2. This is a JUDGEMENT-FREE POST: Please note that this not how you *should* do things. This is just a window into how I did things, and I relied mostly on my instincts. Do what feels right mama. *Should precedes shame* so I strongly encourage you not to *should yourself*! Parenting is hard enough as it is. You’re doing great!!
Favourite Foods at 10 Months
Not much has changed since my last post, other than we seem to have gotten into quite a routine around here! A big breakfast around 7:30-8am, lunch by 11:30am (after 12pm and she doesn’t eat, she just throws her food around), sometimes a snack after her nap around 3:30pm and dinner at 6-6:30pm!
The only new things we have experienced this month are the following:
Big Pieces of Food
We are now into the typical babyled weaning approach with food. Baby H does not want things to be cut up into small pieces, so while there are still foods that we need to (like steak or pork chop), she now gets large pieces of food that she can hold and bite little pieces off as she sees fit – like a chunk of potato, a full 1/4 of an avocado, a whole strawberry or piece of peach. These are the foods that are on her plate these days, along with everything we were doing at 9 months.
Regarding the potential for choking, an interested thing started happening. She seemed to have figured out if something was too big or too hard, it was best to spit it out. We didn’t teach her that (not sure how one could), but I think because she had experienced various sizes and textures of food, she knew what she was comfortable with. Also, we started saying “that’s too big” and she would spit it out right away. Pretty cool to watch that happen.
Dairy
We started her on goat dairy! I chose goat yogurt – because (a) she did not tolerate cow dairy through my milk (in the form of ghee, holy sensitive batman – just like her dad) and (b) fermented dairy is always easier to digest than non-fermented. The bacteria do some of the digesting for you!
Unfortunately I was unable to find organic goat yogurt, so I settled on standard goat yogurt. If she tolerated it (which she did), I planned to go ahead and make my own. Homemade yogurt is really easy with an Instant Pot, and since I don’t plan on making dairy a major part of our diets, occasional yogurt-making can definitely fit into my schedule.
She also tried some sheep’s milk cheese, which she tolerated just fine, but wasn’t super excited about. I find it fascinating that so many kids are addicted to cheese, and she was kind of indifferent about it. But give her a strawberry, a green onion or some broccoli and she’s in heaven!
A note on Grains…
Right now I plan on holding off grains until she has some teeth that she can grind them with. However, white rice is a way we get bone broth at least twice a week, so I might reconsider this if it takes a while to get those first molars in.
Cooking for kids is a game changer eh? And I only have 1! Kudos to you mamas (and papas! #dontforgetdads) cooking for multiple babies. I never truly appreciated the flexibility I had when it was just me and maybe my husband I was cooking for. Timing didn’t really matter, meltdowns didn’t happen if we ate too close to bedtime, smoothies or salads were a totally fine fall-back option. Add in a baby learning to eat and having to be a little extra thoughtful about making sure our meals fit her stage of eating development just complicates things even further!
Since nutrient-dense, home-cooked meals are the top priority in my house (read: non-negotiable), I have had to figure out some ways to get those kind of meals on the table quickly! My favourite tool for accomplishing this is without a doubt, my Instant Pot. I use it several times a week and honestly don’t know how I would manage without it! Things are usually a little crazy in the mornings, so while I could put dinner in the slow cooker, it goes much more smoothly if I can throw it in the instant pot during her afternoon nap around 1-2ish. (Bonus: you can put frozen meat in it too! So I only sort of have to plan ahead.)
Instant Pot Love
This amazing gadget is especially helpful because the easiest meat for my almost 11-month old to eat, is anything that is shredded or pulled. Chicken thighs, pork shoulder and stewing beef are top choices right now. Considering the fact that it’s the middle of summer, stewing beef doesn’t normally come in to the rotation. But it’s such a great food for her – both developmentally and nutritionally – that I was determined to figure out how to use it in a way that wasn’t just plain ol’ stew!
This recipe for Thai Curry Beef is a typical weekday recipe for me – a non-recipe recipe as I like to call it. A “throw it all in the instant pot and see what happens” recipe. And boy did it turn out delicious! It’s now part of the weekly rotation and we all love it – especially the kiddo!
Thai Curry Beef
2017-08-06 06:32:12
A quick recipe with only 10-15 minutes prep TOTAL! Delicious, family-friendly, nutrient-dense and flexible!
