Lifting the Lid on baby foods

Last Thursday, I was invited to That London to the launch of Fiona Wilcock's report into the nutritional content of Cow & Gate baby foods "Lifting The Lid".  Despite the best efforts of the Circle Line and an annoying man on the train from Cardiff, I made it to The Folly in time to meet Fiona, as well as Dr Pavel Hejzlar, one of Cow & Gate's quality experts, responsible for ensuring the quality standards of the apples that go into their jars, and one of the extended Cow & Gate family that Fiona spoke to in compiling her report.

Still a favourite!

There was plenty in the report that surprised me, for all sorts of reasons.  Apparently, more than two-thirds of mums (68%) feed their children manufactured baby foods, but less than one in ten (7%) feel confident that the food is good quality!  How strange! The smallest, most important little person in your life, you're feeding them something that you're not sure whether it's any good? Wow!  That honestly shocked me.  Squeaky's eaten a mixture of home made & manufactured baby foods from the time we first started weaning, at least in part because I'm not all that confident in my own cooking skills, but I chose products that I was confident I could trust, and that looked & sounded appealing to me as an adult.

And seemingly, we don't give ourselves enough credit.  Almost 4 in ten (39%) feel that we're being judged by other mums for not making their baby food from scratch, and 21% say it makes them feel like a bad mum.  Mums, please, you're brilliant, don't beat yourselves up!  I know where they're coming from, it's completely natural to compare yourself against others, and often against those who we aspire to be like, and we'll never come out favourably when we're looking at the people we want to be, it's a mountain to climb.


Some of the findings in the report were amazing.  Did you know that the quality controls for baby grade ingredients are actually more stringent than those for organic ingredients in the supermarket, for things such as nitrates & heavy metals.  You couldn't buy baby grade ingredients in the supermarket, they're the bananas that may be too bendy to meet EU regulations, or the apples that have skin marks where they've rested against the branches.  But they're grown far from main roads & heavy industry to keep them free from pollutants, in places where they grow best, to minimise the need for chemical treatments, and grown by farmers who have a long term relationship with Cow & Gate, ensuring Cow & Gate get the quality ingredients they need, and the farmers get a guaranteed sale for their crops as long as they maintain the standards asked of them.  Dr Pavel, and his counterparts, are there to support the farmers, to help make sure they meet these standards, and answer any problems they may have - any time!  I couldn't answer questions about apples at 6 in the morning, but I'm glad he can, because it means Squeaky can have apple puree in her porridge at 7!

Fiona also spoke to beef farmers, banana farmers, animal welfare experts and recipe developers in compiling her report, and here's a few of her other findings:

• You can't control what a free range chicken eats, so it's not necessarily the best for baby food. A welfare-assured, but controlled environment, means that the meat is going to be safe for baby's needs.
• The banana skins left over after bananas are peeled for Cow & Gate are taken back to the farms, where they are composted & used as fertiliser on the banana plantation. Recycling at its best.
• Even if you grew the veg yourself, at home, organically, you couldn't guarantee the same standards, as contaminants can stay in the soil for 20+years.
• No salt is added to any of Cow & Gate's baby foods, and the testers even find their own taste preferences change as a result of educating their palate to the additive free tastes of baby foods.

For me, I was interested in the international aspect of the foods.  Cow & Gate are a world-wide brand, and it was reassuring to find I could get foods I (and Squeaky) recognised on holiday last year.  But I wondered if they really were the same.  We've all encountered the "it doesn't taste the same as at home" argument, and I know that different countries have different regulations for food, so I wondered whether that would affect what went into a Cow & Gate jar in different countries.  And the answer?  While some recipes may vary for local preferences, the standards do not.  There's still no salt, minimal sugar (they are working on reducing & removing sugar in the small number of desserts that contain it), and the same high quality ingredients.  After all, who could say that one group of children deserve better quality food than another?

That was a big relief.  I remember last summer having some concerns over Squeaky's diet, and the things she would & wouldn't eat on holiday, and talking to other mums in the hotel having similar concerns.  I pointed them in the direction of the local supermarket, where I'd found the Cow & Gate fruit pouches that Squeaky loves.  I knew that way she was getting something good, and it was good to be able to share that discovery with the other mums.  To know that I'd got that right, and that the pouches were just the same as the ones she enjoys at home was a weight off my mind, even now.

If you want to read more, the full report is available on Cow & Gate's website - www.cowandgate.co.uk/liftingthelid

And if you ever wondered how to spot the Mummy Blogger in a room full of journalists, PRs and food experts, the Mummy Blogger is the one taking notes in red wax crayon because she hasn't got a biro in her (massively oversized) bag.

This is not a sponsored post. I was invited to attend the press launch of the report, and have chosen to share information that I found interesting.  I was not obliged to write on the subject, nor told what to include.  

