BLW

[rumantic]

I have made a plan to get us eating from a table (and not off our laps) by the time Ryan is 6 months old. I have also realised that at some point we are going to have to completely cut out takeaways and processed foods as he will be eating with us in 3-5 months time! This includes packet and jar sauces apparently, because they contain too much salt

Comments

[rainbowshine]

I have to be honest and it will probably be a while before Ryan eats with you. At first you will feel things like baby rice, vegetables, fruit, cereals etc. and they will only be a teaspoon at first. So its much easier to make a pan of say stewed apple, pour it into ice cube trays and freeze them to either give alone or to mix with another fruit or cereal. Then after 6 months move onto things like fromage frais, yoghurt, meat, pasta etc. but again I would make say mince and freeze in icecube trays (put into plastic bags once made) and then if you want to do say Shepherds Pie - get out a cube of mince, one of carrot and one of potato to give to Ryan! When you get further on I used to make batches of spag bol, more complex mince dishes etc. and I used to use old baby food jars to freeze mini meals in. It's at this stage that you could start to adapt your food for Ryan. You can save bits of your food for him before but I tended to find that was harder work than having a morning a week cooking one or two types of food to freeze. But

[rainbowshine]

BTW you will find that things like mini pasta shells (the sort you put into soup) or mini macaroni will be easier than chopping up pasta. Also babies tend to choke easily on rice. Potato doesn't freeze well either - neither do peas - but when mixed with something else they are ok. Butternut Squash is always a winner! Someone said today they were trying avocado but I have never tried it!

[rumantic]

Thanks for the advice :) I have been looking at lots of weaning sites and most seem to say babies are happy eating most adult foods from about 7-8 months whether you do the baby led weaning route or the puree route. I'm leaning more towards the baby led weaning route simply because I am so disorganised it would be unlike me to check whether I had enough puree stored etc, and seems much easier to just take a portion out of what we are eating before I put the seasoning etc in, let it cool while I finish cooking it and then serve everything up together. I'll probably end up doing a bit of both though as I think there will be nights when I can't be bothered to cook from scratch so we will have to eat separately then

[rainbowshine]

Thanks for the link re the bottles. I will show K that and see what he thinks.

I know I have always struggled beyond the first week or so when weaning because I only eat one hot meal a day so never had something for the other mean, and also most fruits for babies need cooking before pureeing. But often we would put aside part of our meal - but even then we often had enough to save some to freeze. The whole stewing, pureeing, etc. debarkle has always made making batches of baby food much easier all round! You also really need to try one food for a couple of days when you start out to check for reactions etc. but the quantities you need are so tiny! If like you say you wean at 6 months then yes Ryan should be able to eat what you are having. Also by that stage (or within weeks) he should be able to have a lot of finger foods. I find a lot of babies miss out the lumpy food stage and go from purees to finger food and then back to more adult lumpy food. But every baby and family are different and everyone has a way which suits them!

[mybabythomas]

When Thomas first started solids I cooked absolutely everything from scratch. I used Gina Ford's recipes from "The Contented Little Baby Book of Weaning", the weaning plans aren't really appropriate (she introduces too many new foods too early) but the recipes make nice family meals. These days I tend to use more of Annabel Karmel's recipes, I have her "Superfoods" book but she's written several others too and from what I hear they are all good. Her website is here: http://www.annabelkarmel.com/

[rumantic]

My NCT friends are obsessed with the Gina Ford weaning book, lol. I hear good things about Annabel Karmel though, maybe I will get one for the recipes.

[habzamaphone]

Errrr.... trying to think of things I cook for me and Dave. Dave is hyper mega super picky about food though, so only eats minced steak and processed meat. *groan*

My mum used to feed us steak. She'd get a sirloin steak medium or well done, and feed us little bits when we reached about 1yr.

When Ty starting weaning, I used to make him butternut squash and potato mash. I can imagine that roasted cubes of squash, potato, and sticks of carrot would be yummy for a little one as it would be soft, sweet, and easy to grip; and you can make soup with the remainder of the roasted veg. (I'm so doing this when I have sprogs).

[smasharash]

I love cooking and make everything pretty much from scratch (including curry paste when I have access to a blender!). I mainly make soups, curries and risotto (other than the things that are already on your list) and would be happy to share some recipe's with you if you let me know what kind of thing you like. The only thing is I am a vegetarian but I guess you can easily add cooked meat to anything?

[rumantic]

Sounds good :) I like vegetarian food anyway - the only problem is I am allergic to cheese, so quite a lot of stuff is out unless it's also vegan. Cheese is difficult to substitute since not many things melt!

Um, I'm not sure what kind of things really. I'm not hugely keen on anything too spicy, especially if it is both spicy and creamy, for some reason that combination really does not appeal to me. James tends to say he won't eat vegetarian food but he has had it in the past and liked it so I think he's just moaning! I would be interested in some risotto tips though because I am useless at cooking rice, but I made a risotto type thing in my slow cooker and that was nice and easy. Anything where you put the dry rice in with cold/hot water and leave it for at least an hour I prefer - too much margin for error when you have a 10 minute cooking time :)

I have to get into making soup, my mum makes soup and it is so nice!

[tinytin]

We do all our cooking from scratch, Adam does most of it though. I was full of good intentions about feeding Jacob pureed food that was homemade but he would only accept the jarred stuff, though he liked banana and avocado mixed together. I didn't really blw, because he would have the jars and just play with anything else I gave him until he was older. By the age of one he was having about half and half jars and home made stuff, and now he is two and a half he is still extermely fussy. When he eats with us he does eat ok, if he likes it. He's not afraid to try new things, and he likes strong stuff like chili (mild) and bolognaise, but he rarely adds something new to his repertoire of 'stuff he always eats'. Does that make sense?

[rumantic]

Yes it does :) I'm not averse to jarred stuff, it's just they seem expensive for what they are and we are on a budget so might as well go for the cheap option!