1 tbsp fish sauce (optional, but it takes it to the next level)
1-2 cloves of garlic (or 2+ tsp garlic granules/powder)
½ tsp salt
Beef
2 lbs stewing beef (grassfed preferred)
Final Touches
4 cups baby spinach, roughly chopped
½ cup full-fat coconut milk
cilantro, for garnish
green onion, for garnish
sweet potato noodles, zoodles, cauli-rice or white rice for serving
Instructions
Combine broth, onion, curry paste, fish sauce, garlic and salt into the bottom of your slow cooker. Mix well.
Add in stewing beef. Cook on low all day (minimum 8 hours).
Stir in ½ cup coconut milk and spinach about 10 minutes before serving. Heat through.
Serve on sweet potato noodles, zoodles, cauli-rice or white-rice, topped with cilantro and green onion.
INSTANT POT DIRECTIONS
Combine sauce ingredients in bottom of the instant pot.
Add stewing beef, secure lid. Press "Meat/Stew".
When done, let it return to pressure naturally and ideally let it sit in warming or slow cooker mode for another hour or so. You can let it sit more if you have the time!
Stir in ½ cup coconut milk and spinach about 10 minutes before serving. Heat through.
Serve on sweet potato noodles, zoodles, cauli-rice or white-rice, topped with cilantro and green onion.
2. This is a JUDGEMENT-FREE POST: Please note that this not how you *should* do things. This is just a window into how I did things, and I relied mostly on my instincts. Do what feels right mama. *Should precedes shame* so I strongly encourage you not to *should yourself*! Parenting is hard enough as it is. You’re doing great!!
Favourite Foods at 9 Months
Food really started to become a thing around 9 months. Suddenly Baby H was really into it and eating a substantial quantity. So much so that it started pushing nursing sessions, which I was completely ok with because she still nursed a lot! Up until now food was more of a fun, experiential thing. Great for learning flavours, textures and pincer grip (as well as how to sit at the dinner table), but it didn’t have ever seem to fill her up. Then she hit 9 months and started eating!
Now, instead of her getting a bite of our meals, she started making an impact! For example, our favourite sausages come in a package of 4 at just over 1lb of meat. We used to cook 1 package, each have 1, and have 2 leftover for our lunches the next day. Now the kiddo can polish off half a sausage to herself some nights, putting a serious dent into our leftovers! Same thing with ground beef – I used to cook 1lb, now I have to cook 2lbs to make sure we have leftovers!
Another thing that happened around this time was Baby H started realizing what was on our plates vs. hers. I was surprised at how quickly this happened. So gone are the days (already!) of us eating gluten-free pizza with goat cheese, and making her eat sardines – LOL. This was a really great lesson in setting an example though. Babies are incredibly aware of their surroundings, so if you want them to eat well, you need to as well.
Speaking of being aware, she also started to get a little choosy about what she wanted. Now, it didn’t mean she became “picky, although it could easily have been interpreted that way if we didn’t give her time and variety. What seemed to be happening was she wanted some control over what she ate. So we made sure to offer her 3-5 different foods (anything green was literally her fav) and allowed her to pick and choose during the meal. Interestingly, if she polished off all of her blueberries first (what’s with every baby and blueberries??) she often moved on to the other things on her plate once they were gone. Giving her control, within set limits, proved to be very effective at creating pleasant meals where she ate most of the food we gave her! And if she chose only to eat avocado and blueberries for a meal? We didn’t sweat it. There’s no forcing a kid to eat and those are damn healthy foods. She also always seemed to naturally balance out by eating 1.5 eggs the next morning or half a sausage at lunch the next day!
A Note about Dairy
I had planned on trying organic goat yogurt around this time, but unfortunately she had an eczema flare (secondary to me trying to reintroduce ghee into my diet) so I’m waiting until it resolves.
Grassfed butter and fermented, high-fat dairy absolutely can have a place in a baby/child’s diet, just be very aware for possible reactions. The last thing I want to do is scare anyone (because most people are already terrified about solids), but an immunogenic response to dairy is a major contributor to quality-of-life health issues in kids. Everything from ear infections and chronic dribbly noses; to eczema and diaper rash; from reflux and constipation or loose stools; to bedwetting and behavioural issues (in older kids). Many foods can be associated, but there’s something about dairy (followed closely by gluten) that just seems to exacerbate these common childhood health issues.
Go To Foods at 9 Months
At this point, the kiddo was eating the majority of what we were (still excluding white rice and salads). We follow a standard paleo diet, made into a template for our tolerances:
excluding nuts and seeds (I don’t tolerate them rightness)
including white rice and goat cheese (we tolerate both great! But haven’t introduced these to the kiddo yet)
the hubs tolerates nuts, legumes, organic corn and other GF grains (I don’t), so he snacks on those foods occasionally (but not the kiddo yet)
Mostly we’re a meat/fish, veggies, starchy veggies (occasionally rice or sweet potato noodles) and quality fat household.