Toddlers have got a lot on their plates!

Well, actually, Squeaky hasn't today.  Our conversations today have gone like this:
What do you want for lunch, Squeaky?
Cake.
Not cake. Would you like some fishcake?
Cake.
Cake AFTER. Would you like to try some fishcake, please?
Chips and sauce!
And fishcake, please.
Cake!

(She did eventually eat some of her fishcake, and I ate all of mine.)

The Toddler Census found that 78% of parents think their toddlers nutritional needs will be met if they eat the same meals as the rest of the family.  But the reality is, our toddlers' nutritional needs are quite different to our own. Pound for pound, toddlers need nearly three times as much energy from food as adults, more than 4 times more iron & vitamin C, about 3 times as much calcium, zinc & vitamin A, more fat and less salt than in an adult's diet.  And when your toddler decides that all they want to eat today is cake, that's hard to achieve.

To put it another way, to keep up with the amount of growing, learning & developing our toddlers do between the ages of 12 months - 3 years, if they were adult sized, their daily diet would need to be about 7000 calories, rather than the 2000 of a "normal" adult diet.  Or...

Click to enlarge

4 bowls of cereal
4 bananas
3 apples
2 cheese sandwiches
8 cereal bars
4 slices of bread & butter
3 portions of fish
3 portions of rice
5 full fat yogurts
nearly 2 pints of Growing Up Milk
And a partridge in a pear tree!


(Only joking about that last one!).  I feel full just looking at that list.  Stick a pepperoni pizza, a bacon sarnie and a few dozen cups of coffee in there & I'd be done for the week!

The same research showed that more than 29% of toddlers have refused to eat healthy foods (and I didn't know Squeaky had taken the questionnaire!), and why more than 16% of parents find cooking different foods for their toddlers stressful & worrying.  I know there are days when it would be so much easier to just give in to Squeaky's demands for toast, cake, chips & sauce, but she doesn't understand what her body needs to keep her fuelled for throwing herself down slides, chasing boys and singing Row Row Row Your Boat.

That's where Growing Up Milk comes in.  Knowing that 2 beakers of Growing Up Milk a day will help to meet her needs, with added vitamins A, C & D, calcium, iron & omega 3 means I can rest a little easier.  It's not a substitute for a balanced diet, but it helps even things out.

There's loads more information at http://www.growingupmilkinfo.com/ on toddlers' nutritional needs, and hints & tips on dealing with fussy eaters.  Do go over and have a look around.

Cow & Gate Growing Up Milk are sponsoring me to attend the CybHer conference in May 2012.  The statistical data in this post came from The Toddler Census, a questionnaire answered by over 1000 parents in July 2011.

Sweetcorn Bites - Review

Veggies aren't exactly popular in our house.  Try as I might, Squeaky's just not interested.  How DO toddlers know they're not supposed to like vegetables, or crusts?  Is it something they teach them in nursery?  Do they tell each other at playgroup?  The message gets around somehow.  Or is it too much Mr Bloom - maybe they think they're actually being offered Colin & Margaret to eat, and that would be wrong.

When the friendly folks at Barfoots offered us the chance to try out their Sweetcorn Bites, I thought it was worth a try.  Believe me, anything that interests Squeaky in vegetables is worth a try.  We received a box of packs of the bites, each bag contains an average of 8 chunks of corn on the cob, each one a couple of inches long.  (The first bag I tried actually had 10 in, but they're packed by weight so I hadn't won the sweetcorn lottery)

The first thing that really impressed me was that they're freezable.  I love sweetcorn, but we never seem to get through as much as I buy, and never seem to have it around when I really want it.  The whole pack can go in the freezer, ready to be pulled out & enjoyed when the mood strikes.  This was extra convenient for us as the parcel arrived just before we left to go away for the weekend, so if I hadn't been able to freeze them, we would have had to munch a lot of sweetcorn in the car!

The bites can be boiled, grilled, or microwaved.  Honest! I didn't realise you could microwave sweetcorn, but 4 mins in the machine, with a tablespoon of water & your cobs are ready to go.  Then how you eat them is up to you - a dab of butter, dunked in tomato sauce, or just as nature intended.  The cobs were gorgeous, all juicy & fresh, just the way I like them, and with their small size, they're great for parents, never mind children, as you can eat them with one hand while wrestling wax crayons, bubble wands, broken phones, or your toddlers other favourite weapon of mass destruction, so that you get your five a day, even if they don't!

Oh, yes, that.  I tried.  The cobs are so little and wee and cute, I really thought we were in with a chance.  And for a minute we almost were.  But the photo to the right was as close to consumption as we got.  A quick examination confirmed that mummy was trying to poison her with vegetables, and that was not to be tolerated.  Further attempts to offer her a sweetcorn bite were met with a blank stare and a quite firm "No mummy".  I know when I've met my match, and this is a stubborn child.

