a day of solids: 11 months

Ok, she’s not quite 11 months yet, but she will be on Friday, so it’s close enough!  It’s time for another Munchkin Meals link up – thank again to Brittany at A Healthy Slice of Life for hosting!

We have been having a lot of struggles with both solids and nursing this month.  Alma just doesn’t seem to want much of anything!  We are going in for a weight check with our lactation consultant next week, but her last weight check was a little low.  Still gaining, just slowly.  I know she is growing – we put away a bunch of clothes that she outgrew recently, and I need to adjust the waist band on her cloth diapers to allow more room.  But, on the other hand, she is waking more at night (back to 2x a night instead of once).

She’s only been nursing from one side at each feeding, when she has always taken both.  I know that my supply is way too low for her to be getting enough milk at one side per feeding, so I’m pretty worried about that.  I’ve been pumping a little to keep my supply up and trying to give her the pumped milk in a cup.  She still doesn’t drink very much from a cup, either, and hates the bottle.  I’m not able to yield nearly as much milk as I used to with the pump, which makes me think that my supply has gone down a lot.

I’m so worried that my milk supply is just going to tank, and we won’t be able to reach my long term goal of breastfeeding for 2 years.  As a vegan baby, I really want her to continue getting a good portion of breast milk beyond a year.  Hopefully we’ll be able to come up with a plan at our visit with the lactation consultant.

Here’s what she ate today, and it’s pretty typical of how she’s been eating for the past month:

Breakfast

What I offered:  an oatmeal breakfast bar (this recipe, but made with bananas instead of dates and almond butter instead of walnuts); 1/3 cup soy yogurt; about 15 blueberries

What she ate:  a few bites of the oatmeal bar, all of the yogurt, a few blueberries, and 1 ounce of a hemp/coconut milk combo

learning how to use a spoon

she’s doing really well!

but still uses her hands, too

She loves using her new spoons, so I’m trying to think of more things to offer her that she can spoon feed herself.  She tolerates me spoon-feeding her while she is getting her own bites, so I can make sure to help her finish the bowl.

Lunch

What I offered:  4 veggie tots (yes, she still eats these everyday!); 1 oz vegan Daiya cheese (for extra fat); 1/4 large avocado + 1/3 banana mashed together (this is the only way I can get her to eat avocado); a little under 1 ounce of pumped breast milk; her sippy of hemp/coconut milk

What she ate: all the veggie tots, 3/4 of the cheese, all of the avocado-banana mixture, and the breast milk.  She didn’t want any of her sippy.

excuse my dirty table

I’m pretty happy with the amount she ate at lunch.  This is usually her biggest and most reliable meal.  If only she at as heartily at every meal!  She also snacked on a few baked snap pea crisps I was eating later.

Snack

What I offered: veggie booty & freeze dried peas; hemp/coconut milk in sippy cup

What she ate: 3 pieces of veggie booty & a (baby) handful of peas; 2 ounces of milk

please excuse the crazy outfit – I threw on some rainbow baby legs to keep her warm during a walk earlier

peas were the winner!

She wasn’t very interested in the veggie puffs, so I took them out of her cup and put some peas in.  I stopped doing a “formal” sit down snack because she stopped eating everything I offered her.  Now we use the snack-trap cup and I just put dry things like the freeze dried peas, cheerios & puffs, etc.  She snacks throughout the afternoon, but never very much.

Dinner

What I offered: 1/4 tortilla with almond butter and 100% strawberry fruit spread on top; 1 pouch organic spinach & fruit puree (squirted into bowl so she could practice with the spoon); sippy cup of hemp/coconut milk

What she ate: at least 3/4 of the tortilla, plus all of the puree & 2 ounces of milk.  And a few chunks of freeze dried mango just for fun.

She ate a decent amount at this dinner – more than she has been for the past week or so.  I’m so surprised that she’s taken so well to the spoon.  It will be awhile before she’s able to feed herself the whole bowl, but she really has the motion down, and is very interested in the process.  I’m going to focus my efforts on giving her foods that let her explore that interest.

She also nursed 10 times today (2 were middle-of-the-night feeds), mostly just one side each time.  I’d guess (based on my pumping output and our past transfer weights at the LC) she is getting no more than 15 ounces a day from me, which seems really low.  But maybe combined with the 4-6 oz of hemp/coconut milk she drinks each day, it’s enough?  We’ll see at her weight check next week.  She certainly seems happy…

So that’s where we are at now that Alma is (nearly!) 11 months.  Sorry that was so long-winded!  Her food intake has been on my mind a lot, lately. I think next month our munchkin meals check-in will look a little different, since I’m working towards nursing less frequently, and introducing a morning snack.  We are also going to try out the Dr. Sears Nibble Tray.

Can’t wait to read what everyone else is up to!