Baby Food!

Now that Lilly is starting on solids, I have been channeling my inner hippie and making my own baby food.  She is still only eating solids as a supplement in order to learn how to eat - that is, breast milk is still her primary source of nutrition.  I have read that "meals" come into play around the 9 month mark.


I decided to make my own food for several reasons.  I am not saying that there is one single thing wrong with food from a jar - I grew up on it, as most of us did, and I turned out fine.  I am also not saying that Lilly will never eat food from a jar.  She probably will.  There is something to be said, though, in my opinion, for knowing what is going into Lilly's food.  Making my own has, so far, been super easy.  It took Dan and I a little over an hour to make a TON of food. Additionally, due to the fact that we are not yet replacing meals with solids, she doesn't eat that much food in one sitting.  I have been freezing the food that I make in ice cube trays, which is just about the exact amount that she eats at one time. If cost is an issue, it's also cheaper.  :-)


I have used two resources so far, both of which were recommended by Lilly's pediatrician.  The first is the Baby Love Cookbook:

Y'all.  I LOVE this cookbook.  It is super informative and SO EASY.  It is organized into stages and has tons of helpful information on buying produce, what to freeze and not to freeze, what you can feed baby when, and much, much more.  I got my copy on Amazon and it wasn't very expensive.


The other resource I've been using, per the pediatrician's recommendation, is the Wholesome Baby Food website.  The recipes on this website are similar to the ones in the book, but there is a TON of helpful information on the website.  For example, it goes into a great bit of detail about when to feed what (stages), how to store, food allergies, etc.  Both have been super helpful!


The one thing our pediatrician told us to definitely buy instead of make is rice cereal and oatmeal.  I can't remember why she said to buy those, I think it had something to do with the fact that she wanted us to get the iron-fortified stuff, but I've just bought both per her instructions.  It's just as well because Lilly hates them both, ha!


So far, Lilly has eaten rice cereal (hates), oatmeal (hates), bananas, avocados, pears, butternut squash and sweet potatoes.  For right now, we feed her solids once a day, after her last "big" feeding of the day (before bath and bed).  Once I've introduced a few more things (up next: carrots, peas, apples and peaches), I'm going to move to twice a day and let her have a fruit in the  morning and a veggie at night.  Exciting stuff!  L has really gotten the hang of eating.  She opens her mouth when you get near it with a spoon like it's her job, and sometimes she gets mad if she likes something and I'm not feeding her fast enough.  I can always tell whether she likes something based on the faces she makes and whether or not she spits it out.


Here are some photos I took of the prep work and finished products when we made butternut squash, sweet potatoes and pears to freeze:

Pears!

Butternut squash and sweet potatoes.

Butternut squash and sweet potatoes.

Sweet potatoes.

LG LOVES to eat (clearly):  

In closing, on the off chance that anyone else is interested in making their own baby food, I thought I'd share a few tips that I found helpful:

• If you have a food processor or blender, there is no need to buy any baby food making gadget (read: Baby Bullet or others like it) unless you just really want to.  They are just smaller food processors, so why spend the money?
• Ditto on food storage.  There are plenty of fancy storage containers with lids that you can spend money on.  In fact, I knew I wanted to make some baby food so we registered for these, and I'm glad we didn't get them.  Both the book and the website suggest freezing in ice cube trays and then putting the food cubes in ziploc bags labeled with the date.  It is super easy and takes up a lot less room.
• Everything I've read says not to freeze avocado, but I couldn't help but feel wasteful because Lilly eats less than 1/8th of an avocado in one sitting and they don't keep for very long.  They're not super expensive, but it still sucks having to throw basically a whole avocado away.  I have found that they will keep in the refrigerator for a few days if you leave the pit in tact.  Additionally,  Stephanie told me that if you slice an avocado into thin slices, lay them on wax paper, freeze overnight and then put in a ziploc (much like your baby food cubes), they will come out fine.  I have yet to try it, but plan to next time I have an avocado.  She said if there is any brown when she's taken hers out of the freezer, it's been very little and she just cut it right off.

I guess that's all for tonight.  I can't believe it's already Hump Day...where are my weeks going?!

Sarah

WTFT (What the french toast)?!?!?!