No such problems with me, or daddy.  We polished off the pack in no time.  It's great to have a simple, easy snack that's something different, but good for you.  It's amazing how virtuous you feel when you've satisfied that 3 pm nibble-craving, with something full of vitamins!

Sweetcorn Bites are available from Ocado, and selected stores of Co-op, Waitrose & Tesco.  They retail at £2.49 a bag, and Ocado have them on special offer at the moment at £3 for 2 bags.

Disclosure: I was provided with packs of Sweetcorn Bites free of charge for the purpose of this review.  I was not told what to write, and all opinions are my own.  Links are provided for your convenience only, I am not a member of any affiliate scheme & will not receive reward for their use.

Flip it!

Your pancake! What else? Honestly, some readers! I got a teeny tiny saucepan before Christmas, mostly to cook Squeaky's omelettes in, she does love a good omelette, but when your appetite only runs to a 1 egg omelette, a big frying pan isn't the best starting point. Being an inquisitive child, she came into the kitchen to watch me making pancakes (we had ours yesterday, Daddy's on a late shift tonight), and got quite interested in the tossing aspect of the pancake process. So much so that I decided to make a couple of pancakes in her little frying pan and let her have a try herself.

OK, the tossing didn't quite happen, she just jiggled the pancake back & forth a bit, but really, have you ever seen a child look so proud of herself for holding a frying pan?

What did you have on your pancakes today? We went down the traditional lemon & honey route, because I forgot about the jar of chocolate spread sitting in the kitchen cupboard. Oh well, that'll have to go on toast!

A tasty plate of...

Well, your guess is as good as mine. She definitely mentioned beans, sauce, and toast.  And said that it was tea.  (But as tea was actually quorn burgers with chips & sweetcorn, I'm still not sure)

This is Squeaky's entry into the Appliances Online Cookers Yummy Food Competition.

Tomato Soup!

Here is my entry to the Appliances Online messiest kid competition at Mother’s Always Right.

Despite what you see here, Squeaky is normally a very tidy eater, but she enjoys her tomato soup so much she wants to go face down in the bowl and make it a whole body experience!

Becoming a Mumtor

First things first... what's a Mumtor? I can see you looking a bit confused at the screen.  Well, Mumtors are Cow & Gate's Growing Up Milk Mummy Mentors.  As that's a bit of a mouthful, they took the "Mummy" and the "Mentor", mixed them up, and came up with "Mumtor".  And that's me (and a whole host of other people).

I really thought long & hard about teaming up with Cow & Gate when they asked mums to apply to be Mumtors.  I breastfed Squeaky until she was about 17 months old.  When she reached her first birthday, I started to include some formula feeds, because I knew I'd be going back to work at some point, and it meant I could wean her off me at my own pace, rather than needing to do it quickly.  And as she's a finicky creature with her food, I wanted to give her something more than cow's milk to replace the nutrients she'd been getting from me.

I'm a breastfeeding peer supporter with my local Health Board, so it might seem a bit of cross-purposes to be a Mumtor as well. But really, it's all about supporting mums through some difficult decisions, giving them the information to make their own choices in the best interests of their child.  Heck, if anything, the fact I've both breast and formula fed Squeaky means I'm not going to judge anyone, or tell them they've got to do any one thing.

Breastfeeding is bloody hard work, there's no other way to put it.  The decision to move on to toddle milk is a hard one.  Choosing the right one for you & your child is a case of trial and error.  Cow & Gate is the one that works for our family, and the one Squeaky enjoys.  So after a lot of thought, I applied to Cow & Gate to become a Mumtor, and was delighted when they chose me.  I've got a whole host of information they've sent me, results from The Toddler Census which was carried out last year, so watch out for more informative posts.

Don't worry, I'm not going to become one giant advert, I'm still me.  And I'm not going to force Growing Up Milk down your throats, either literally or figuratively.  But if you see me about in the Real Live World, have a word, I may well have a sample for you!

Cow & Gate Growing Up Milk are sponsoring me to attend the CybHer conference in May 2012.

Graco Contempo High Chair Review

As a Graco ambassador, I'm lucky enough to receive all sorts of their products to try out with Squeaky.  Our last high chair met with a bit of an accident, so I was delighted that Graco sent me their Contempo High Chair for Squeaky.

Picture courtesy of Graco UK

The Contempo is a really attractive looking high chair, with clean lines, and smooth brushed aluminium legs.  There's 5 height settings, something I'd never considered before, but as Squeaky is getting older & wants to sit at the table with us, rather than using a tray, it's something of a godsend.  We've taken the tray off, and push the chair up to the table so she can sit and join the rest of us. There's also 3 recline settings for those moments when eating is just so exhausting your little one needs a nap before finishing.

