Shanghai Mama

I’ve been on a mostly veg diet for about 5 years, I do sometimes have a little fish but eat not meat at all. Same with my husband so we’re bringing up Theo meat free. Some of you who might have read my blog before might know about my attempts at Baby lead weaning, not an absolute failure but not a success either. Theo preferred breast milk to most things and just spent his time on the high chair throwing food about. That got vvvvvery boring and frustrating and out came the spoon. So I did a bit of a mix of spoon feeding and letting him feed himself. It took a while but I think that in the past month we have turned a corner and Theo finally seems to be enjoying his food and is into trying to things too. At the wknd he just couldn’t get enough egg fried rice while we were having lunch in Suzhou!
Now that I know that food is not going to be wasted I am trying to commit more time for cooking yummy nutritious meal for him. I should add that I was getting a little worried about his protein intake as he was having quite a bit of pasta and veg but really not into eggs or pulses or tofu until my friend Clara sent me this veg burger recipe which he really loved and it’s super easy.
This is a great one because is great for everyone in the family and you can make a load and freeze them.
Here it comes:

2 cans of lentils (drained, rinsed) you can do any other beans cans or soaked and boiled from dry
4 free range eggs
1/2 cup diced fresh coriander
1 clove garlic, diced
1 large carrot, diced
1/2 small onion, diced
1 cup Bread crumbs (I buy the Progresso brand bread crumbs from City, it is a blue cylinder container) I make my own with some toast bread in the mixer

Saute the garlic, carrot and onion in olive oil until a little tender. In food processor or blender puree 1 1/2 cans of lentils and the 4 eggs. Add 1/2 can of lentils which were not pureed into the mixture, so you have some whole lentils in the mix. Add the sauteed carrot, onion and garlic to the mix. Add the fresh cilantro. Add the bread crumbs (can add more or less until the batter becomes a consistency you like). Form into a patty or just drop a gallop of mix into a frying pan with oil. Fry them until crispy. Delicious!

I make mini ones for Theo and he looks pretty adorable feeding himself his baby burger.

Mothering lately has had its challenges, I think it will always have but the trick is using these challenges as another opportunity to learn about myself, work at what we like to call “issues” in my life, it’s all yoga really!

Updates…
After a lot of indecision and trying out some pureed food and spoon feeding I decided to stick with BLW (baby-led weaning). I’m feeling more convinced about my choice and hav e found an excellent blog that inspired me to keep going. Maybe is just me being positive but Theo seems to eat a lot more, it’s still all about getting him at the right time but think it’s a really good idea and anyhow even with the spoon he wants to grab food off the spoon and play with spoon so looks like he’s making the decisions here.

Sleeping is not really going too well, not sure what it is. I’m still partially co-sleeping, as in Theo spends some time in his cot (which is by my bed) and most of the time in bed with us. The only thing I don’t understand about co-sleeping is that you clearly need a bigger beg and I thought that the whole idea was to sleep… he still wakes up loads..

I was just checking out the Shanghaimamas group (really wish I had chosen a different name for my blog as so many people get us confused… if only i had discovered it before i bought my url…anyhow it’s a great group and always read great stuff on it, well done shanghai mamas!!) and found out about this great site about bringing up babies diaper free, it is so cool!! I was toying with the idea and had already asked my ayi how she did it… Might try it out from tomorrow, would be great to not have to wash poo off the diapers, and is surely the most eco way out there.

Off to get some mummy time or maybe write up more posts on info I gathered recently… wish I had more time for this site..

Since my last post I have kept up the BLW in a pretty relaxed way.
Theo seems well and really active and think he is def getting enough nourishment from my milk so I’ll continue feeding on demand and keep enjoying my trips to Paul (the yummy bakery in Xintiandi).
Yesterday I tried offering two veg, broccoli and pumpkin. He wasn’t interested at all, think he was too tired so didn’t really mind. I did “help” him put it in his mouth once just to see but he took a bite and spat it out and looked really unimpressed so that was that.
Later in the day I steamed a carrot and gave it to him, he was enjoying munching on that and by the time he was done with it, the carrot looked like a little mouse had been biting away at it. Today I found carrot in the nappy. I never found any broccoli from the other day… When is he actually going to start digesting things? Need to read more.

