Morning y’all and welcome back! Thanks for tuning in today, it means more than you know. 🙂 Andee Lynn will be one year old on August 1st (“shut the front door” is all I can say about that!), and I’ve realized how much feeding her has changed over the past month or two. So I thought I might give y’all a little update into what and how I’m feeding my little.
I have always made Andee all of her food since she’s started eating solids at four and a half months. The only food she really ate that I didn’t make was some snacks, like Cheerios and baby granola bars. However, I have found that I have switched more to combining food that I make with foods that will make my life more simple.
For example, I still make most of her actual meals, but her snacks are now generally something like string cheese, baby puffs or baby granola bars. Occasionally I will feed her fruit for a snack, but I’m not a huge fan of the clean up anymore.
Plus, we recently got an island for our kitchen, so I like to sit her in a little clip on high chair for her snacks. That way she can eat while I work around the kitchen. She likes this as well because she can see what I’m doing up on the counters. So it’s a win-win!
We use to be able to put snacks out on her little activity circle, and she would stand there and eat. Buttttt baby girl is WAY too mobile for that now. So keeping her stationary in a high chair it is!
She’s also going through this phase where she likes to throw everything on the ground. So I’ve had to give her little bits of food at a time to help keep mess to a minimal. I should mention that our dog LOVES that this is her new habit, but mama… not so much. Lol!
As I mentioned, I am trying to make foods that are more simple to prep in both cooking it and serving it. So I’ve made several dips lately like edamame and pea dip or baby hummus. It helps that Andee absolutely loves any and all bread, so spreading dips on toast or pita has been the way to go for us.
I’ve also been trying to make the same meals for us to both eat for lunch now. I know that many parents do this straight from the get go, but it never really worked that well for us until recently. So I was always making myself something different than what I was feeding Andee. I think mainly because we just ate at different times. Anyway, somethings that we have both eaten for lunch are sardines with lemony pasta, breadcrumbs and kale and a three bean salad.
I am really working on making life more simple for myself, mainly because there are only so many hours in a day. Plus, Andee is into everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, now, so I can’t spend as much time in the kitchen anymore. So making things for her like the three bean salad or egg salad (i.e., something QUICK) is a must for us at this point in life.
That said, I still like to make her things like zucchini fritters and chicken apricot bites, but I tend to make those on the weekend when Keenan is home since they are more time consuming. These items do last us about a whole week though, and Andee loves them. So it is still worth it to me to make her things like this.
And, biiiiggggg newsssss….. Andee ate at her first restaurant recently. I brought food for her just in case, but she ended up eating chicken fingers and fries like a champ! It was so cool to see her experience this and it didn’t hurt to hear others say how cute she was. Lol!
Lastly, as y’all might know, I am really big on reflection. I always analyze (in a good way, I think) why things have changed or why I do things a certain way. So here’s a little analyzation for ya about feeding Andee…
I have started to lighten up a bit about feeding her perfectly. I have never been super up tight about letting her try little bites of new things, like chips or sweets. But I always made sure she ate a super healthy and balanced diet. I still aim to do this, but I’m also realizing that it’s not always possible for me to feed her perfectly.
I mentioned how she is into everything, and again I will say EVERYTHING, so it’s definitely changed a lot of things for me in terms of what all I can get done in a day. I am constantly running after her and protecting her as she is such an explorer now. So I have learned to be more content with just doing what I can to feed her as healthy as I can, but with limited expectations of myself.
I don’t know if that makes much sense, but basically what I’m sayin’ is that I am wayyyyy more content with feeding Andee some frozen fish fillets if it makes my life a little easier. Lol! (But really, I did buy a box of frozen fish fillets recently… ha!)
Anyway, what is your experience like with feeding littles? Is it similar to mine or totally different. And do you have any tips that would be helpful to share? Let me know in the comments below, and happy day y’all!