So Many New Things To Try

Isabelle is officially done with "baby" foods and on to adult foods only!  We were suppose to start phasing the baby foods out around 9 months and introducing more table foods.  We had been giving her Gerber Stage 3 foods at 9 months and have slowly began introducing more and more "adult" foods.  A couple days ago we finished off the last of the baby foods we had and she is now completely off them!  I personally really liked the baby foods since I know she would eat pretty much anything, I know they are healthy for her, and they were easy to feed!  The adult foods are fun too however, since she gets to try so many new things.  They main difference is that it takes much longer to feed her the adult foods.  Partly because she likes to feed herself and partly because we cut everything up into such small pieces, the preparation takes awhile!  In addition since Isabelle is no longer on formula (she never did take it in her sippy cup) we also give her a mid morning, mid afternoon, and small bedtime snack to help supplement the nutrition and calories from the formula.  With all this it seems like she spends lots of time eating!

Here is a glimpse into a daily feeding with Isabelle!

Breakfast:  Banana Oatmeal, fresh fruit and water.  Her fruit usually consists of 3 or 4 different kinds of the following:  fresh strawberries, bananas, peaches, blueberries, blackberries, pears, pineapple or raspberries. 

Breakfast in her pajamas

Mid-Morning Snack:  Gerber makes a great toddler yogurt in a variety of flavors; peach, banana or strawberry.  She usually has this in addition to some type of toddler cracker or bread and water.  The yogurt is a great way for us to make sure she is getting her calcium.  Isabelle loves it!

After her morning nap she went for a swing!

Lunch:  Lunch can vary but usually consists of Gerber Lil Crunchies, a vegetable, fruit and half a "sandwich".  We have been giving her whole wheat bread with cheese and some deli meat (usually smoked turkey or chicken) all torn up into little pieces.  This takes a long time to feed as she is getting use to the meat texture and chews it forever! :)  Today I thought I would change things up a bit and I grilled the sandwich with the cheese and turkey.  Lets just say she wanted NOTHING to do with it.

There was a slight incident with some softened carrots at lunch today....so I had to change her and wash the clothes.  She had fun crawling around in her diaper!

Mid-Afternoon Snack:  This can vary as well, but typically it would consist of applesauce or another type of fruit cup with no sugar.  Sometimes she will have some crackers or bread with this and sometimes she won't.  Today I made biscuits using Bisquick Heart Smart baking mix and she had half a biscuit with some pineapple. (Kind of random now that I type it out...but she enjoyed it....and really enjoyed every time I said 'biscuit'....she was laughing like crazy!)  Usually she will have some white grape juice with this as well.

Dinner:  For dinners I am trying to give her what we (or more like Kevin since I am such a picky eater) are having for dinner.  Usually she ends up having raviolis, hopefully a vegetable, maybe some cottage cheese or anything else that seems dinner appropriate. :)  Tonight I made a pizza/pasta casserole for Kevin and she shared that with him, along with a little more biscuit, and some steamed green beans.  Actually she was not fond of the green beans.  So I tried them in a food chopper and she still didn't want them.  It seems to be a trend the past couple days that she does not want her vegetables.  All we can do is keep trying or maybe go back to stage 3 in vegetables to make sure she is eating them!  Hopefully she is not taking after me, as according to my parents and my baby book I refused all veggies at 9 months on! 

Feeding herself dinner!

Bedtime Snack:  Usually a toddler cereal bar...either apple cinnamon or strawberry banana flavor! Yummy!

Eating her bedtime snack with Daddy.

So there you have it....our day of lots of feeding!  Hopefully we can start trying more and more new foods (and some more vegetables) since there is so many new foods for Isabelle to try!