Help on what to feed 8 month old??

Tjmer

Hi All,

I had my first baby (a little girl) at the start of October and am finding it hard to come up with ideas for meal plans for her. She is 8.5 months old and a the moment she her food intake is:

8am - baby porridge or baby cereal of some sort and 5oz formula milk

12 noon - home stewed fruit (apples and blueberries or pears and blueberries - i make this myself) & petti folus yoghurt and 5oz formula milk

4pm - sweet potato & brocolli, butternut squash and corrot, sweet potato & carrot & salmon (I make this myself) & 5oz formula milk.

7-8pm - 7oz formula milk.

I have no idea if the above is a good/bad diet for my baby? I would love some advice on the above and on what other optins I could give her especially for lunch. If any of you have time perhaps you could advise me on what your kids liked to eat at this age?

Thanks

reilig

Hi,

I'm not really up to speed on what's the best or the worst for a child, but we do have a little girl the same age as you so here is what she gets:

9am Breakfast = porridge + stewed fruit (usually apple) + Formula milk. We don't feed Petit Filous as our nurse told us that it has avery high sugar content but we'll sometimes mix up natural yougurt with fruit puree.

1 - 2p, lunch = Potatoes + Broccoli / peas / carrots / parsnips / turnips/ + Fish (Salmon usually) or mionce meat which is cooked with onions and has gravy or Bolognaise added.

5pm bottle of formula

8pm night time porridge with stewed fruit (WE TRY TO VAIRY THE FRUIT)

Tjmer wrote: »

Hi All,

I had my first baby (a little girl) at the start of October and am finding it hard to come up with ideas for meal plans for her. She is 8.5 months old and a the moment she her food intake is:

8am - baby porridge or baby cereal of some sort and 5oz formula milk

12 noon - home stewed fruit (apples and blueberries or pears and blueberries - i make this myself) & petti folus yoghurt and 5oz formula milk

4pm - sweet potato & brocolli, butternut squash and corrot, sweet potato & carrot & salmon (I make this myself) & 5oz formula milk.

7-8pm - 7oz formula milk.

I have no idea if the above is a good/bad diet for my baby? I would love some advice on the above and on what other optins I could give her especially for lunch. If any of you have time perhaps you could advise me on what your kids liked to eat at this age?

Thanks

Tjmer

Thanks reilig I really appreciate your post. It's good to hear from somebody with a little one the same age.

So you only give 2 bottles milk per day? I was thinking I should be cutting down on the milk but was just afraid to. It's all very new to me - this is my first and my health nurse just tells me "you know yourself" - which I don't! When I tell her I don't know she just says it will come to me!!

I actually found some organic baby yoghurts in the supermarket the other day (glensik I think) which I plan on using instead of the petis filous.

I will try the mince out this week. I have some extra lean mince so that will be perfect.

If anybody else has any suggestions please let me know. All suggestions welcome

nikkibikki

Hi guys, I'd really reccomend getting a recipe book by Anabel Karmel, she has great ideas! She also has some recipe's published in the Tesco Baby Club mag so might be worth registering with them? My little boy is gone 3yo now so can't really remember what he was eating at 8 months old but found that book a godsend for ideas! I also had a little blender to cut the food up real small for when he was starting out, think it was made by Lindam.

HTH

crazy cat lady

The lindam baby blender is great. It doesn't puree the food like a processor would, it gives the food a nice 'chopped' textute which should be introduced around this age.

One of Megans favourites was cheesy vegetable pasta. Tesco used to sell baby pasta which was tiny little stars. Haven't seen it in ages though. I would then have my veggies, usually sweet potato, carrot and brocolli, and mix it in with a cheese sauce. i would usually use creme fraiche and melt some cheddar and sometimes a bit of parmesan into it. It was a really tasty and nutricious meal for her!

I would do the mane thing but replace the pasta with salmon, that was a hit too!

I also used to make vegetable soups and giver her this with bread at lunchtime. It was great through the cold winter.

With the lindam blender, you could also just blend up some of your dinner for her if it would make a suitable baby meal (stew/casserole/bolognese etc...) She'll have to start eating the same meals as you eventually

Another tip for you, look at the jars of baby foods and see what is on offer and try to make it yourself.

Fair play on making all the food yourself. I did the same and know how hard it is to come up with ideas to try and vary the little ones diet. Its worth it though

Lola92

My daughter is just turned 7 months old and she mostly gets whatever we are having (minus seasoning). Here's a rough example:

Breakfast: Ready Brek/Weetabix/Porridge/Scrambled egg with squares of toast. Sometimes I would add a small yoghurt to her cereal or fruit puree.

Lunch: Cooked veg(carrot/broccoli/cauliflower/peas/corn/greenbeans etc.) with some grated cheese which she feeds herself or Homemade soup with brown bread fingers/ shepards pie/ potato, veg and fish/pork/chicken/mince.

Tea: Chopped up fruit (Banana/Orange/Pear/nectarine/plum) and a yoghurt and/or rusk.

