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Peppa Pig Cupcakes & A 3rd Birthday Party

Poppets Mum — Mon, 07 May 2012 15:38:23 +0000

How on earth did that happen? Poppet just turned 3. It’s true what they say, the years fly by and if you blink you miss it, luckily we didn’t blink and it’s been a brilliant rollercoaster ride so far.

For the past 6 months Poppet has had a slight obsession with Peppa Pig (I say slight but what I really mean is she’s utterly obsessed) and has been insistant that she wanted that as the theme for her 3rd birthday party. Whilst being pleased that she knew what she wanted I was also a little reluctant as for the month before her 2nd birthday she adored Winnie The Pooh, and then she gleefully announced – on the morning of her party – “Mummy, I don’t like Winnie The Pooh”. This year she’s also been in to Lightning McQueen from the ... Read More »

Are Children’s Menus A Good Thing?

Poppets Mum — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 15:55:14 +0000

Before we weaned Poppet and learnt about baby led weaning I never gave childrens menus a second thought, but going through the baby led weaning process got me thinking about all sorts of things to do with childrens nutrition and how we historically teach them about food and how to eat. Last week I saw this post about Carluccio (of Carluccio’s restaurants) – he has publicly questioned whether kids menus are a good thing.

This is something that my better half and I spent some time discussing when our first child started eating out with us. Why on earth would we put a plate of chicken nuggets and chips in front of our child when she would be just as happy sharing our fish / steak / vegetables. For a long time we skipped childrens menus entirely until such time ... Read More »

BLW Second Time Around

Poppets Mum — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 12:30:15 +0000

So we’ve dusted the blog off, given it a bit of a face lift and here we are again. We’ve multiplied! “Squeaks” joined us mid 2011 and we started BLW with him a few months back. Having two kids is so much harder than one I just have not had the time to update the blog like I did first time around but I’m here to make amends.

I wasn’t sure of the value of writing about weaning “Squeaks” as I think I thought it would be the same but as soon as we started I realised I was wrong.

I was surprised at myself in the week or two leading up to him being 6 months old. I looked at him, my tiny baby boy, and thought there was no way he was going to be able to pick up some ... Read More »

Babies & Inventive Eating Techniques

Poppets Mum — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 19:48:03 +0000

Over the past few months we’ve seen Poppet do a few really funny things with food. There was the face planting on her tray to eat yoghurt, and the spaghetti dangle. But today she had us in absolute stitches with her inventiveness. Normally we use cloth bibs but we’d run out, so ‘G’ got out her solid plastic ‘pelican mouth’ bib. You know the kind, they have that scooped mouth at the bottom to catch falling food. Anyway, it kept Poppet entertained for a while – she spent ages gazing at the bits of dinner (meatloaf, peas, broccolli and mash) and then she lifted the bib, dropped her bottom lip underneath it, and lifted the bib some more. And hey presto! In rolled a pea, then some meatloaf Luckily I had my phone to hand so we managed ... Read More »

3 Months In, An Honest Account Of BLW So Far

Poppets Mum — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 13:42:26 +0000

Poppet has now wriggled her way past the 9 month mark and we’ve been doing baby led weaning for over 3 months, so we thought we would post a sort of review of BLW so far and how it’s worked for us.

The first month felt like a huge learning curve, her learning how to eat, us learning what shape and size to make her food so she could manage it, finally settling on ‘the bigger the better’. Forget melon sticks, she was happier with a proper man size wedge – actually I never did post about this before but giving your little one a proper slice of melon at the end of a messy meal is a great way to clean their face

Anyway the 1st month was full of foods like:

Fruit sticks & wedges – cut big so ... Read More »

Eating Out & Baby Led Weaning

Poppets Mum — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 17:07:55 +0000

In the first week or so of 2010 we ventured out for a big family lunch, the first time we’d really attempted a proper meal out since poppet started BLW. We decided to play it safe to start with and take a few bits and pieces with us that we knew she could munch on, particlularly if there was much of a wait for food – some breadsticks, a rice cake, and some mango chunks, plus her normal cup of water.

Those worked a treat at keeping her occupied once we’d placed our orders and the food didn’t take too long – she shared my fish, chips and peas (straight off the ultra clean table as there was no tray on the highchair) and she was great. She thoroughly enjoyed herself and left us free to enjoy our own meal. It ... Read More »

Convincing Your Baby To Eat Vegetables. Or Not.

Poppets Mum — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 12:15:31 +0000

When I started to read all about weaning I found much talk about the need to disguise vegetables so that your little one would eat them. Having then found various baby led weaning websites, and no mention whatsoever of disguising food we thought we’d take the easy option.

So we cleverly dressed a broccoli floret up like….. a broccoli floret, dressed a carrot up like a carrot and (this is my favourite) we disguised a baby sweetcorn as …. wait for it…. a baby sweetcorn. And she fell for it! Really! She ate the lot

Eh hem. Sarcasm over. My point is that sometimes it’s worth giving the little ones a chance to decide for themselves if they like veggies or not? If you don’t teach your baby they are supposed to dislike vegetables then maybe, just maybe, they’ll actually ... Read More »

Peas. Actually Make It Double Peas.

Poppets Mum — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 10:44:05 +0000

Poppet has just mastered her pincer grip so peas (and other tricky stuff) have been on the menu lately. She loves them to an almost obsessive point, and if we give her 5 different things to eat she’ll go with peas, more peas, more peas, more peas!! Now that she’s much better handling smaller items I have found myself relaxing so much more and she’s coping great – no gagging, she’s just really happy tucking in. New foods have been:

beans on toast (she sometimes picks ALL the beans off, eats them, and leaves the toast!) mince with peas and carrots, often with pasta twirls or mash chunks of fruit rather than fingers – eg mango & nectarine pieces

She’s also started to pull larger bits of food apart and eat the smaller bits, as though she’s really enjoying her new found dexterity. We’re ... Read More »

Squishy Foods, Using Fingers & Dropping Stuff

Poppets Mum — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 16:00:50 +0000

We eat quite a lot of foods that we just aren’t able to cut into wedges or shapes that poppet can pick up, like spaghetti bolognese and cottage pie, not to mention the obvious things like yoghurts and soups. She has just started to figure out that dipping her fingers and licking them works really well and she is now happily scooping runny foods up.

As much as this makes life a little easier it does make it messier still! Bath times are now a must straight after dinner, as are more substantial bibs. We’ve got a few of the long sleeved ones from Tescos and Mothercare that also have a waterproof backed front to them which definitely saves having to change her clothes too much, but they can be a bit of a faff to put on and I’ve found ... Read More »

Pre Loaded Spoons And The Splatter Effect

Poppets Mum — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:42:48 +0000

Oh my goodness the splatter effect. We had a new kitchen put in while I was pregnant and had the foresight to get gloss white (think ‘wipe clean’) cupboards and a tiled floor. And thank goodness we did because wipe clean they certainly have been, twice a day to be precise. Having said that we find meal times getting cleaner everyday. I use ‘cleaner’ in the loosest sense of the word but we remain ever optimistic, and as long as we keep a relaxed attitude to mealtimes we find ourselves laughing at the mess rather than getting stressed about it. The thing is, BLW or not, poppet just loves yoghurt and those other yoghurt style fruity puddings. We load the spoon up, hand it to her and away she goes.

We’ve now started using up an old packet of bin bags, ... Read More »