Foooooood

[ailbhe]

Here I am breastfeeding a newborn again.

FEED ME.

I am barely functional and hugely short-tempered, most days, and it's entirely due to inadequate food intake. I can't do anything needing two hands because if I put Astrid in a sling she spits up on me, but she also doesn't want to be laid flat on her back because that makes her spit up too. We need to buy a reclining bouncy chair device. I'm sure we used to have one but Rob can't find it in the attic and we may have given it away.

For brief periods (long enough to put something oven-ready in or out of the oven) her sisters can prop her up, so oven-ready things are fine. But even cutting a bagel in half can be a problem, unless she's asleep.

I really need to figure something out. We need oven-ready dinners for evenings, which are easy enough, but we also need something ready to eat lunchwise. We tried reversing it, but it takes Rob just as long to get a bunch of sandwiches ready in the evening (when I'm feeding the baby more or less constantly) as it does to get a basic cooked dinner. And that makes the evening meal too late.

Weekends spent cooking things up are the answer for the evening meal... but what about snacks and lunchtime?

I bet by the time I have this figured out she'll have stopped eating so much. Two days now, maybe three, she's eaten almost constantly from noon to 7pm, sometimes eating in her sleep. As I said earlier, if she doesn't weigh 13lb by Monday I'll send her back.

Comments

[quentinwrites.livejournal.com]

With a tin opener. But I guess if you were unable to do that, you could open it earlier and put foil or one of those plastic can lids you can get over it.

[ailbhe]

I find tin-opening tricky at the best of times, but those plastic lids sound like a brilliant idea.

[rmc28]

Or get Rob to open tins and decant into tupperware/old takeaway boxes/food store of choice?

But also, feed yourself first. The oxygen-mask approach to parenting.

[ai731.livejournal.com]

The oxygen-mask approach to parenting.

*grin* Yes, this.

[hfnuala.livejournal.com]

Do a big dried fruit and nut shop, ask Rob to divide into appropriate portions and leave them all over house?

[sidheag.livejournal.com]

The last tins of beans I bought, which I think were Heinz, came with those ring-pull tops that you can do one-handed, at a pinch.

[mrs-redboots.livejournal.com]

You can buy them in plastic pots now, which are designed to go straight in the microwave; if you like them cold (I do, rather!) you can just peel the lid off and eat them straight out of the pot. No need to wrestle with tin-openers.

[ailbhe]

Hee, you greatly overestimate Rob's ability to help! He's currently still working on making enough time to both shower and get to sleep before 1am, and neither of us can tell what he's doing with the time!

But yes, Linnea and Emer can definitely do more.

[ailbhe]

Aha, yes, I can do those with a spoon.

[ailbhe]

Also, the girls can open *anything*. Especially if it's stored at the back of a high shelf and once contained biscuits.

[ailbhe]

Premade soup is an excellent idea, thanks. I hate instant soups but we've been using them anyway.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

some sort of meat paste or bean dip that you can scoop up bits of one-handed?

[trinker.livejournal.com]

I was constantly in danger of not getting enough liquid during the newborn stage. If I had to do it over again, I'd make sure I had a pitcher of smoothies in the fridge.

I ate a *lot* of granola bars, but that had some scary effects in the "texture of solid waste" department. I don't know which direction you need to be wary of, but I see you've got that well in mind.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Hummus!

[ailbhe]

I had an aunt who was head of a school in San Bruno, CA; I grew up with peanut butter and jam sandwiches and Scholastic books :)

[ailbhe]

Both. I have a C-shaped muscle where I should have an O-shaped one, and a sort of hernia thing.

[ailbhe]

Yes! Must get a zillion tbs of pre-made hummous and fight Emer for 'em. She is the olives-feta-and-hummous QUEEN.

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

I have a lot of good soup recipes if you'd like me to share.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Ah. I was aware there was damage, but somehow I failed to conceptualise it so succinctly.

Maybe a combination of smoothies and some sort of compressed hand food? (Are you still dairy-free?)

[astrogeek.livejournal.com]

sorry I couldn't be more help. When Alistair was a baby Doug would leave for work in the morning with me marooned on the sofa surrounded by a huge selection of high-filling-factor snack foods and a jug of water, but I definitely can see how that wouldn't work with two more to deal with!

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Maybe a slow cooker is an option for you? Rob could load it up either at night, or in the morning?

[ailbhe]

It was easier with Emer because Linnea used to drink the excess so Emer didn't have let-down and spit-up to deal with; she lived in a sling of one kind or another. But Linnea and Astrid have to cope with my supply all alone...

[ailbhe]

Yes please! If you email both@ossifrage.net Rob will see them too, or you could make public LJ posts with them, or put them as a comment here, or...

[cabbagemedley.livejournal.com]

I think I basically lived on Galaxy, prunes, and bread sticks and hummus.

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

Soup!

http://rosefox.livejournal.com/1622296.html#cutid1

http://rosefox.livejournal.com/1522796.html#cutid1

http://rosefox.livejournal.com/1067328.html#cutid1

http://rosefox.livejournal.com/1065363.html#cutid1

Stew!

http://rosefox.livejournal.com/1264944.html#cutid1

http://rosefox.livejournal.com/1431494.html#cutid1

http://rosefox.livejournal.com/1431860.html

Beef stew recipe sent in mail. Highly recommended. It's an awesome stew.