The wipe clean plastic cover is getting a good testing, spaghetti hoops are easy to remove as there's no dodgy crevices for them to fall into.  I thought I would miss the basket underneath our previous highchair, until I realised it was just a place to gather crumbs and discarded vegetables.

The Contempo comes in a Butterfly Blue design, as pictured, suitable for both boys and girls.  The seat is comfortably padded, and it's not so big as to dwarf a small baby.  The high chair folds up to an almost unbelievable 23cms, meaning it will fit into a small cupboard space, and is easy to fit into the car to take away.

 As you can see, Squeaky really likes her Contempo High Chair, and feels like a proper grown up part of the family, now she can join us at the table properly.  I think that's really important, as it reinforces her independence and encourages her to eat properly with us as she gets older.

Thank you Graco, for giving us this lovely Contempo High Chair for Squeaky.  She sends you her biggest, early morning grin!

Disclosure: I was provided with the Graco Contempo High Chair free of charge as part of my Ambassador relationship.  I was not told what to write, and all opinions are my own.  Links are provided for your convenience only, I am not a member of any affiliate scheme & will not receive reward for their use.

Please sir, can I have some more?

We're having a bit of a language explosion at the moment.  Squeaky is trying to copy all sorts of words (we had a couple of "pinky"s this evening watching In The Night Garden...), with varying degrees of success and appropriateness.  We're also getting lots of "door", "keys" and "juice". The girl knows what she wants.

There's a couple that she's properly mastered at the right times though.  And it's getting old, fast.  "Mine!" in relation to just about everything, from Daisy, via her drink, to my money.  I've tried arguing, but there's only so long you can spend on a conversation entirely consisting of "Mine!" "No, mine", "No, Mine!", "No, mine" before you just give up and let her have whatever's so important.  She usually loses interest in it then, anyway.

The other accurate word is "More!"  More drink, more chips, more dinner off my plate (it tastes better than hers), more CBeebies.  Generally More! That said, the fuss we've had with her eating, I'm not going to argue if she wants more.  We're not all Oliver Twist here, you know.

Oh yeah, there's one more word she started saying the other day.  I was having the sort of day where all I wanted to do was cry into my coffee cup and make the world go away.  Of course, that's the day Squeaky decides to start saying "DIE" to me.  In my face, repeatedly.  I know she doesn't understand it, and she doesn't mean it, but really, really not what I needed to hear.

Travelling with a Squeak - Part 2

At the end of part one, we'd survived the journey.  Now for the holiday itself.

We'd booked to go in May to avoid the hottest weather, and to avoid paying school holiday prices (cheap, yep, that's me!).  As it turned out, the weather was hotter than average, just like the preceding couple of weeks had been in the UK, so we were lucky.  Lots of sunshine, lots of factor 50 for Squeaky.

It took her a couple of days to settle, being somewhere different, I guess.  Some days she'd love the water, then others, you'd think she was being tortured, poor mite. But we just took it at her pace, let her decide whether she wanted to play in the water or not.  A set of beach toys helped (and they also helped at bathtime), but if she didn't want to swim, there was no point in forcing the issue and putting her off.

She didn't get the sandcastle building idea, but she's showing great potential as a demolition expert, knocking down our sandcastles, sand cows & sand turtles as fast as we could build them!  Well, it kept us all out of mischief.  The beach in Alcudia is HUGE, something like 8 miles long.  The sea slopes really gently too, making it great for kids.  The resort is established enough & big enough to have plenty of "real" shops, including a stonking great Lidl, and about 5 branches of Eroski (aka Spanish Tesco), selling brands you'd recognise from home.  No need to worry about nappies, wipes, formula, they're all there, so there's more space in the case for clothes!

The other really good choice we made was to go all-inclusive.  In our pre-Squeaky days we'd been on a few AI holidays to the Caribbean, and I was a little wary of AI in Europe, where hotel food isn't usually up to the same standards.  But I couldn't have been more wrong.  The food was fantastic, both for me as a picky foodie, and for Squeaky, who seems to only approve of protein.  There were enough fish fingers, burgers, chicken nuggets & unidentifiable things-in-breadcrumbs to keep her occupied, and more than enough ice-cream to fill any remaining corners.  I would have had a much more restricted diet if we'd been self-catering, as I'd've been picking food for us to share, rather than finding Squeaky-meals and Me-meals separately.

