Loughborough

I found this post sitting half-written. As noted at the time, in February we had a trip down to Loughborough to join the Open Heaven weekend away, and have a catch up with our various friends there. It's long enough ago that I've forgotten some of what was to be written here, so it's mostly just the pictures now. As it happens, most of them are of the day trip we had to London, but it was a nice holiday all round.

FOOD! A welcome stopoff at this place on the way down.

As part of the trip we went to London for the day so Naomi could finish off her time with the EAT study. 

Outside St Thomas' Hospital. EAT is now all done!

A visit to the London Eye also went down surprisingly well with the girls.

EAT update

It was a very long time ago we started so if you need to remind yourself what it is all about then you can read about it here but Naomi is still part of a study run by Guys and St Thomas's hospital in London looking at food allergies in babies/children.  We had to go back to the hospital in London recently for them to do a check up and a few blood tests.

As is the way with an active toddler I didn't get so many photos but I have a few to share, you'll be pleased to know, too, that Naomi is still allergy free!

Naomi and dolly enjoying a snack and a drink on the train

It's lots of fun to sit on Mummy's knee!

while negotiating London it all became a bit too much so we had to have a sleep!

Exploring the train

Refusing to stay still to allow for a non-blurry photo!

And to finish, a photo of Naomi feeding herself, she has recently become very adept at a spoon, which is quite nice as it now means Sandy and I can concentrate on feeding ourselves while Naomi sorts herself out!  Of course, she now refuses to be fed by us which can be an issue if the food in question is particularly tricky.  Thankfully she's getting better and better every day!

A Fun Day For All

This week Naomi went to play with Nannette, a child minder I know.  She had noticed that being so far from our families that I could probably done with a break and so very kindly offered to take Naomi for a few hours.  This was the first time Naomi had been left with anyone other than Mummy or Daddy while she was awake and I'm happy to admit I was a little nervous.

I needn't have been though, she had a blast!

One of Naomi's EAT foods is fish, but apparently they taste good in plastic too!

While Naomi was having fun without me, I sat at home, drank tea, sewed (for pleasure) and did one or two chores.  I really valued that me-time and am so pleased that Nannette has offered to take her again some time over the summer!

Cup

In addition to figuring out spoons, Naomi has now managed to work out the subtle are of cup holding. This is useful as some of her solid foods are a bit on the solid side and she'd developed quite a taste for a bit of water (usually getting quite upset when it's taken away). This can only increase as according to the EAT study from today she has wheat in her diet too, at the moment in the form of weetabix which is well-known for its alternative use as sandbagging in the flood prevention industry, such is its absorbing capability. Typically at the moment it's a bit of a messy affair - she ends up very wet - but nonetheless she's getting pretty skilled at the old motor control. Last night she also found her feet for the first time, and had a good grab of her toes prior to bath time!

We're also quite pleased that the past couple of nights have been much better sleep-wise - last night she woke up once and was asleep again after 15 minutes, with no feeding :) Long may this continue.

She continues to get more engaged in toys and playing with stuff. I think I may have posted a shot of her enjoying this toy before but this video is rather neat; she's playing with a watery pillow which her Grandma got her, it has some floating shapes in it for her to bat around and she's rather pleased with it. Also look out for her spotting that I'm filming her activities...

Bouncing

Thanks to our good friends McGarry back in Aberdeen Naomi is the owner of a great door bouncer and now that her head control is a bit better she can go in it, though we haven't done it too often yet as I am a little wary of putting her in and taking her out on my own, though I am sure with a few more practices I will be just fine (I used to be nervous of putting her in the sling, and that definitely isn't true any more!)

Here is a video of her bouncing away the first time that we gave it a go

As an update to the weaning, it is all going well, Naomi is still loving food!  She has now had her first food that she has to eat for the EAT study and has been eating yoghurt this week, slightly unfortunately, as this is a food she "has" to eat, it probably would be her least favourite so far, though we found that by putting some banana in it (as opposed to apple or pear) she liked it a little better.

Her favourite by far, though, continues to be broccoli.  I found myself telling her that if she ate her youghurt like a good girl she could have some broccoli as a treat, Sandy pointed out that there is probably only a short window in her life that this will be true!  The photo below is after tonight's dinner of broccoli and butternut squash, in contrast to our usual photos of mess, you will notice that barely a drop has been allowed to escape her mouth, broccoli is just too precious to let it sit on a bib you see!

Weaning

So, as we told you about here Naomi is going to be weaning early as part of a study looking at food allergies in babies.  As such, she had her first ever experience of "solid" food tonight.

So that Sandy could be here we did it after he came home from work, although I wonder if she was a bit tired for new things, although she didn't seem to hate the experience of being given mashed sweet potato too much at all

Daddy has the pot of sweet potato ready

 

 

 

Naomi wait in her bouncy chair with a new bib on

in we go with the first spoonfull

Naomi shows us that she is at least interested!

A look of pleasure about the experience

Mummy has a go

but when all you've ever eaten is milk. eventually it all becomes too much!

An Interesting Day

I think I/we have mentioned to a few of you that Naomi and I are to be part of a Study looking at food allergies in babies, how they develop and more importantly how to stop them from developing at all!

The main criteria for the study is that the babies are exclusively breastfed and once there you are randomly placed into one of two groups, the control group who wean at about 6 months as per the current recommendations and then the "early introduction" group who begin weaning at around 4 months and are introduced to potential allergens (peanut, sesame, fish, egg, wheat and cow's milk) over around a month and then keep eating these foods regularly till at least 3 years of age.

Well, today Naomi and I went to London to meet the team and find out which group we would be in, it turns out we are going to be in the early introduction group.  I am quite pleased about this, as Naomi has been showing an increasing interest in food and I didn't like the idea of having to keep her on only breast milk for another two months!  We won't be doing any solids for at least another 10 days, as they did a blood test today to make sure she doesn't have any allergies already, so we need to wait for the results of that test.  (We also had some skin prick tests done today, which all came back negative, no allergies in my little girl!)

Naomi was a complete trooper through the whole day, although I don't think she liked having her height measured and I can say with certainty she didn't like having the skin prick test done, or her blood test (although that all seems fair enough to me!).

I wasn't looking forward to the train home, as last time we went to London she cried incessantly for the whole journey.  This time though she was amazing, hardly any crying at all and lots of making friends with anyone she could lay her eyes on!  She even charmed the drinks trolley man into giving me a free bottle of diet coke when I said that I didn't have any cash and he didn't have a card machine!

Here is Naomi sitting in a chair on her own!

So, weaning will begin soon, we will let you know how we get on!