Cruising

We have a cruiser! Or at least Mia's trying desperately to cruise! She can pull herself up easily now on the sofa and in her cot. She can also balance with one hand now but she's still pretty wobbly! She is trying to cruise as well but hasn't quite got the coordination. Isn't it strange how babies develop new skills so quickly?! It was only last week she had just begun to crawl - which by the way she's better and quicker at but still not as fast of as coordinated as some of the babies I've been at the babies cafe. 

My week behind the camera

I've been busy cooking, filling my freezer full of Mia's dinners! 

Pulling herself up. 

'Look mum, one hand!'

New bath toys!

Someone ended up in our bed!

Waitrose cupcakes have lollipops in the top! 

Wallpaper crafts

Using wallpaper for your crafts is an easy, cheap alternative to using other papers and card. It is free if you go and collect samples from your local hardware store and it comes in many colours, patterns and textures. 

Print templates from the Internet or draw your own. 

Use your templates to cut out patterns in your wallpaper samples. 

You can make cards, collages.....well pretty much anything you like :)

We used ours to make cards. The children wrote lovely poems to go inside their cards for their mummies. 

Preparing and storing food for your baby

So today I decided to share my love of home cooking for Mia and share a few recipes, show you how to store your food easily and hopefully help anyone thinking about home cooking for their baby. 

This post is by no means me preaching about home cooking over jarred baby food. It's completely your choice what you want to feed your child. I have not got the healthiest diet myself so I definitely can't say we only make food from scratch blah blah. We do not. But for Mia we do. We made the decision before she was born that we would cook everything fresh and try to avoid good high in sugar and salt. I simply want to help other mums out there who need some inspiration and ideas. Plus I went a little mad today and made a huge amount of sweet potatoes and carrots so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to write this post!

The first few months we started weaning I didn't give Mia any sugar or salt apart from sugar naturally occurring in fruits. This last month we have started to feed her what were eating but just a 'baby version' i.e. no salt, no chilli etc. 

Ideas for meals 

•shepherds pie - prepared how a classic shepherd  pie is made, leave out the salt in the potatoes and use a low salt cheese on the top. 

•white fish with mash and green beans - very simple and good brain food! Again cook without salt and ensure your fish is boneless. 

• soup - there are many varieties you can make and it's so easy and healthy! It can be stored so easily and give baby some bread to go with it and its a great lunch!

• baby burgers - why not try to make your own mini beef burgers? We used lean beef mince mixed with some coriander and bread crumbs. We usually give these to Mia with some potato sticks we just simply cut a potato into thick strips and partially cook so try are soft enough to gum! 

• chicken and sweet corn - Mia loves this. Simply boil your chicken and cook some sweet corn to go with it. We serve this with mash. 

Preparing food

I like to boil or steam vegetables. If we are cooking meat in a pan we use as little oil as possible and try to use a light variety. Prepare lots in advance - I'm going to show you a great way you can store food in the freezer! 

Sweet potato to last us around a month!

Storing 

So you have cooked your food, in my case carrots. 

I have some cut into small chunks which will accompany a meal and some in sticks that she can have as warm finger food. 

Next you want to put portions into an ice cube tray. 

This is sweet potato which I also made today.

These are great because you soon learn how much your baby will eat i.e. 1 cube, 2 cubes etc. This way there is very little wastage. 

Once you have filled your tray you put it in the freezer until its frozen. Once it's frozen you pop the cubes out and put them in a freezer bag. Label the bag - usually 3 months is the rule for how long you have to eat it. 

Broccoli and cauliflower

Shepherds pie

Green beans 

Now you have your food split into portions ready to defrost for your baby! 

If you want any recipe posts or any other information about storing or preparing baby food please leave me a comment below :)

Meerkat!

Start your meerkat toy collection. Find out more at comparethemarket.com

The Organising Game

Mia's new favourite game...

Pull out all the clothes and throw them onto the floor...

Does anyone else have this problem?! 

Mia's 9 month update

I know I write this every single month but....where has the time gone?! I can't believe Mia is 9 months old! That just seems crazy to me!

This month has been an exciting one! First of all Mia has started crawling! We had been taking her to this cafe for mummies and babies and she had been watching the other babies crawling and I do think it helped her to crawl for sure. She actually crawled for the first time at the cafe! 

She is on 3 solid meals a day, always home cooked food and always low in salt and sugar. I try to avoid salt and sugar altogether but it's not always possible. Did you know that there is sugar in nearly all breakfast cereals?! She has 2 bottles a day now, one in the morning and one in the evening before bedtime. I have discovered this month that Mia loves blueberries!

Sleep wise I think she has struggled this month. It could be due to moving house and her getting used to her new room. She usually goes down for the night between 7:30-8pm. This last month she has woken nearly every hour from her being put to bed until around 3am, which sucks! ( I'm very glad I'm not at work though with it being the summer holidays!) there has been a few times where I've wanted to give up and just go back to co-sleeping! I haven't! These last few days she has improved and isn't waking as much *touch wood* it continues! 

We have a play room for her now which is great now she's crawling as its safe and she can crawl around without me jumping around to stop her head butting furniture or trying to climb the stairs...stair gates are due for delivery next week!

Mia's hair is getting a little longer now too which is great as her hair didn't seem to grow for a few months. She has also got 2 bottom teeth now, which she uses a lot to chomp through fruit and snacks! Lol!