The hotel was wonderful for families, right next to the waterpark, with unlimited free access (SqueakyDaddy's holiday highlight!), the hotel's own kids clubs for 4yrs+, and the Thomas Cook kids clubs, and, wait for it... crèche!  Who thought up this wonderful idea?  We paid for a few sessions in the crèche for Squeaky, just to give us a bit of a break - very handy when you've got the packing to do!  She loved it, loads of attention, loads of toys, and lots of arty crafty activities, with British staff, all qualified (to a better standard than some of the nurseries I've seen round here).  Couldn't have asked for more.

We even managed to stay awake long enough for the evening entertainment some nights, though not many, I must admit.  A couple of glasses of wine & I just want to sleep now.  Squeaky, on the other hand, believed she was the evening entertainment - so long as you're entertained by a small child, some plastic cups, and spinning round on a dancefloor.

Would we go back to Majorca?  Yep.  To Alcudia?  Yep, a great family resort.  To Club Mac?  Definitely.

Magpie Monday - Foodie Special

I had a couple of options for this week's post, but I've gone with the foodie choice, for no better reason than that I am thoroughly BORED of clothes.

When we were in Bournemouth the other week, we went into Poole, which is seemingly Charity Shop Central.  However, I found almost nothing that took my fancy, and then bemoaned the fact that all I bought was a toast rack, not exactly a photogenic or interesting item.  Then I stopped to think about it, and about why I'd bought the toast rack in the first place.  And realised that actually, it was pretty much a perfect Magpie Monday purchase.

For me, Magpie Monday is about making the most of your money - not buying new, expensive items just because, when there's an alternative that will be every bit as good for a fraction of the price.  Reusing, reimagining, finding another life for something.

OK, so how does that match up with a second hand toast rack?  That in all honesty was probably no cheaper than one from the High Street.  Well, here's the deal.  Squeaky has discovered a love of toast.  Breakfast time, mid morning, generally whenever I offer it to her.  Toddler snacks are obscenely expensive.  A slice of toast, left to cool & crisp, then spread with butter can be packed up & taken out as a mid morning snack for roughly nothing, as we'd have bread around anyway.  And it will be met with much the same level of excitement as a biscuit, fruit bar, or whatever.  So, not only have I saved a bit of tree, metal, whatever, in buying a second hand toast rack, but I save money every time I use it as Squeaky has a free snack, rather than an expensive packaged one.

While we're on the subject of food, I have a confession to make.  I'm a rubbish cook, with a fetish for cookbooks.  I'm sure I'm not alone.  I read them, look at the pictures, get ideas, and do nothing about it.  I'm trying to curb this habit, but if I find a nice looking cookbook on my travels, I can't resist snapping it up, in the hope I might actually use this one.

The Readers Digest one cost me 50p from a car boot sale in Cannock, the M&S one £1.50 from the BHF shop in Weston.  You never know, I might make something from one soon.  Maybe.


Check out the other bargains

Feeding Woes - The battle continues

If you were reading this blog back at the start last year (Ooops, I let my first blogaversary slip by without noticing), you've been bored enough to read the archive, or you've had me earbashing you in real life, you'll know that La Squeak had issues with her weight when she was a tiny creature, but with a whole load of support from our Breastfeeding Support worker we worked out supplementary breast feeds, expressing, and somehow dragged her back onto the graph.

Since then she's been fairly good.  Stayed pretty stable, and eaten most things I've offered her, with the exception of spinach, I'm sad to say.  A slight slip when she got an attack of Norovirus the tail end of last year, but I didn't feel much like eating then either.  Fruit, veggies, curry, yorkshire puddings, pickled onions, yeah, she's an odd kid.

But for the last week or so, it's all gone sideways.  She's cutting her first molar at the moment, and threw up a couple of small meals/snacks, I think through pain, and now she's refusing almost everything. Breakfast porridge goes down ok, though not with huge enthusiasm.  Chocolate spread sandwiches, yogurts, fruit pouches and jelly are about the only other things I'll vaguely call food that she'll even consider.  A bit of toast with philly on it was a major triumph this evening.  I'm trying not to get worked up, she's a little more inclined to eat if I'm paying no attention to her, but I'm getting twitchy.  She needs more food, dammit!

She ate a slice of ham from the samples at Tesco's deli counter yesterday, but when I offered her the same at home, she didn't want to know. Grrr.  I think I'll just put a picnic on her tray tomorrow & see how much goes in her, rather than down the walls.  I'm sure there's some more pickled onions round here somewhere.

Feeding Frenzy

I'm the one with the frenzy.  My previously adventurous daughter has suddenly developed an attack of the toddlers.  She's decided that, aside from breakfast & yogurts, she won't be fed.  She's got to feed herself.  And only eat roughly the third thing I offer her.  ARGH!!!  I made spaghetti bolognaise last night, because she normally wolfs it down, and we had tears and tantrums before the first spoonful had even reached her mouth.

