What Harper Eats + What Equipment We Use

I’ve received an overwhelming number of questions asking what Harper eats. It’s funny because it’s one of the more stressful parts of parenthood for me so far. It was stressful when she was exclusively breastfeeding – am I producing enough milk, should I pump more, is she getting enough, etc. And now it’s the same with solids – is she eating enough, is she getting enough nutritious foods, is she getting enough variety, why won’t she eat anything, etc. Food is a big deal in our household. We’re plant-based, which means we’re already limited and we like to avoid all chemicals and eat as clean as possible, which means A LOT of home cooked meals. While I love food, I don’t love cooking. It’s not even that I don’t love cooking, I think it doesn’t come natural, lol. Maybe if I had more time and if I knew how to make things taste good, it would be different. Everything I make is just blah – good enough to eat, but not amazing. It’s a love/hate relationship. It also doesn’t help that I’ve made Harper SO many things and she won’t eat them. SO MUCH WORK :(.  I’m hoping as Harper gets older and we expand our family, I’ll learn to love it.

Feeding Harper solids has been stressful to say the least. She’s at a point where she’s not eating much and it’s driving me nuts. I keep telling myself, it will get better. She ate so well when she was young, I don’t know what happened. She’s also massively teething right now, so that may be contributing to her strike. She’s literally getting all of her top teeth at the same time. It’s also been hard because Harper needed to gain some weight around 9 months, per the doctors request. That makes holding your ground and having her try different foods hard. Some nights it was like she either eats another piece of bread with almond butter (which is her favorite) or nothing at all. Ugh!

We’ve tried SO many recipes and foods and some of her dislikes are so perplexing. She won’t eat pasta/noodles or rice, which I feel like is weird. I so wish she did because it would open us up to so many more options. I do try to always give her what we eat/something new once a day with either lunch or dinner. I always want to give her the option, just in case one day she’s like yes, I like that.

If you have any plant-based recipes or food ideas that your baby loves, I’d love to hear about them in the comments below.

Current Feeding Schedule

Wake – Nurse

Breakfast – oatmeal with Malk Milk, cinnamon, and strawberries that have been cooked in coconut oil. 

Snack – cereal with Malk Milk and sometimes her apple puree with her vitamin in it.

Lunch – Any of the following listed below. We try to keep lunch simple

Snack – Veggie chips, or whatever we’re snacking on. Might have her apple puree if she didn’t have it earlier.

Dinner – Any of the following listed below. She’s A LOT more picky at dinner time than she is at lunch time.

Bed – Nurse

What Harper Eats

• Oatmeal with berries
• Homemade granola bars
• Homemade blueberry fritters (we use this recipe and use different flours depending if we’re going gluten free etc. I also add flaxseed)
• Homemade apple and pear purees
• Homemade banana, carrot, zucchini bread (we use this recipe and make some tweaks)
• Almond butter with pretty much anything – it’s her absolute favorite
• Peanut butter
• Avocado toast
• Mashed bean quesadillas
• Veggie chips
• Joe’s O’s with cinnamon and Malk Milk (we mostly do this for the milk. This milk is high protein, high fat, which is great for Harper).
• Drinks water only
• Veggie flatbread or pizza
• Vegetable Pho – mostly likes the broth.
• French Fries (she’s had some when were out and about)
• PBJ sandwich
• Vegan pancakes (we use this recipe and tweak it)
• Vegan french toast
• Eats bananas, blueberries, strawberries, potatoes, and black beans on occasion – she acts like she doesn’t like them sometimes.

Equipment

Stokke High Chair – We have loved this high chair. It’s beautiful, well made, and grows with Harper. We’ll have this for years. Pricey, but it’s used multiple times a day and we’ll have it for years.

Ezpz Feeding Mat – This mat doesn’t stick to our high chair, but there’s enough weight it doesn’t slide around. I love the different sections and the pretty color.

Beaba Spoons – I love these spoons, especially when Harper was small and had no teeth. They’re so gentle on the gums and I think they’re very cute. We recently bought the stage 2 spoons and they’re perfect for her age – a little wider and shorter for her to start using it.

Brezza Sippy Cups – We’ve gone back and forth on these. They leaked a lot at the beginning, but we haven’t had any issues lately. I don’t know what we’re doing differently. The cap just has to be on correctly. These are BPA free and simple in design, which was what I was looking for.

OXO Tot Bib – So many people have talked about this bib when we’re out in public. Older people think it’s genius and others think it’s hideous, lol. We have been using these since Harper turned 6 months and we LOVE them. They literally catch everything and keep the mess to a minimum. Easy to wash in the sink as well.

Bamboo Bowls – I was looking for little bowls that were safe for babe and not obnoxious looking. These are the cutest little bowls and they come in all different shapes and sizes. We recently got the bigger flat bowls for her oatmeal and we use the small bowls for snacks.

Avent Glass Bottles – These are the only bottles we have ever used and we love them. No issues, no broken bottles, safe for baby, and I love that you can interchange the nipples based on the size you need.  

Sage Spoonfuls Glass Jars – You guys ask about these anytime I post them on my Stories. We use these anytime we leave the house – for snacks, lunch, dinner – depending on where we’re going. I initially bought them to store Harper’s purees, but they work great for snacks and food on-the-go.

Tinukim Freezer Tray – We use these for Harper’s purees. We don’t do a ton of purees, but we like to have either apples or pears in the freezer at all times just in case we need them.

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