Daycare Meals (Reposted)

(Originally posted on another blog. Reposting for reference.)

It's been a while since I've talked about daycare foods. I haven't talked about it because it's been going so well! I have been sending food for her to daycare every day. I started by sending a puree to daycare for lunch. After a while, we added more meals and more solid foods into the mix. My daycare has been really great about letting me send my own food for her. They provide food but I would prefer to send the meals that I put together just because I know what's in them and (to be perfectly honest) they're healthier.

I'll start with the packaging. I FINALLY found a tupperware set I was happy with to send her food in. I was sending her food in random tupperware containers and silicone cupcake liners to keep things separated. Now that she is eating more, I need more space for her food. I was in Target one day looking for new tupperware for us when I found this:

source

It's perfect!! I put breakfast and snack in the top containers. Lunch goes in the bottom container. I send her with 3 or 4 options for lunch and put them in silicone cups. On good days, she eats everything and drinks all of her milk. On okay days, she will skip a meal. On bad days, she will eat very little and won't even drink well.

Speaking of drinking....Pearl is 11 1/2 months old. I want her off of bottles by 1 year. We are transitioning from bottles to straw cups at daycare already. She currently gets 2 bottles and 1 straw cup of milk along with her food. I ran through all of the formula we had so I decided it was time to start using up my breastmilk freezer stash. As of today, I have 10 5oz bags of milk left. TEN bags. 2 months ago, reading that would have freaked me out. Now I think it's just about perfect. I am still pumping and pump anywhere from 4 to 12 ounces a day depending on sessions and general output.

I am mixing whole milk into the sippy cup with breastmilk. At this point, she gets 2oz of breastmilk and 2oz of whole milk in the sippy. I'm going to start adding whole milk to her bottles and transition her to 1 bottle, 2 cups sometime late next week. The plan is, once I'm out of my freezer stash, I will just give her the milk I pump. I'll keep pumping until I get her down to just whole milk in the straw cups. I Can.Not.Wait to be pump-free!

Back to food...here are Pearl's last two daycare meals:

Breakfast - Scrambled eggs and greek yogurt

Lunch - Corn, chicken with mayo and taragon, peas and oranges

Snack - Cheddar penguins and string cheese

Breakfast: Greek yogurt and banana

Lunch: Peas, oranges, meatball, broccoli

Snack: String cheese and natural applesauce

For dinner, she normally has leftovers or what we are eating for dinner which look something like her lunches. I actually enjoy making her meals every day. I try to be creative but find there is a limit to the items I can send for her. If nothing else, I break up the chicken monotony by using mayo or soy sauce. She likes to eat. That makes this Mom very happy.

What is your baby eating these days?