Good evening, friends! Tonight we're going to play a little game I like to call, "Tell Me About the Craziest Thing That Happened to You on April 24, 2012, the 3-Month Anniversary of the Birth of your Sweet Lilly." It's a fun game, just you wait and see.

I have blogged before about what a pain it is to maneuver around my pump when caring for Lilly. I typically try to time it and pump right after she eats, so that she's happy or sleepy and my life will be easier. It's hard to pick her up, change her diaper, etc. with cone boobs. So yesterday, she ate and was laying beside me on the couch playing and drifting off to sleep, when all of a sudden Layla started barking at something outside. Layla's barking startled Lilly, and the child started SCREAMING and crying the most pitiful cry ever - almost as pitiful as her cry was when she got her 2-month shots. There were huge crocodile tears - lots of them - and she was crying so hard she kept gagging. She has never done that before, and it was truly so pitiful that my eyes watered for her because she was literally inconsolable - nothing I did helped.

I tried everything, and finally got tired of trying to maneuver around my pump so I gave up and took it off. I didn't get dressed or anything, just went to pick her up to try to comfort her, and you will NEVER. GUESS. what this child did. SHE LATCHED ON AND STARTED NURSING. Let me let that sink in...

Yep, you read correctly. My child, who had a perfect latch until her pediatrician made us supplement with formula and after that absolutely refused to nurse, latched on yesterday. Three months later. After I spent the first month and a half of her life in tears at every. single. feeding because either her latch was so terrible I was bleeding, or she was just over it started screaming and refused to breast feed any time I put her near a boob.

I was baffled, to say the least. I was so surprised that I just sat there for a minute with my jaw hanging open. I immediately texted Stephanie. I also responded to an e-mail from Elisabeth about something totally unrelated with the news, because Elisabeth spent several hours trying to help us before I gave up and went to exclusively pumping. My question to both was: what in the H@%*?!?!?! Is this just a freak thing? Probably it's just a freak thing. If I try again at the next feeding, no way she'll do it. Should I try again at the next feeding? What do I do?!?!

The only thing I can figure is that (TMI coming your way, skip this part boys, sorry Dad!) pumping makes your nipples really big, and it was more like a bottle nipple and she just went for it? Because it wasn't even time for her to eat yet - she took 10-15 pulls and then fell asleep. So, when she started to wake and around the time I knew she'd be hungry, I held her off with the paci and pumped for two minutes to get them big again and by George, the child nursed...again. Twice in one day.

I am still in shock. I didn't want to blog it yesterday in her "developments" because I didn't want to jinx it, but she has nursed for every feeding with the exception of one (tonight when I went to the gym, Dan gave her a bottle since his boobies aren't full of milk, ha!) for the last 24 hours. Her latch is perfect, and it doesn't hurt me one bit. The only thing she's trying to get the hang of is when to stop - twice today she spit up from eating too much. At first I kept thinking, GOSH this would have been SO MUCH EASIER if you had done this from the beginning. But then I started thinking, maybe this is how it was supposed to be. I honestly think that this was God's way of teaching me another lesson in patience.

I am so excited about this development that I wasn't even mad when she woke up at 4:30 - she went to bed way earlier than usual last night and I couldn't get her to wake up for the dream feed, so I figured she'd be up kind of early anyway and was, for once, excited about it. It was so easy and so much quicker and less of a pain than coming downstairs to heat a bottle. I fed her right in her room, still in her swaddle, and she was back asleep in less than 20 minutes.

The benefit to all of the pumping I've had to endure is that (1) I have 300 ounces of milk already frozen in case I need it in the future and (2) I'm already used to it for when I go back to work. I am still trying to get the hang of knowing when the ladies are empty in order to keep my supply up for when I go back to work. For example, I know I always get 16-20 oz first thing in the morning, and I knew there was no way she ate that much this morning, so I pumped after she ate and got 10 ounces or so in 12 minutes.

Anyway, I thought this was exciting information and worth sharing considering how supportive and encouraging you have all been. The moral to the story is: have patience, and don't give up. And my child is stubborn as all get out and has been holding out on me. Wonder where she gets that from? I say her Daddy. ;-)

Happy Hump Day! Stay tuned tomorrow for laundry tips & tricks and how I got the stain out (!!!) of her baptism dress!