It's not so bad if we're at home, I've got a mat down under the highchair & some of those full-body bibs, so messes are fairly easy to clean up, but what about eating out?  We've been able to take her out with us for meals up to this point & she's eaten happily & behaved beautifully.  What happens now?  Can I only ever eat at McDonalds?  (Actually, I could just fancy a burger, but that's not the point)

I know she needs to learn to feed herself.  But does she have to be so grouchy about it?  We do fingerfoods just fine, but one thing I've been so proud of this far is that what she eats, she actually eats, not throws around.  Clearly those days are gone.  Hmph.

Organix Meals

This is a sponsored post

I was very lucky to be sent some of Organix's newest Stage 3 meals for Squeaky to try out recently.  We received jars of the Organic Noodles with Fruity Chicken & Veg and Organic Spaghetti Bolognaise, as well as a pack of the Organic Multigrain Ricecakes.  As you can see, Squeaky was eager to get on with the important task of eating them!

First off, we tried the noodles with fruity chicken & veg (that's the one she's grabbing in that photo, by the way!)  The official Squeaky verdict is yum yum.  For me, it's lovely as she's getting older and progressing with eating, to be able to see the actual ingredients in food, rather than one-coloured mush.  This is a brilliant example of this, pasta sauce filled with visible red peppers, sweetcorn & raisins.  Seasoned with garlic & ginger, I managed to sneak a tiny sample away from Squeaky, and it's lovely.  Really tasty, like food should be.  Squeaky gobbled it down, without any messing (even though I was feeding her in a cafe & had forgotten a bib!) 


Then we gave the Spaghetti Bolognaise a try.  I have to be honest, I was hoping she wouldn't like it.  My spag bol is one of Squeaky's favourite meals, and there's a part of me that wants it to stay that way, as it makes fairly regular appearances on our menu.  But to prove me wrong, she loved it. No, really loved it.  Even more than the chicken, which was a great success.  I've never seen her eat so fast! Not even the first mouthful "what IS this" face, just straight into gobbling and smiling, and I think I even heard a little "nomnom".  Definitely a success, albeit at the expense of my wannabe Nigella pride.

And finally, the ricecakes! I've been looking all over for plain ricecakes.  Our local supermarkets only stock the sweet ones, and I wanted to give Squeaky something to have as fingerfoods when I'm feeding her main meal.  OK they stock adult ricecakes, but they're all salted or flavoured which isn't suitable.  So I was really chuffed to get these. Squeaky's a very tidy self-feeder with snacks, she'll sit and eat a biscuit or banana quite happily, but she has a habit of just throwing things around at mealtimes, so I'm trying to get her to associate the self-feeding with mealtimes as well as snacks.  She loves ricecakes, though she was a little bit confused when she sat in her highchair & then the ricecakes came out.  The multigrain gives them more flavour & texture than the simple rice ones, as well as looking more interesting (and I'm sure if I was a nutritionist, I'd be able to tell you all sorts of things about the additional nutritional value of the buckwheat & millet).  All I know is Squeaky likes them, and even if she does throw them on the floor, they're easy to clear up.  It's serious business eating them, mind you!

I said at the start of this post that they were new, didn't I? Very very new!  The jars go on sale in Tesco on 14 Jan (that's yesterday!), Asda from 7 Feb & Boots from the end of Feb, at £1.15 a jar.  The ricecakes also go on sale in Tesco on 14 Jan, Sainsbury's from 30 Jan, and Asda from 7 Feb, at £1.19 a bag.

HIPP Organic Jars Review

I was lucky enough to be sent some HIPP Organic jars for Squeaky to try out, recently. Like 40% of mums in HIPP's survey, we mix & match home made foods & jars - for convenience, for reliability (she can be a fussy creature some days), and for variety. I also think the jars are a good way to try out new flavours before including them in my own cooking - I don't feel so bad if she turns down something from a jar, rather than something I've made.

We received the Lancashire Hotpot, Spaghetti with tomatoes & mozzarella, Cocoa & vanilla dessert & Rice pudding with apple & pear. I've bought both the savouries before, but not the desserts, we tend to go for fresh/chilled desserts normally, but these are great if you're out & about.

And for the verdict... Spaghetti is the favourite, seriously, she'd eat this for every meal if I let her. It looks like proper grown-up food, and goes down a treat. Close runner up was the Cocoa dessert, she's only recently taken to chocolate flavours, but after the first spoonful, it was met with great enthusiasm. I sneaked a little try myself, and it's really tasty!

HIPP are running a winter warmer competition on their facebook site at the moment http://www.facebook.com/hippuk - see if you can be a winner! Or find out more at http://www.hippbabyclub.co.uk/index.php 

Disclosure: I was provided with 4 jars of HIPP Organic food free of charge for the purpose of this review.  I was not told what to write, and all opinions are my own.  Links are provided for your convenience only, I am not a member of any affiliate scheme & will not receive reward for their use.