We don't give her milk feeds with her meals usually water or sometimes very diluted juice in her beaker. She gets about 3-4 8oz bottles a day wake up, before mid morning nap, before afternoon nap and before bed. Although sometimes she may only drink 2-3 oz sometimes she will drink the full bottle and look for more.

Just to add about the petit filous - you could also but a big tub of natural yoghurt (inexpensive in lidl) and add your own fruit puree to sweeten to taste. It works out much better value if you are doing a big batch of stewed fruit anyway!

Tjmer

Hi All,

Thank you so much for the suggestions. I bought the Anabel Karmel book yesterday so I'll have a look at that this evening (i'm back in work full time so I don't have as much time to read as I used to ).

I'll look out for one of those blenders also. It sounds like that could be a handy little tool to have.

I'm delighted now I know I can swap the yoghurt to natural or the organic baby ones and move away from the sugar filled ones. I have the fruit puree so I'll use that to sweeten it for sure.

Thank you for the ideas on the dinners/lunches. I am trying my best to vary it as I know I wouldn't want to eat the same food every day. I tend to make batches of food and freeze them so I'll try out a few new meals this weekend (keep the suggestions coming).

I should also add I have started buying some "snack" food like liga and some of the organix carrot crisps or sweetcorn crisps and some of the organix rice cakes with apple or raspberry and blueberry.

I will certainly look out for the baby pasta. We love pasta in our house so if baby can eat that too it would be great.

nikkibikki

Hi everyone, I found when using the baby pasta that after a little while when my son got used to biting and chewing his food, that the baby pasta stars (think they were made by Heinz) just got stuck and he kept having to cough them up, I just gave him regular penne instead, maybe chopped them in half.

Also, the only seasoning I wouldn't give him was salt, gave small quantities of everything else that we had ourselves as thought it would be good to get him used to the tastes etc. Still don't give him salt, though I do pretend to give it to him sometimes when he asks for it!!

Tjmer

I looked for baby pasta everywhere over the weekend and couldn't find it. I am in Wicklow so if anybody knows where I can get it please let me know. I would love to try giving her the pasta. If not is it ok to give normal pasta? I normally eat the brown pasta would this be ok to give her?

I tried out the organic baby yoghurts and she loved them. Also tried her with some potato and chicken and she loved that. I'm going to try shepards pie this weekend.

For those of you who give the veg with cheese sauce can this be frozen? Or could I make it the evening before and leave it in the fridge? I like the idea of the veg with cheese sauce but I work full time so I am not around to make the food each day just before she eats it (apart from weekends of course).

Thanks again for all the advice - it is a great help.

crazy cat lady

I used to get the baby pasta in Tesco in Arklow, but I haven't looked for it in a while as Megan has outgrown it. I did use normal pasta with her though and put in through the lindam blender. Generally brown bread/pasta/rice isn't recommended for babies as it takes longer to digest and may cause some tummy upsets.

Tesco also sell little tubs which are ideal for making a batch of food and freezing them.

LaLucy

Hi, well done for making your own baby food, it's great. One of my daughters favourite was lentils at that age which is nutritious. She has never had mince meat as I heard red meat is full of hormones. But chicken/fish/eggs are very good. I also have Annabel Karmel book so you'll find the lentil recipe there.
I am amazed at the poster who said her daughter self feeds at 7 months, wow!
Just try not to worry too much, as she gets older you could add fruit at the end of each meal. I give my little one organix biscuits and they have helped with teething.

Good luck!fruit at the end of each meal. I give my little one organix biscuits and they have helped with teething.

Good luck!

Diddy Kong

Try boots for the special smaller pasta, thats one of the only places we were able to find it...also had chicken stock cubes for babies.

3DataModem

Every baby is different, but two general tips...

(1) No milk/formula with meals. Fills em up too quick.

(2) If your child wont eat, try leaving him in highchair with a smorgasboard of food (pasta, ham, cheese, banana) and let him pick at it for 30-45 mins. We had to do this with one of the twins and it worked out great, now she eats more or less everything her brother does.

Actaully one more tip;

(3) DON'T STRESS over it. If my two have taught me anything its that trying to coax a kid to eat is a waste of time. Just present the food, try it a few times, maybe try something else, then mealtime over, out of highchair, see you at dinner. Less stress for baby, less stress for you.

Gal44

hiya my little girl is the same age 8.5 months im starting to give her finger food toast the organic snacks etc but im afraid of her choking on it i get so nervous when shese eating it cos shes thrown up her lunch/dinner few times after she starts gagging on her finger food any suggestions how big/small should the finger food be? any good food to start off with? thanks

deisemum

You can get tiny pasta like the baby version but cheaper, I think Roma make it, it's usually beside ordinary pasta and is often used for soups. Cous cous is an alternative.

I second Annabel Karmel's recipes, you can find them online.

http://www.annabelkarmel.com/recipes

nikkibikki

Just on the brown bread/pasta thing, this is all we gave our little lad as a baby coz it's all we ever eat ourselves and it didn't cause him any bother at all!