What the Heck are Those 10 Month Old Babies Eating?

I spend a lot of my time prepping and making these 10 month old twins of mine foods.  All the foods! Sundays and weeknights are for making sure they have everything ready to go for day and week ahead.  They are eating us out of house and home already and that’s a great thing.  They love to eat and at this stage they are still pure and eat what we give them, so we try to make good choices and hold off on the sugar and other crap we (my husband and I) eat until later.  It’s inevitable, I know, but I can do my part to hold off as long as we can.  I learned from my sister in law who is extremely healthy and I’ve watched her through the years with what she gives her kids.   I have done a lot of research, but basically, I just give them good, balanced, healthy stuff and guess what?   They love it.  At least for now.

I AM NO EXPERT (see disclaimer at end of post).  And I’m also lazy, so I don’t do big elaborate cooking type business.  I need fast and easy and relatively cheap stuff.  These aren’t even recipes really so much as MAKE IT WORK!

A few notes first –

• These babies will still take spoonfuls from me for about half their food.  Mostly they finger feed themselves.  INDEPENDENCE, yeah.
• They are also learning baby sign language and you know my girl learned to say “no”.  My boy does the “all done” and “more more more” signs pretty well.  They are so darn smart these babies.  Way smarter than we give them credit for sometimes.
• Of course when we are eating, they want to eat what we’re eating, and we let them.  We’ve been out many times at this point at restaurants and other places and they LOVE trying new things.  As most babes do.  They are a blank canvas of curiosity right now.  It’s wonderful.
• They don’t do any meat yet.  As a vegetarian, I am asked all the time, “will you give your babies meat?”  Honestly, it hasn’t come up as we just don’t eat much meat.  My husband eats meat, but we never have it in the house.  At some point they will, but they get a very balanced diet, as I’ve been veggie for 22 years and KNOW HOW TO DO THIS well.  We will cross that bridge eventually but not yet.

So for anyone who’s curious, this is a typical day — What the heck are those 10 month old babies eating?

We still wake up and have a bottle or breastfeed.

Then a quick first nap and we have breakfast about 9:30 or 10am.  More like a brunch.

BREAKFAST

• One egg, along with some cottage cheese, spinach and black beans.  Like a protein scramble if you will. Pretty simple.  That I can do.  They LOVE their eggs.

• Oatmeal “cookies” –
  
  This was something born out of necessity.  My boy stopped taking oatmeal from a spoon early on, and I still wanted him to have the good stuff, so I had to find a way for him to pick it up with his hands and feed himself.  Also, my girl hates bananas already.  She made that decision early on, and I can’t say I blame her because bananas are disgusting in my little opinion.  But they are good for us, so I wanted to disguise them in something.  BINGO.  BAKE ALL THIS STUFF TOGETHER.  Here’s my quick little recipe.
  Heat oven to 350 – throw all this stuff in a big bowl
  Combine a bunch of bananas – I use up to 4 or 5 at a time
  Some pureed fruit if you have it, any kind – apple, pear, apricot
  yogurt – I use a heaping few spoonfuls
  THEN, a ton of oats!
  MIX AWAY until the consistency is kind of thick and looks like a cookie dough, but still runny and a bit soft as you don’t want these to be hard.
  Spoon out onto baking sheets just like regular cookies and bake for 15 minutes or until golden.  Be careful not to bake too long, you want these soft and chewy for teeny baby teeth.
  Cool, then store in fridge.I give the babes about 2 cookies each a sitting.  I tear up into bite size pieces.  They don’t know they’re getting all good stuff, they just like them.  I was quite proud of myself for this one, as these babies force me to problem solve in ways I have never had to before.
• Half a wheat english muffin each.
• Pureed apple.  We use the pouches.  YES WE DO.
• Sometimes cup up mango and/or pear, avocado or whatever we have that’s good and little finger worthy.

Then another bottle or breastfeeding about 11am before nap.

This is ever prominent –

LUNCH – it’s really more like Linner at about 2:30pm or so.

• Roasted root veggies –
  
  Set oven to 400 degrees.  I usually make a lot and it lasts about a week.
  Cup up a couple sweet potatoes, a few red potatoes, a couple beets and a bunch of carrots into smallish, but not too small because you don’t want them to disappear when roasting, pieces.
  Throw in a big bowl and coat with some olive oil.  Sometimes I put some cinnamon in there and sometimes not.
  Line two baking sheets with foil and spread all veggies out in one layer.
  Roast until tender.
  I keep this in the fridge and they love it.  They can feed themselves and they’re getting good stuff.  Happy happy.
• Peanut butter sandwich.  I KNOW!  I understand all the allergy stuff.  I ate so much peanut butter and peanuts while pregnant, I think they already knew what it was coming in.  Our doctor said it’s fine to try and we have for a month now.  They love it.  A thin layer on wheat bread and torn up into bite size pieces.  PLEASE don’t defer to me for anything, this is just what we do and I know how serious peanut allergies are. Sometimes we do a cheese sandwich but same principle.
• Broccoli!  I always have a bunch of broccoli cooked and ready to go.  Just use frozen florets and tear apart.  They love it.
• Avocado.  This was their first food and they still love it.  That and sweet potatoes.
• Gnocchi.  Now this is funny.  My best gal is married to an ITALIAN CHEF.  We were at their house a few months ago and the babies tasted his homemade gnocchi and red sauce and just gobbled it up.   So now we have deliveries from them every so often and the babies just eat it all right up.  Easy to boil and combine with all natural, simple red sauce.  And small enough that it can be cut and put into little mouths.

SNACKS – all day every day, we all need snacks right?

• toasted oat cereal
• sliced red pepper – they freaking love red pepper
• cut up celery sticks – great for teething too
• cut up apple slices
• cut up pear slices
• cut up mango
• rice cakes
• graham crackers – sparingly
• whole wheat crackers
• RAISINS – that’s a treat!

WATER!  Just like I’m obsessed with hydration for myself, I’m obsessed with it for my babies.  They drink a TON of water.  KEEP IT COMING!

Then more bottle or breastfeeding into the evening until bedtime, about 6:30pm these days.  They are both sleeping well FOR NOW and don’t wake up for nighttime feedings.  So we wait until 6am the next morning and do it all over again.  This wonderful repetitive circle of sustenance and life.

DISCLAIMER – I am no expert. I’m just a mom like you doing what I feel is best for my kids.   This is just me sharing our deal.  I don’t need anybody emailing me to tell me I AM DOING IT ALL WRONG and what I should be doing.   If you’re not interested or don’t agree, that’s TOTALLY COOL.  Just move along and do your thing and I’ll do mine.  We all do our own thing pretty damn well for our kids.  Respect.

 

 

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