Lots of love,

Maggie & Ollie

We are definitely planning on more workshops, so if any of your kids are interested then do get in touch with us.

Lots of love,

Maggie x

Thank you to the lovely Kate and little Charlie for keeping us in the know!

Kate hosts the local NCT coffee morning at M&R on Friday mornings, The NCT is a life line for new mums and provides a network of support. We love the NCT

Lots of Love

Maggie x

Baby-Led Weaning was a huge success for Charlie (18 months) and I. This is most evident whilst observing his enthusiastic brandishing and munching of a broccoli floret, or a whole chicken leg. People are always surprised by the way Charlie eats. Apart from the obvious fruits and vegetables that toddlers are notoriously wary of, he is also happy to feed himself olives, lemon wedges, rocket leaves or lentils, one by one. I am particularly pleased by my in-laws’ incredulous response to this display – especially since my husband ate mainly beans on toast when he was growing up, with ketchup. In fact, he still does!

Gill Rapley’s “The Baby Led Weaning” book was a big inspiration to me and as a result of reading it I attended a class on baby-led weaning when Charlie was 6 months old. The basic premise is that babies can self-feed from the beginning of the weaning process, and as a result, develop independence and hand-eye co-ordination whilst experimenting with foods at their own pace. There is no requirement for spoon-feeding or pureeing and starting with whole finger foods such as steamed carrots, lightly stewed apple, pieces of chicken etc. At six months, slowly builds up to joining in with all the foods that the rest of the family enjoy.  By 9 or 10 months, Charlie was eating the same as me at every meal although in quite small quantities. By 12 months he was eating as much food as other babies who started on pureed foods and we did not have the hurdle of moving from smooth purees to “lumps” which can cause problems for some children.

Overall, I would highly recommend it as a weaning method. My diet improved too because I was consciously choosing foods that we could both enjoy together. Charlie benefitted hugely from watching me eat everything he was eating and his natural inclination to copy me led to him growing in confidence quickly with a wide range of foods. Some tips if you are considering it:

1. Expect a lot of mess and try to embrace it (I have cleaned the floor after every meal for over a year and the mess has got less and less)
2. Try to offer a wide variety of different foods at each meal – things that your baby an easily hold by themselves
3. Try to eat with your baby at each meal even if you are only pretending and fully intend to have a muffin afterwards
4. Continue with milk feeding as much as before and demand for milk
5. Try to be laid back about foods your baby doesn’t seem to fancy, try again later or another day.
6. Don’t worry if they don’t eat very much at first, just keep going with the milk feeding and over time you will be amazed to see little pieces of food appearing in their poo.
7. Do not worry about choking. Your baby has an amazing gag-reflex and will gag a lot as they learn to move food around their mouth. Whilst it is alarming for us to see, you will notice they are completely un-fazed!
8. Get support from other Mums doing baby-led weaning – try your local NCT Group or www.babyledweaning.com

There are A LOT of mummy blogs out there now and new ones crop up everyday. We’re having an influx of requests for free sessions to review the club. I remember once upon a time when we first launched the very lovely Courtney from Babyccino came to visit us – she joined even though she lived in North London, didn’t ask or expect any thing in return and wrote a lovely piece about us.  Almost five years later her blog is still my favorite – if you are going to follow one follow this one. They truly find the coolest stuff to review,  have great recipe ideas, are not pretentious and have grown and grown, yet still retain the genuine qualities that they launched with. Huge congrats to both Courtney and Ester on the news that they are expecting their fourth babies – more mummies as mad as me!

My top three Blogs:

Babyccino for all of the above reasons

The Little Style Book – Because Katherine is genuinely one of the mostfun people – like ever!

Cool Mum Hunting – this is a new one I just found – so far so good!

Helen will be with us for two days next week as our artist in residence to host a super cool animation workshop – I can assure you it will be SO exciting!   It will be a chance for the big kids to get a real feel for what it takes to make an animated feature, starting with research and inspiration, technical design of characters and backdrops. Then filming, editing, recording sound and creating a trailer – Phew! Kids will be working on Macs and learning how to use an animation program that they can then use at home and for school projects.

How cool does that all sound? I really want to join in.  If you want to book a place for this fantastic workshop then give us a call at the club.  It also means Mums and Dads, that you can have a little time to yourself to catch up on what you want to do… and remember we have a 3 for 2 offer on the big kids classes this Easter!