Sarah

PS - Did you vote today?

Pumping

Yesterday, I almost exclusively pumped.  I say "almost" because we nursed one time, yesterday morning.  Lilly kept falling asleep, as usual.  I gave her 30 minutes on each breast, and when she looked like she was in a milk coma I assumed she was full.  She had a HUGE blowout (the third of the night/morning) just before we nursed, and it was all over her clothes and pretty much every body part, so I cleaned her really quickly with wipes prior to feeding but decided to give her a quick bath after while she was happy.  "Happy" is relative, because she was NOT pleased about the bath.  Even after the bath, once she was clothed and warm and wrapped in a blanket, she was still fussy.  Since she mostly slept and didn't eat, I figured she was hungry, so we nursed for another 30 minutes.  She appeared to be in another milk coma, but then got fussy again 30 minutes later.  I gave her a bottle with 2 ounces of breast milk since she normally eats 4, figuring she got some while she was nursing so she wouldn't be as hungry.  Wrong-o.  We ended up giving her 4 ounces and then she passed out for 4.5 hours. 

My aunts and grandparents were here visiting, and after all of that it just seemed easier to pump, so I just did that for the rest of the day.  It worked out fine - feedings took 30 minutes instead of 1.5 hours, then I pumped for 30 minutes while she played and/or slept and we were done. 

My ONLY complaint about pumping?  The following photo is what I accumulated in just one day.  Behold:

The bottles take up almost my entire top rack in the dishwasher.  Some of them are from feeding Lilly and some are what I pumped into.  The two baskets on the counter are from her bottles (true story, we ordered a second basket because we were flying through the bottles), and the stolen pink hospital tub to the left is full of additional pump parts that I steam cleaned in the microwave because they're too small for the dishwasher and will float around everywhere. 

I have already sent Dan out for more pump parts one time - I now have four sets of parts.  If I am going to exclusively pump, I may get a couple more sets because prior to putting those in the dishwasher I hand washed the pump parts 3 or 4 times yesterday for re-use.  And now, I am running the dishwasher with a practically empty lower basket because I need for all of the pump parts and bottles to be clean.  I realize that is probably wasteful, but honestly it is a lot easier than having to hand wash everything - which I have also done but yesterday I was feeling lazy. 

I think a big part of the reason that we use so much stuff in a day is that she has been eating pretty often - normally around 8 times per day when we were giving her just 3 ounces.  Which translates to a LOT of bottles - two to pump into and then a different bottle which she eats out of (Dr. Brown's - love them!).  We started giving her 4 ounce bottles at the midnight feeding yesterday, and she only ate 7 times as a result - but there were two or three times when she didn't eat all 4 ounces.  It will be interesting to see if her feedings decrease in number with the larger bottles.  Once she gets to the point where she is going longer between feedings, we will obviously not use as much stuff during a day, but for now I am feeling like an earth killer.  Mom friends out there who are reading and exclusively pumped for any period of time - any advice?  One thing I've thought about is letting her drink out of the actual bottles I pump into instead of transferring the milk to the Dr. Brown's bottles.  However, and I know this will sound crazy - she is so much happier when we use the Dr. Brown's bottles.  I guess they are made better or something because she gets much less air and is therefore much less gassy and a LOT happier when we use them.

The good news is that since we made the jump to 4 ounces each feeding, she has slept MUCH better.  I am not sure whether this is due to the increased amount of breast milk - as mentioned above, a few times yesterday she didn't even eat the whole thing - or due to the fact that she was awake for longer periods of time yesterday, but she slept a whole extra hour between each feeding last night.  I know it doesn't sound like much, but I wish I could tell you how much even that one tiny extra hour helped me!  I needed it, and feel like a new person today.  Still tired, don't get me wrong, but feeling a lot better.

I still haven't made a decision as to whether to keep nursing with the shield or switch to pumping exclusively.  If we have any more incidents like yesterday where she just apparently was not eating when we nursed, then we will definitely make the switch.  Who can blame her?  It's much easier (and faster) for her to eat out of a bottle - she doesn't have to work nearly as hard.  So far today I've been pumping again, but if my pump parts aren't clean and dry within the hour we may have no choice but to nurse the next round.  Wish us luck.

Hope everyone's having a happy hump day!

Sarah