Cheese Straws!

As promised (though without a cut, I'm still not that smart), the recipe for the cheese straws I made the other day.  The book's going out on loan to another mum soon, so I've got an ulterior motive in as much as I want to make some more while it's elsewhere.  No apologies for imperial measurements, I'm Old Skool! 

4oz plain flour
2oz butter, plus extra for greasing
2os grated cheddar cheese
1 beaten egg

Sift the flour, chop the butter into small pieces & rub in to the flour until it turns like breadcrumbs.
Add the cheese and half (or slightly over) the beaten egg to the mixture.  Combine with your hands until it forms a dough and the bowl comes clean.  Wrap in cling film & put in the fridge for half an hour.
Preheat the oven to 200c/Gas Mark 6. (My recipe book told me to do that as step one.  Before half an hour of chilling?  I think not!)
Sprinkle some flour on a work surface &roll out the dough to about 1/4 inch thick.  Cut into strips, to the size & shape that make you happiest.  Or you could make them cookie shaped if you wanted, I guess.
Place on a greased baking sheet.  Brush generously with the remaining beaten egg.  You could sprinkle them with sesame seeds, a little parmesan, or whatever takes your fancy here.
Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes, or until lightly golden.  Don't cook for too long or they'll dry out.
Cool & serve or store in an airtight box for up to 4 days.  Ha!  As if!  They're gorgeous warm, straight out of the oven.

Snow!

Gosh, the snow's a bit unexpected, isn't it? I was happily sitting in my breastfeeding peer support training yesterday morning, when I spotted the first little white flutter, and within an hour it was properly sticking.  Brrrrrr!  The girls at the peer support group were very impressed with the Symbio, and I had to keep popping outside to demonstrate it to them.  I was very glad it's so light, too, as I had to push Squeaky up the snowy hill from the class to the car park before we could go home.  Our other pushchair would have been pushing me back down the hill!

We spent yesterday afternoon hiding out in the house, making cheese straws.  They definitely get the Squeaky seal of approval, as well as the Mummy & Daddy approval.  Definitely moreish.  If I can work out how to do a cut on here, I might go as far as to give you a recipe, but that's something for another day, 'kay?

Today we decided to stave off cabin fever by heading out into the big wide world.  It's pretty much impossible to get the car out of our road when the snow hits, we're on a steep hill, on the side of another steep hill (does that make sense?).  Last year (well, January this year really), I was hugely pregnant in the snow, and completely stuck in the house for 2 weeks, as I couldn't get past the front door for fear of falling onto my bump.  Very glad that's over.

We wrapped ourselves up nice & warm, gave a silent thanks to Graco for sending us the cosy-toes to go with the Symbio, and walked into the village.  No plan of where to go & what to do, so decided to jump on the bus & head to town. 

The big wheels on the Symbio, as well as how light it is, made it really easy to get onto the bus, and the swivelling front wheels meant we could get into the space at the front with no problems.  Brake on, and away we go.  SOMEone slept through the whole journey, which goes to show how comfortable she was.    The subtitle to that photo is "This gives me an idea..."  which it does, or I wouldn't have said it (durrr).  I'm not going to say what my idea is just yet, it's going to take a little bit more planning, but it could be a lot of fun.

Town was freezing, though the streets were nice & clear, and we had a happy shopping excursion, not spending much, but trying to.  The Symbio was lovely to manoeuvre around, and comes in slightly narrower than its predecessor, as I could fit through a couple of gaps I've got stuck in before.  After a while, we popped into the pub for a spot of lunch (fish & chips, yummy), and to warm up our freezing hands. 

As you can see, we got the "Moon" grey colour version of the Symbio & cosy-toes.  While I've been loving pictures of the red, I can just imagine it clashing with the snowsuit.  Grey is perfect for us, so stylish, and goes with my roots!

Noms

As I've said before, Squeaky isn't the biggest of babies.  It's strange sometimes putting her down next to her peers, she looks a month or two younger than she is, but she's bang on target (or ahead of) in terms of sitting, crawling etc. It takes other people by surprise more than it does me.

Well anyway.  The last few days her appetite's been a bit upside down, with feeling grotty & full of cold.  But I think today, we can officially say we're back to normal.  Whole bowl of baby porridge.  A couple of organic carrot crispy things.  Half a jar of veg & noodle (smelled lush) stage 2 jar.  A whole dairylea triangle.  A decent sized bowl of homemade turkey cassserole thing.  About 3 sticks of cheddar cheese (fed to herself, too!)  AND a pot of apple & blackcurrant fruit goop.  My my, I'm really looking forward to tomorrow's nappies!