Wed & Thurs 11^th /12^th April, 10am – 5pm

Both days @ £180 for members / £250 for guests – lunch, snacks and DVD’s are included in the cost.

Age: 7-12

Have a lovely Easter all,

Maggie xx

Age group 7-12

£100 for members / £160 for guests (All travel, lunch and snacks included)

Drop the big kids off and leave them with us for the day.  We will taking them to the famous fish restaurant, Kensington Place (by Addison Lee of course)  for an education in all things fishlike. We will be taking a tour of the restaurant and chatting to the chef,  he will be letting us in on his secret chef techniques and chatting  to us about the fish he loves to cook with. While we are there we will also be popping in to their fish mongers to see how it is all done.  Then back to our cooking school to concoct a three course meal, using sustainable Mackerel and Crab as suggested by the chef – Jelly fish dessert is also on the menu.

I really can’t wait for this one, it’s going to be truly unique!  There are only a few spaces left so call us at the club to avoid disappointment 0207 371 2200.  A little birdy tells me we have a 3 for 2 offer on the big kids classes too!

Maggie xx

“Family Food” by Heston Blumenthal.  Both Belles and I had the same response to this book, we tried but just couldn’t get into it, falling asleep after the first few pages – not a good sign!  Firstly, there are no pictures and it resembles a novel.  Heston is a complicated chef who produces experiments in the guise of food, some edible, some not…we do commend him for this!  However, Belles and I felt his family cook book lacks originiality and charisma.

“River Cottage Baby & Toddler Cookbook” by Nikki Duffy with Foreword by Hugh Fearnley – Whittingstall.  This book is more an information book on the basics of cooking for a baby.  It is probably very useful for a first time mum as it really gets to grips with the so called ‘rules’ of feeding a baby.  About half the book is information and half recipes.  The recipes are all fine, nothing that jumped out at us and none you wouldn’t already know if you have a couple of kids already.

Hope the last few posts have been helpful…happy cooking all.

M xx

Both of these are written by mums who get it! They actually make these recipes and have cooked them for their families… the tried tested method is very imortant!

TBMC has some great advice on what to have in your store cupboard and she has some more gourmet ideas for the more adventurous among us.

Fay covers good basic family meal ideas and has some useful tips on how to adapt them for babies.

Both have ample photographs which is a MUST.  Belles and I were really inspired by the books and will be trying quite a few recipes from each.

Happy reading all,

Maggie xx

Starting with our WINNER…My Daddy Cooks:

Belles and I were both really impressed by this one. Nick is a Daddy who really loves to cook with his son (as opposed to a celeb chef whose publisher wants to cash in on the market!) He has a really relaxed way about him that puts you at ease…simple things like measuring the flour for pancakes in spoonfuls so the kids can be involved, to an ingenious way of super speeding a Shepherd’s Pie if you are stretched for time. He covers a good selection of recipes, all with a twist giving him the edge on originality. And what’s great is he doesn’t complicate them like others tend to do. The only negative we could find was there were pictures for one out of three recipes…being women, we both love seeing pictures of what we’re cooking….However, this book is so well laid out and nicely produced that we overlooked this!

The runner up review comes tomorrow just in time for you to grab your copies and experiment over the weekend.

Lots of love,

Maggie & Belles xx

I’ve done a quick run around the office to ask the team what their favourite book was as a child…

Anna – “The Tiger Who Came to Tea” by Judith Kerr.  She doesn’t know why, she just loves it!

Amy – “The Magic Faraway Tree” by Enid Blyton.  She bought a copy to read last year on her summer holidays…she’s 26!! Also “Stig of the Dump” by Clive King and “The Twits” by Roald Dahl….OBVIOUSLY!

Marina -  “Mog” by Judith Kerr, very closely followed by The Night Before Christmas

Peaches -  “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle and Meg & Mog by Helen Nicoll & Jan Pienkowski

Aideen -  LOVES “The Big Orange Spot” she uses it in class and loves the philisophical elements it imparts

Belles – “The Giant Jam Sandwich” by John Vernon Lord and Janet Burroway

Dillon – “Spot The Dog” by Eric Kerr

My choice is “Badjelly The  Witch ” by Spike Milligan – Spike is just too cool and the cat is called ‘fluffy bum!! And there is a goblin called binklebonk – genius!

Some great suggestions…if you or your little ones haven’t read them yet then you MUST!!  All books are available from Belgravia Books

Enjoy…

Lots of love Maggie xx