Our journey into first baby foods – egg yolk, homemade bone broth and liver

Recently T turned six months old and so we have embarked on sharing some new tastes with her. It’s incredible to think that up until this point – 9 months in my belly, 6 months out of it – my body alone has grown and sustained her.

It’s fair to say I’ve actually been scared about introducing something other than breastmilk to her. I’ve done quite a lot of exploring into health these past few years, and combined with addressing my own health, I now feel acutely aware of how nourishing or damaging food can be to our bodies.

I have a small collection of baby feeding books that cover various approaches to ‘weaning’, and they are The Nourishing Traditions Book of Baby & Child Care by Sally Fallon Morell, Beautiful Babies by Kristen Michaelis, Super Nutrition for Babies byKatherine Erlich and Kelly Genzlinger, and Baby-led Weaning by Gill Rapley and Tracey Murkett.

All but the Baby-led Weaning book follow the premise of starting with nutrient dense foods that are gentle on the digestion.

So for her ‘first foods’ we have settled on introducing T to egg yolk primarily, as well as a little liver and homemade chicken broth. We boil an egg (from happy organic pasture-fed hens just up the road) for about 4 minutes until it’s cooked but the yolk still runny.

Back from my leave of absence and with a babe in place of my bump

Where have the last 4 months gone since I last did a post…?  They have fallen by the wayside in what is now my new life as a mummy. I still can’t believe that I’m a mother and that I have a daughter, as the Mr says, it’s very odd when someone asks you how your daughter is, you think, “you must have me confused, I don’t have a daughter…oh. Hang on…”

I’ve thought a lot about what my first post back here would be, whether I would ramble on about recapping the past 4 months since our lovely baby T burst into our lives, or just carry on as if nothing much has changed.  I still haven’t really decided, so apologies if this post ambles a long with no particular place to go!

T is 4 months old now.  Just this week she learnt to suck her toes.  She also is feeling poorly after catching the rank cold her mummy (gosh that’s me!) had over Christmas.  Last night she was so miserable poor love, with watery eyes, snuffly nose and a tickly cough, yet she still beams at you when you smile at her.  It made me think how pathetic I was feeling all sorry for myself when I was ill – that I was all “woe is me” and yet this tiny creature can still find something to smile about.

I begin to realise how this small person is going to change our lives in many more ways that I could have ever imagined.

Hot days, markets and nest building

I’m not going to dare suggest that it’s too hot in England at the moment.  It is utterly beautiful and I’m thoroughly enjoying all the sun and warm weather we are being blessed with.  How nice is it to sit in the evenings with all the windows and doors open?

Last weekend a bit by accident we found ourselves spending the whole morning today, dog- and care-free visiting a couple of local markets.  It made me realise that we are both guilty of spending too much time doing DIY and don’t make enough time to just go out and do things together.

First we went to our local farmers market at Abbey Leys where we stocked up on local raw milk, grass-fed Welsh beef mince, real bread, and a bunch of seasonal flowers from my favourite garden gate stall.

Next we decided to try out the Artisan Market in Knutsford – it was our first visit and it was fantastic.  It’s a huge market with lots of craft, vintage and food stalls, the weather was fab, there was a bluegrass style band playing music, and deckchairs for people to sit and listen.

My favourite stall was a lady selling Transylvanian sweet treats called Chimney Stack Cakes.  Her particularly speciality are these chimney stack cakes which are like a spiral of cakey-doughnuty-bread with different flavourings.  She won us over with a sample of her cinnamon one and one made it into our shopping bag.

Growing a baby – my food and diet approach to pre-conception and pregnancy

I have been inspired to approach my pregnancy and parenthood by a wonderful organisation that I came across last year, who celebrate traditional diets and have helped in my recovery from Candida.  Following my diagnosis last year with Candida Albicans and embarking on a detox and overhaul of my diet to regain my health, I was told about the Weston A Price Foundation (WAPF).

I’ve been through so many ‘foodie phases’ since my Uni days: eating lots of Asian food; exploring ‘health’ foods; buying organic, then local; being obsessed by buying recipe books and watching cooking programmes; growing my own (which has stuck), and many others I’m sure I’ve forgotten.

Raw French butter

Looking back on this I see how lost and confused I was in this vast world of food opportunities and how I was just desperately seeking something that clicked for me.  A way of eating and cooking that just felt right, and natural.

When I started to read about the WAPF everything just seemed to fall into place for me.  Here was this organisation encouraging and teaching all about traditional foods and cooking – it was like someone had designed a guide based on what I was feeling inside about food.  In a funny sort of way it just seemed so much simpler and less complicated than all the other food ways I’d experimented with before.

And I trusted it.  I didn’t worry that in a few months, or years, I’d be told “sorry, that advice we gave you to eat that, well it’s wrong, stop eating it.”

Soaked and dehydrated nuts for yoghurt topping

Last year Mr Rigg and I had been talking about starting a family, but I’d just been feeling so unwell in myself that it wasn’t until I started to heal the effects of my Candida that I thought I could really consider it.

I was seeing fantastic benefits from the detox I was doing, but I was concerned that I was cutting out some major food groups that I felt I needed to be eating in order to be getting a balanced diet. I just didn’t feel it would be right to try and get pregnant as I currently was.

Me and Mr Rigg

I saw all the benefits of detoxing and cleansing my body, or allowing it a chance to heal, but I desperately felt I needed things like dairy back into my diet in order to be in a positive place for my body to create and grow a baby.