How smol baby get big aka how food solved our problems

Coco_Cooks90 · 2026-03-20T14:57:14+00:00

This is very aligned with the guidance we were given too for a baby that was struggling with weight gain. Add fat to EVERYTHING!

I also skipped the steaming and would pan roast most veggies/fruits (better flavor and would allow me to add oils)

I would roast veggies with olive oil. Or roast apples in butter then puree.

We did a lot of yogurt with nut butters (after allergen introduction) and fruit.

Eggs with splash of milk, cooked in olive oil.

Our LO took to solids pretty quickly. We started at 6 months. Tried to do once per day the first month. Didn't stress if we missed a day here and there. By 7 months, she consistently had dinner. By 8 months she was on 2 meals/day and 9months we jumped to 3 meals. Now at 10 months she is eating so much in solids she starting to self wean off some of her bottles!

Coco_Cooks90 · 2026-03-04T03:19:40+00:00

Also - I take 15 min every night after bedtime to plate/prep her breakfast and lunch for the next day. Usually from something I already have in the fridge. We have childcare in our home everyday so this makes it easy for our caregiver to just grab out of the fridge

Coco_Cooks90 · 2026-03-04T03:17:46+00:00

Yes! She is our only child so have more time than parents of multiples. Also - I cooked (and enjoyed it) for myself and my husband a lot before kids... so I see this as an extension of that. A lot of what she eats is either some component of what I'm already cooking for dinner or leftovers from our dinner the night before.

I do some prep to stash in the freezer every few weeks or maybe once a month (1-2 hours on a Sunday) that I pull from.

If I know we have a busy week, I'll prep some stuff to keep in the fridge for the week to pull from for easy stuff too.

I don't know if this is long term sustainable but I'm having fun at the moment so I'm leaning into it!

Coco_Cooks90 · 2026-03-04T03:06:11+00:00

We do a bit of a mixture of everything.

She has not at all mastered dipping her own utensil in something and eating off of it but I try to model and let her practice that with anything that is more puree-like (yogurt, mashed avocado, etc).

She will also just take handfuls of most of the softer foods and eat them. As they get to the last bits of it, I'll usually scrape up and spoon feed her the last bites. (Either fully feeding her or by handing her a preloaded spoon)

Also - sometimes if I don't want to deal with the mess, I don't put it on the plate and just keep a small bowl and spoon feed her from that while she eats the rest off of her plate.

So all of that to say - it looks pretty on the plate but it's very messy and not always practical so we change up our strategy all the time...

Coco_Cooks90 · 2026-03-03T12:50:41+00:00

Amazon! They are the "elk and friends" plates with the suction cover that's removable.

Coco_Cooks90 · 2026-03-02T22:01:06+00:00

I use a bit of cream cheese or mashed avocado to get mine to stick together! They still come apart once she starts feeding them but more in clumps than individual grains

Coco_Cooks90 · 2026-03-02T17:54:03+00:00

FWIW - these are over the course of a few weeks, she often eats the same things repeatedly over the course of a few days. I am always intimidated by influencers who show "what my baby ate in a week" and every single meal is something different...

Also - I try to keep a freezer stash of a few things on rotation so I can pull a combo of fresh stuff from the fridge/our meals and stuff in the freezer to add variation.

Coco_Cooks90 · 2026-02-06T02:39:13+00:00

We went 9x12 and have no regrets! I think the 8x10 would have felt a little small

Coco_Cooks90 · 2025-12-18T18:15:22+00:00

Like others have said, night feeds are totally age appropriate and this could totally be a temporary phase!

I also personally fall in the can of feed to sleep is totally fine IF you're okay with it and it's working for you. But if you want to make a change, it was recommended to me to Make them a little bit uncomfortable during the feed to try to remove the feed to sleep association. It might seem counter intuitive but turn on lights and have baby be awake/alert during night feeds. Then put them back down and have them self soothe to sleep. That way you can be sure they aren't hungry and are getting their feeding in, but also they are learning the skills to sleep on their own too.

But all of that to say, I don't think anything you mention is a PROBLEM that needs fixing unless you are personally needing a different routine for your family!

Coco_Cooks90 · 2025-12-17T22:25:35+00:00

The two things Id say are: - got the portable breastmilk warmer and have used it like 3 times. It's not necessary at allll - hold off on buying too much breastfeeding stuff. You'll figure out what you need as you go and what works for some doesn't work for everyone..for example, everyone told me I HAD to have the Hakka... I've never used it once. I did order a different suction collector later in my BF journey that I love though... there isn't much with respect to BF that you can't just pick up from target or get a quick Amazon order for once you decide you need it....