Daily Nutrition
Things that we focus on getting into all of our diets weekly are:
bone broth (although hard in the summer, we cook our rice in it and make instant pot/slow cooker meat in it)
fatty fish at least 3 meals per week (salmon en papillote or grilled once/week, sardines at least 2x per week)
other seafood (tuna, shrimp, oysters, mussels)
vegetables at every single meal
organ meats (I’m going to be honest, I’ve slipped on the liver consumption. When I realized this, I made a big batch of homemade burgers with ground heart in them – my favourite way to consume organ meats – but unfortunately I seasoned them with a delicious spice blend that contained sesame, which I seem to have developed a pretty intense immunogenic reaction to in this postpartum season of life. So the hubs and the kiddo are eating them, and I eat another can of sardines. Sardines contain the organs so at least I’m getting some there!)
Typical Breakfasts
green eggs (in a blender, blend a large handful of spinach and 6 eggs for the whole family, 3 eggs for just me and H, 4 for my husband and H) scrambled in avocado oil or bacon grease with avocado and blueberries
fried eggs, leftover sweet potatoes or white potatoes, cucumber or berries
smoothie – like my Green Mango Smoothie, but with exclusively collagen, no protein powder. My other favourite flavour combo right now is frozen raspberries, frozen mango, spinach, collagen, full-fat coconut milk and a splash of raspberry kombucha.
leftovers
Typical Lunches
almost always leftovers (in fact not having leftovers takes so much more work!)
sardines or much less frequently tuna, cucumber, berries, fried plantain (either sweet or green now)
smoothie (see above)
Typical Dinners
I’m obsessed with meal planning right now, which is something I’ve never done! But having to make a decision every day about dinner had become super stressful. So now I make a plan on Sunday for Monday-Thursday and we eat well, don’t waste food and still have the weekend to be flexible or play around with fun recipes. As a result, I have about 10-15 recipes that I rotate through, some of which show up every week.
sausages, roast potatoes, broccoli & cauliflower (all on baking sheets, all in the oven for 45 minutes at 375) with sauerkraut and sautéed onions if I have time!
thai curry beef on sweet potato noodles (made with stewing beef)
pulled pork or chicken (onion, pork shoulder/chicken thighs and a clean BBQ sauce in a slow cooker all day) on shredded sautéed sweet potato, side salad
pork chops, potato salad (with a simple lemon dijon vinaigrette) and broccoli
grilled fish (trout, pickerel, snapper), salad, rice or potatoes
thai curry shrimp on rice or sweet potato noodles (no recipe, simply sautee desired veg, set aside. Quickly sauté shrimp seasoned with salt and pepper. Deglaze pan with bone broth & thai curry paste. Add veggies back in and some coconut milk. Serve over noodles or rice.
Snacks
We’re not huge believers in snacks over here, mostly because it often means meals aren’t being designed properly, or you’re not actually hungry but bored! For kids, snacking often results in being picky at meals because they know they can have a snack later.
That being said, I’m breastfeeding still and doing Crossfit a few days/week, so I simply don’t have the space in my stomach to consume the 1000+ calories at every meal to hit my 3000-4000 calorie/day requirement, LOL. If I’m eating around the kiddo, I make sure it’s something she can also have. If it’s post-WOD on my way home from the gym, it’s a “clean” turkey sandwich, or if it’s during her nap, it’s almost always plantain chips. Snacks that we enjoy together are:
cucumber slices – her absolute favourite. In fact, I often give her a slice of cucumber if I need 10 minutes to get dinner ready and she just wants to be on my hip. I said I would never placate with food, but if I’ve learned 1 thing so far on this parenting journey, never say never…
frozen mango in her “popsicle” (aka, her Boon silicone teether), especially if she’s teething
Cooking for kids is a game changer eh? And I only have 1! Kudos to you mamas (and papas! #dontforgetdads) cooking for multiple babies. I never truly appreciated the flexibility I had when it was just me and maybe my husband I was cooking for. Timing didn’t really matter, meltdowns didn’t happen if we ate too close to bedtime, smoothies or salads were a totally fine fall-back option. Add in a baby learning to eat and having to be a little extra thoughtful about making sure our meals fit her 
Two things before I get into the meat of this post: