Nursing routines and schedules

I follow the school of thought that babies should feed on demand and lead their own weaning process. This was really easy to do before I went back to work. Now that he is getting older, I am starting to think about how this can change. But there aren't a lot of resources for baby led weaning nursing schedule adjusting.
At 8 months, our nursing schedule is this:
On demand throughout the night
7:15
Between 9:30/10
12
3:15
5:00
(Eats dinner with us around 6)
Bedtime - around 7:15 again
When I am at work, the 9:30 feed is a bottle of expressed milk. Because I work, we do have to be on some sort of schedule during the day or everyone ends up cranky. The trouble is trying to now add in more mealtimes for him because I am starting to see signs that he wants more food during the day.
Lunch is easy as there is a big gap from 12:30-3. But, I am worried that it will lessen his nursing- even though I would especially love to combine the 3 and 5 feeds into one at 4.
Breakfast is tougher because his dad wants me to do it before I leave for work at 7:35. This means he has to nurse earlier when he might not be hungry yet.
And of course, then I have to figure out foods for those times. I see why many moms automatically default to Gerber. It's tough trying to figure out and plan this stuff!

Daddy's Gone!

My husband was out for the day working.  When he is away, we get to play!  No, really, we do get to play with food.  I like to be adventurous, and I will eat just about anything.  Not everyone eats like this which is ok.  But, when I get the chance, I like to try something new.

I knew I had a butternut squash sitting in the kitchen waiting to be eaten.  I do not like butternut squash soup, so I always have to find something else to do with it.  While Mr. S. was nursing, I spent some time browsing allrecipes on my phone, and found this recipe: Butternut Squash Cakes.
A quick glance at the recipe told me it looked to be pretty baby friendly.  I had most of the ingredients and could figure out substitutions for what I was missing (regular and wheat flour instead of the favabean flour and chili powder instead of curry powder). 

Somehow, someway, I was able to cut, mix, and cook while Simon hung out on the floor of the kitchen.  He was such an amazingly good baby! I do wear him in my Ergo around the house, but I don't like to do it when I am cooking or preparing food.  I also don't like him to hang out in the high chair before dinner because who wants to sit in the same place for an hour?!

So, the butternut squash cakes came out to be like little pancakes of veggie goodness.  They tasted pretty good, and I even pan fried them (I am usually banned from frying anything).  I also had a piece of salmon that I pan cooked as well.  Simon really enjoyed both, but devoured the squash cakes!  

I was really excited at how easy they would be to hold, and then he went and tore them all up before he would put them in his mouth.  Oh well, I guess you gotta eat food the way you want.

Firsts

Simon has been trying out a lot of different foods. He really loves celery. He loves to gum it and will hold on to as many sticks as he can.
We had a couple of dining out experiences where he is finally very interested in being involved with eating. One night, we were out for Thai. I gave him steamed veggies- carrots, baby corn,-and zucchini. Baby corn was the big winner there! I don't blame him, that stuff is pretty yummy. The next night we went out for Mexican. I got chicken soup that is topped with avocado. Simon ate almost 1/2 an avocado which is quite a bit of food for him. We never even got to the other food in the soup.
These experiences were also the first times he sat in the high chair from the restaurant. At the Thai place, he was awesomely level with the table- it was perfect. At the Mexican location, he was lower than the table. This absolutely affected his ability to get to his food and manipulate it. Once he finishes, I do clean up anything he dropped so we don't leave a really huge mess.
Simon is officially over anything puréed (the little we have offered). He looks at my play and he wants the biggest piece of what I have, or he whines. Good thing I dot mind sharing food.

Trust the baby

Baby has had a cold this week, so we haven't really been offering food.
Last night we cheated and got Wingstop. I always get some veggie sticks with my wings. My husband suggested we offer some celery. I, of course, am nervous because I don't want him to bite off a chunk. He loved it soo much! His gums are very strong and he ate 1/2 of 2 stalks. It was perfect holding size and it doesn't break too easily, so it was actually a really good food.
For the first time ever he was lunging for our food (of course on wings night!). He has always been pretty indifferent to our food, though interested in our plates and napkins.

Success!

Let me just start with saying last night was a terrible, terrible disaster of a dinner.  I made crock pot chicken.  The chicken was dry.  I used old bay leaves which tasted terrible.  Mr. SiR was in a terrible mood and wanted nothing to do with anything.  I had potato and carrots for him and planned to maybe give him some chicken. I also offered a small wedge of avocado.  He didn't quite scream through the meal, but he was definitely squeal-y and unhappy.  Midway through me trying to eat, I offered him the orange that was sitting on the table - he shrieked with happiness.  I think he knew that orange was sitting on the table and he wanted it!  Lesson learned Mommy!
He did sleep all night long and napped a lot today.  We know he is teething again.  He also seems to be in the midst of a growth spurt and he is really trying to crawl and make some new sounds.  I think all these things together make for an easily frustrated baby.  

Tonight, I did not put any delectable fruits on the table ahead of time as I didn't want that issue again.
My husband and I were eating burgers.  I always top mine with avocado if I have it, so I gave him avocado.  This time, I cut a thick ring of avocado out. He was able to grab that sucker up pretty quick and it went straight to his mouth.  He got almost the whole thing devoured with only minimal help from me (I can't help it, I know I should let him do it- but we walk the line between wanting an independent baby without letting him get overly frustrated because then the meal is Done).  He also had a bit of his puree jar that I had opened a couple of days ago and wanted to finish up if possible.  I preloaded the spoon for that.  He loves trying to get that spoon to his mouth!  Most of that just ended up on the tray- a perfect location for spreading and covering himself with.  My husband is really squeamish, so this part of the meal always grosses him out! 

I really loved watching him eat the avocado because he was able to work it around really well in his mouth.  He was "chewing" and gumming it up.  He gagged twice when he got too much in his mouth and he fixed it all himself within 1-2 seconds.  Success!

So nervous

So we had an incident with apples last week. I cut one up into wedges, and that was not the right thing to do. He was able to gnaw off a chunk and I think he was starting to choke. We unbuckled him, leaned him forward, and he spit it out. This was a bit unnerving.
So, we backtracked. I bought some organic earths choice baby food stage 2 purées. So we have done that a little by preloading a spoon and handing it to him. He takes it, licks at it, mushed it, and seems to be ok with it.
At the same time, we are still figuring the rest of solids out.
Last night we did some purée preloaded on a spoon. He ate about 1/2 a jar. We still follow his cues for eating. I then wanted to share an orange with him. I peeled about 1/4 of it, then handed it to him for a taste.

Ha! There was to be no sharing there. He loved it! He is so much more interested in the food we are eating. We have renewed resolve to make this work!

Mimi's

We went out to eat at Mimi's the other night. My first dilemma was deciding whether or not to request a high chair. They just all look so big I don't know whether or not the baby will fit well into it. We decided to keep him in the carrier, and I sat him in the booth next to me. I was able to sit him up using a blanket and he was content to watch us eat.
I Ordered a meal with steamed veggies. He got to eat some carrots and a pickle. Both we cut into slices not wedges which means he can cram the whole thing in his mouth. I let him suck away until he tried to cram the whole thing in, then he would try something new. He loved the pickle! The kid takes after me.
He loves getting sips of water from my straw, but gets pretty mad when I don't let him chew on the straw. Top teeth are surely making their way down as he is indicating active teething again.