Her eating has really picked up in the last few weeks, pretty closely matching the fact she's getting more & more active, I guess.  And though her weight gain is fairly slow & steady, she looks like she's getting bigger, so I'm more interested in what her clothes say than what the scales say.  She's happy & healthy and growing & doing.  Yeah, things are good today.

And tonight she's gone off to sleep properly without an hour of performing & crying, like we've had the rest of the week.  Whether it's that she's feeling better, or whether it's the Baby Einstein Vivaldi cd I picked up in the pound shop this morning, she's asleep, and I can relax at last.

Update of Random Points

Oh, the excitement!  Today, we ate our dinner sitting in the high chair for the first time.  And with our new high chair toy to distract us from the fact that we were eating something new.  Actually, that's a point.  Do you know how FEW high chair toys there are available on the high street?  Yep, there's plenty on Amazon, but that would involve waiting for deliveries, etc, and Squeaky wanted one NOW.  Argos have a choice of one, overpriced and not very nice.  Tescos have none.  Ditto Wilkos, Boots, Matalan and everywhere else I could think of the other day.  Last chance saloon today, Asda.  Hooray!  They had a cute, Fisher Price, reasonably priced one, in fact, the one I found on Amazon only as a Japanese import.  And Squeaky likes it enough to bash it about while having spoonfuls of bolognaise shovelled into her.  No spag, just bol, with added sweet potato & parsnip (yuck, but she seems to like it) mixed in to stop it being All About The Mince.

Yeah, that as well.  Our diet has expanded to include Weetabix, Petits Filous, tuna, chicken, pork, beef, and most things I offer her, unless they involve potatoes.  For some reason potatoes are not for eating.  Le sigh.  She'd better move on from that, or life is going to be complicated.  She was happy to suck on a chip the other week, so what's wrong with my mash, I don't quite know.

And random strangers are annoying me again.  Yes, she's a small child.  She was small when she was born, she continues to be at the smaller end of the scale, but she's fine, I have a letter from the hospital that says just that.  I'm sure your 8 month old, bottle fed nephew IS twice her size, but that might be something to do with being a) older, b) male, and c) bottle fed.  Squeaky is her very own size & shape, she eats plenty, poos plenty, and is none of your business.  Grrr.

We're BAAAACK!

I know, I know, I'm a rubbish blogger.  The whole point of this was to make me write more frequently, but I'm just not that kind of person, or I don't have that kind of life, or something.

The whole Squeaky family went off to Devon last week for a little holiday.  It seems quite alien to me that my main holiday for the year is a week in a holiday park, only a couple or 3 hours drive from home, but giving up multiple foreign jaunts each year is the price we have to pay for having Squeaky, and she's worth it.

Oh, we had adventures!  All sorts of adventures.  Trips to the beach during the first couple of days when the weather was sunny.  Now Squeaky's that bit older, she spent a lot of the time playing with sand.  Not in the sandcastle building sense, obviously.  But in the "Wow!  What's this powdery stuff?  Can I eat it?" sense, running it through her fingers, pouring it on her face, then objecting to the sand being on her face, things like that.  It's incredible to watch her become more and more aware of the world around her, and start to explore it more.

We also went to a "haunted" manor house, where Squeaky made very well timed comments (raspberries) while the guide was talking, but was generally good as gold, went on a funicular railway, where she charmed everyone, ate ice-cream & white chocolate buttons (don't tell my health visitor, please), and to a farm park, where she made friends with sheep, goats, horses, ducks and bunnies.  Giant bunnies, like the ones on Teletubbies!

And we stayed up late in the evening, watching the entertainment, or watching the world cup final.  Squeaky fell asleep before the end, but then again, I wasn't far behind her.  She slept in her travel cot without any complaint, which is another big relief, and means we don't need to worry about renting a cot when we go elsewhere.  And she went swimming nearly every day, making friends wherever she went.  It's amazing how many people want to talk to a small and chirpy baby.

Hooray for John Fowler holidays, because we had a lovely little chalet, right by the pool and entertainment.  Plenty big enough for 2 adults and a Squeaky, parking outside our door (you don't get that at the bigger parks).  Friendly welcome for us all, enough to keep us occupied, but not so much that you feel like you're missing something if you decide to have an early night.

And now, Squeaky's 6 whole months old!  I can't believe how the time has flown.  She's learned and grown so much, and taught me so much.  She had a whole bowl of cereal this morning, and she's having three solid meals a day, though not always very much of them.  She's eaten chicken, both fresh cooked by me, and from a jar, all sorts of veggies and fruits, and a few things she possibly shouldn't have (see above ice-cream & white choc buttons).  No great quantities of the treat foods, just a little try to introduce more texture, flavour, etc.  As long as it doesn't get in the way of proper food, or become too much of a habit, I don't see it as a problem.