. (Thanks girl!) The muffins are HUGE, but delicious! Remember how I said overnight oats can be super messy? Well I fed Andee one of these muffins for breakfast on Monday instead of the oats because we had to get out of the door for a doctors appointment.
These next two recipes are ones from the Solid Starts kit I purchased called Meal and Recipe Ideas Kit. They have tons of guides, but this one included recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. Having used it for about three months now, I would say that it was $50 well spent! So… those recipes… hehe! I made Andee cashew butter chicken and salmon sammies. The cashew butter chicken is very similar to normal butter chicken, it just has some ground cashews (almost like a cashew butter) in it. I gave it to Andee as is, but it was pretty hard for her to eat because it was kind of soup-like. So I ended up making rice to serve with it, and she was able to eat it much easier.
The salmon sammies are basically salmon salad sandwiches, ya know like tuna salad sandwiches or egg salad sandwiches? I bought canned salmon for this, which can be found by the canned tuna. (You may already know this, but it was my first time buying canned salmon so I thought I’d share the info. Lol!) It shocks me how much Andee loves fish, so this one is a good recipe to add to the mix.
Snacks/Sides
As for snacks and sides, I always have some fruit and veggies on hand. This week I have cucumbers, green bell peppers, berries, bananas, peaches and apples ready to go. I’ll often cut several servings up at once and just store it in the fridge so that I don’t have to prep again for another few days. Most of these fruits and veggies I will serve on their own, but I like to do shredded cheese with shredded apple for a heartier snack.
As for snacks and sides I am making, I made some sweet potato spears following the recipe at the bottom of this link as well as tomato and cheese couscous bites following this recipe. I made these couscous bites last week, but have a few left over for this week. I also have some white kidney beans left over that I’ll just mush between my fingers to serve along side other foods.
Extras
It’s always nice to have a few extras or fillers just in case you run out of food or are tired of serving the same thing everyday. So I always make sure to have eggs, avocados, nut butter, bread and cheerios around because I can easily whip up something like avocado toast or nut butter and yogurt with fruit. Or I can simply give Andee a handful of cheerios if need be.
While I have the gist of food planned out for the week for Andee, life with a baby is never predictable. So I have learned, and maybe I’m still learning, to have several different options (just in case) without over buying so that food doesn’t go to waste.
I hope this information was helpful! I would love to hear about any good recipes or tricks that have worked well for you in the feeding babies department. Let me know in the comments below! Happy day y’all!