Feeding Time At The Zoo

It's all about food this week. The blog, that is. I'm all about food all the time.

The Toddler has been getting over croup, and then a chest infection, so has not been eating or drinking very much, which always alarms me. As we made increasingly desperate attempts to get food and water into her, I found myself saying things like "Well, eat some more of your chips, and then you can have more of Grandma's poppadom", and "No, you can't have milk, have some Ribena", which feel all kinds of wrong. She's also being very contrary indeed, and keeps asking for things, and then saying she doesn't like them. This confused me greatly - what two-year-old says "I don't like cake"? Certainly not mine, usually - but then I realised that this has come about as a result of one of my vain attempts to teach her some manners. Bored of hearing "I want...", I tried to teach her to say "I would like...", and she, as usual, has got hold of the wrong end of the stick and is beating me with it. Ho hum.

As for The Littl'un, I got impatient. I said I wasn't going to wean before 6 months, as why would you introduce another thing into life before you have to? But she kept getting ridiculously excited when we were eating and trying to grab my plate, so I thought perhaps I should give it a go if I didn't want her to wean herself on a slice of Pizza Hut Chicken Supreme (did actually almost happen). I had already decided to bypass the puree stage - I am far too lazy to dig my mini food processor out (although I do love it and am sad I don't get to play with it anymore) and faff around with sweet potato, and have got used to being able to eat my own meals without having to shovel food into someone else - so I have started doing baby-led weaning.

Ish. Baby-Led Weaning (with capitals) is an actual proper thing. It's a book by Gill Rapley which is all about a philosophy where babies are introduced to family meals and can control their own intake. Or something. I have no idea. I haven't read it, and have no intention of reading it, because I am lazy, so I am undoubtedly doing it all wrong. All I'm actually doing is cooking some sticks of vegetables, and putting them in front of her so she can wave them around and throw them on the floor. She's not very good at eating them, but she's getting better. Tonight she might even have ingested some cauliflower. It's tremendous fun to watch.

It's good I'm enjoying at least one aspect of feeding this child. Because, the breastfeeding - not so much. On the whole, I love breastfeeding. Let me say it again, to remind myself: I love breastfeeding. I do. It's free, and convenient, and I have no intention of stopping at 6 months like I did with The Toddler. But bloody hell, is it testing my patience right now. I had forgotten what 5-month-olds were like. They're nosey. Which means that everything in the world is more interesting than feeding. My boobs feel insulted. And exposed, as there we'll be, doing a feed in the middle of Costa, and all of a sudden a speck of dust or strange noise will attract The Littl'un's attention, and her head will bob off so she can have a good neb around, while I sit there with my boob hanging out, waiting for her to decide she's still hungry. I hope this passes soon, before I have to resort to feeding her wearing an eye mask and ear muffs. Her, not me. Or maybe me, just for fun.

And of course, I still get to do night feeds. Woo. Probably because she hasn't eaten enough all day, what with all the gazing at random strangers and pretty lights. I had two lovely nights where she settled with just a bit of head-stroking, and I started to see a glimmer of hope that perhaps she'd go back to sleeping through. Hope is for fools. 1.30 this morning saw me standing at The Littl'un's cot, declaring "But I don't want to feed you!" I did, though, don't worry.

Who needs sleep anyway?

I do I do I do...... *weeps*