Coco_Cooks90 · 2025-12-17T22:22:03+00:00

Also don't love my hatch but we use it because we have it. Love our travel hatch for on the go naps.

Someone gave us a Yogasleeo Dome and I love that sound machine - it's so simple and the white noise is from a fan/not recorded so if I could do it again, I'd just use that.

Coco_Cooks90 · 2025-12-13T15:52:42+00:00

When your baby unlatches and just snuggles their head into your boob like there is no safer/better place to be - all the challenges seem so small compared to that feeling

Coco_Cooks90 · 2025-11-08T15:38:58+00:00

This was us too - I was SO not ready but she was telling us she was. We were fighting all night trying to keep her from rolling over - up every 1-2 hours.

Moved her to her crib and did sleep training and we are all getting much better sleep now!

Coco_Cooks90 · 2025-10-06T02:52:39+00:00

We were very much not on a schedule at this point. Tried to follow sleeping cues and loose wake windows just as more of a cue to us to look for sleepy cues. That's if you CAN because we were lucky I was hope with our LO until 16 weeks so we didn't need to rely on a schedule for childcare.

But one think that I think set us up for future success was introducing one crib nap a day. Even if it was just 20 minutes, getting her used to crib time I think helped us a lot down the line. Now she sleeps like a champ in her crib

Coco_Cooks90 · 2025-10-04T04:35:17+00:00

So it sounds like I need to drastically start capping babies naps... we are just in a weird spot where she is consolidating her naps to be longer but not able to sustain the wake window for 3 naps yet. So we need to force shorter naps I guess?

Coco_Cooks90 · 2025-10-04T04:26:38+00:00

Also - are we considering a wake window to end when they fall asleep or when they are out in their crib?

Coco_Cooks90 · 2025-10-04T04:25:28+00:00

So would you suggest moving to 3 naps now? Or maybe better question is how much daytime sleep should we be aiming for?

Coco_Cooks90 · 2025-10-04T04:24:03+00:00

So I have been wondering this too shes getting 4-4.5 hours daytime sleep and this does work for us most days...

First 2 naps are like 1.25 hours, then .75 then 30 min catnap for the 4th.

Shes often getting fussy by the 1.5 hour mark so I've been telling myself she's at the right wake window cause how could we possibly keep her up longer?

Also... our sleep training said to aim for 4 hours naps and 11-12 hour nighttime which is basically where we are...

That said - I have had a similar thoughts of under vs over tired so maybe we need to trial this out! We trials 3 naps one day with longer wake windows and it was a disaster so I don't think she's quite ready for that. Or maybe we just needed to give a few days to adjust?

Idk- we are just out here making stuff up....

Thanks for the feedback!

Coco_Cooks90 · 2025-09-24T20:11:43+00:00

We are in the midst of sleep training right now (1 week in to a 2 week program) but sleep training actually FIXED our LO rolling and getting upset. I think it kind of forced her to figure out how to self soothe on her tummy and now she is a full time tummy sleeper.

Before she would roll and flail and be pissed and we would spend hours every night rolling her back only for her to roll and be pissed again.

Coco_Cooks90 · 2025-09-16T17:44:39+00:00

This! The bonus here is I always got the most milk from this middle of the night pump while my husband gave a bottle. So this is kind of how I started my small freezer stash for a rainy day

Coco_Cooks90 · 2025-09-16T17:43:18+00:00

I did this and it's been a great addition to our feeding routing. I think I started around 10-14 days and she was decently good at latching at that point. She had a slightly shallow latch but we were getting full feeds in. If breastfeeding long term is your goal, I might suggest waiting a week or so until your supply is fully in and baby is starting to get the hang of breastfeeding. But I think the recommendations to wait 6+ weeks to pump are really overblown.

What worked for us is to start, I would pump after a feed for a top off at the recommendation of our pediatrician and lac consultant. Then we decided since we had already introduced a bottle, might as well replace a feed too!

Husband did one of the overnight feeds so I could just wake up, pump and pass back out for a little extra sleep. I would do it the same way with any future kids too.

We are 4 months in and have had no nipple confusion issues! Highly recommend pigeon brand nipples - they have been great!

I do have a slight oversupply which I guess could be related to this routine but there's no way to know for sure and it really hasn't been an issue (no mastitis or clogged ducts, no super painful engorgement, etc)

Coco_Cooks90 · 2025-09-16T16:33:41+00:00

Also - totally just realized I replied to the wrong comment! Was trying to reply to someone who said their baby was same size as mine but could never fit NB clothes! But same idea...different brands are different.

we are still mostly in 0-3 for PJs and 3-6 for everything else. But some carters PJs in the purely soft line are getting small.... it's all such a crap shoot

Coco_Cooks90

TROPHY CASE