Today I decided to let him try a pear. I first gave him a quarter and then half. He seemed to enjoy getting the juice out of it and was making really fun biting-crunching noises. As it was pretty slippery business I had to keep picking pieced up off the floor (covered by my sneaky shower curtain ; )). He seemed to chew quite a bit but the contents of his mouth did regularly fall out on the bib. Later on in the day when I was eating a pear myself I just held it in front of his mouth and he took a bite, followed by a pretty funny face. I think I will try avocado again tomorrow.

Slowly demolishing my pumpkin

Originally uploaded by Bettina Dormalini

Theo turned 6 months on the 17th of this month and after giving it some tought we made a family decision to try BLW (baby led weaning). There are quite a few good blogs out there talking about this subject, and I’ve been really enjoying reading this one. For those who know nothing about it there is a good intro here.
I wasn’t in too much of a rush to start Theo on solids as I find breasfeeding really convenient and easy. Having said that I must admit that at the time of writing this Theo has been feeding a lot and I’m feeling pretty exhausted and keep craving sweets and cake.
As I seem to have little time to myself at the moment I hadn’t fully researched BLW beforehand but have a friend started with it and had read up on the basics a while back. Now I tend to refer to blogs and online info as I go along and have doubts and questions about the whole process. I think BLW is a great idea but one needs patience and has to have a high threshold for coping with mess.

This is what I used and a brief report on what has happened up to now:
EQUIPMENT: Vegetables (Up to now I’ve used broccoli, carrots, pumpkin, avocado), ANTILOP High Chair from Ikea (199 rmb)- I need to add that although I am not a big fan of plastic this super plasticy chair is good because it’s really easy to clean-, shower curtain (cheap one from Ikea) to cover the floor under the High Chair- Just added this today-. Bibs (the ones that cover the arms too) found a cute one in toweling from Puan lu but will need more (15 rmb), Bamboo steamer.

Day 1- Morning- Steamed carrot sticks.
Theo was interested in the sticks, took a bite off one and just played about with it. The problem was that I made the sticks too small and were quite hard for him to hold on to. I panicked a bit and mashed a few sticks then spoon fed him a spoon full, then gave thim the spoon to play with. I also gave him water from a beaker for the first time, he had a tiny bit.

I know he ate something as I found some carrot bits in his poo the next day… Guess it was a success.

Day 2-
Morning- Big steamed carrot sticks
Again I didn’t get the sticks quite right, good size but too soft and so there was carrot EVERYWHERE! He did try to put the carrot in his mouth and played about and then I gave him some on a spoon and the spoon to play with. Not bad for a second try.
We were excited so we tried again at dinner time.
Late afternoon- Avocado
This was really hard to get hold of even for me, soooooooo slippery.. anyhow he did managed to get it in his mouth and then play with it and get it caked all over his clothes. I cheated again and put some on the spoon and then just gave him the spoon. It never appeared in the poo the next day so not quite sure what happened to it, think he did eat some, maybe it’s easier to digest?

Day 3-
Morning and Lunch- Pumpkin slice, steamed
I think this was the most successful attempt as it’s really easy for Theo to hold (due to the curved shape of the slice) and seemed to chew it quite a bit, even though a lot of the times he would chew then open his mouth and let the pumpkin goo fall out. Both attempts (breakfast and lunch) seemed to go well and he was really into it. I should add that by this time having read a bit more about it online and getting loads of support from my hub I was more relaxed about the whole thing and didn’t even have a spoon at hand, I think this method is great and hope I have enough patience to keep going!

Day 4- Today! Steamed broccoli
This was a success at breakfast as he really was interested in the whole thing and put the piece I offered in his mouth, bit and chewed at the stem and generally played about. He did loose interest after not so long and I didn’t push it. The second attempt at dinner time (5 o’clock) was a big mistake, should have just not bothered, he was tired and didn’t even pick the broccoli up, just hit his fist on it and threw it on the ground. He did the same when I handed it back to him twice. He was just tired and wanted a good feed the traditional way. Had a real struggle getting him in his nappy and pjs tonight but all he fell asleep during his last feed as usual.
I’ll try to be better at posting as I had a few tough days recently and feel that writing might just help me keep my sense of humour about motherhood.