jar foods / home made food.

madison 1

What is the best baby food to give your child. rush around like a mad woman and make your own or buy the baby jars in the store.
Ive tried them both and the baby only wants bottles, he's not intrested

Yavvy

what age is the baby.. I would not worry about your baby not eating solids yet, Ours would eat for ages but when she did this was it was great because she wanted to eat everything. They will eat when their ready, you just gotta keep offering it to them...forcing them to eat before their ready will cause major problems.

AS for the best food...the best food is the one that they get the most nutrition from,
the organic range form the usual companies is actually pretty good just avoid anything that used additives, modified/refined sugars, salt and colourings.

ether

The jars are handy alright, but when they're ready its more beneficial to get them to eat the home made stuff, even now I mash my 4 year olds brocolli or turnip into his potato, loves the stuff.
If the baby wants the bottle then fine, just keep trying the solids untils he/shes ready, anyway if I had the choice between jars and home made I know what I'd pick, just remembering the smell of those jars yeuch!
Just remember theres plenty of choice out there either way.

KdjaCL

From 6 months on make some potatoes actually a lot , make some veggies and gravy pour the gravy over the veggies , mash the veggies and potaotes into mush (power blender WHIRRR WHIRRR) make sure you only poured the gravy over the veggies for flavour a thingie with holes in is best (god wtf is the name of them strainer type things)

Then when you have a bug chunk of food all mashed up nicely, make as many portions as you can and freeze it there you go good healthy dinners for months.


As they get older relax on the WHIRR WHIRR and add some meat, you find out what they like eventually and replace gravy with Barney beans etc for variety.

But make truck loads of it and freeze it cheap handy to make food, full of good things.


kdjac

Alanna

I use jars of baby food for my toddler daughter occasionally but I rarely use anything but Cow and Gate Organic or Hipp Organic. I use the organic ones as I don't trust food manufacturers not to add preservatives and intensively farmed meat and food labelled organic legally has to reach certain standards. The jarred food all seems to have rice starch as a protein which goes a bit weird looking when it is left over. As for the smell, Hipp foods don't smell too bad at all and really I feel that I shouldn't feed my baby something I wouldn't eat myself.

Nevyn

then dont

Babies can and will eat what grown ups eat it just has to be made easy for them to swallow. I found that making food cubes using creamed poatoe and carrots was good. Fill an ice cibe tray and freeze, and when baby gets a bit bigger, do the same with little yogart pots and cover them wit cling film.
That way you know exactly what baby is eating.

RainyDay

KdjaC wrote:

From 6 months on make some potatoes actually a lot , make some veggies and gravy pour the gravy over the veggies , mash the veggies and potaotes into mush (power blender WHIRRR WHIRRR) make sure you only poured the gravy over the veggies for flavour a thingie with holes in is best (god wtf is the name of them strainer type things)

Be careful with the gravy - Many adult gravies are heavily loaded with salt. You'll need to find the gravies specifically intended for babies.

I thoroughly agree with your overall approach - let baby eat what you're eating, though in a mushier form.

KdjaCL

Cow and gate Gravy for babies :d

kdjac

tred

Thaedydal wrote:

then dont

Babies can and will eat what grown ups eat it just has to be made easy for them to swallow. I found that making food cubes using creamed poatoe and carrots was good. Fill an ice cibe tray and freeze, and when baby gets a bit bigger, do the same with little yogart pots and cover them wit cling film.
That way you know exactly what baby is eating.

Yeah we used the ice cube trays. its the business. Lately weve used a sieve and push the pototato and veg through it to give more texture. Young lad loves that. just take the cubes out the night before, and voila. Means u can cook up a pot at start of week, and less hassle when everyone working.

samb

Did ya see that parenting program where the six year old girl was being fed mashed food and wouldn't feed herself.
I find for a child above about 9 months that read-brek is very good for breackfast. If you child finds it a bit bland then simply add a small amount of the powdered (cow & gate).

deisemum

I gave my eldest (now 10) a mixture of home cooked meals and jars (Boots international range is very good). I read a report that babies that ate babies who ate jared food usually ate a wider variety of foods and flavours compared to those who only ate home made meals. A lot of people will only give bland food such as veg and potatoes with gravy and not introduce other flavours. My eldest will eat any type of cooking but when I had my second he rarely had jars but homemade meals and he's a very fussy eater.

From 6 months babies can have weetabix, readybrek etc. I'd include protein in their dinners and gradually introduce new flavours.

I'm a childminder and give the babies (those on solids) the same as the older children, I just blend or mash it to suit each child (if required). Even babies that are able to sit in a high chair benefit from being round the table with the other children and will eat more than on the days I don't have other children. I try and make it a social activity which seems to work

deisemum

Excuse typo I didn't mean babies that ate babies but babies that ate jared food LOL time for bed I think

tred

deisemum wrote:

Excuse typo I didn't mean babies that ate babies but babies that ate jared food LOL time for bed I think

So is it ok to give ReadyBreak to Babys from 6 months old?.

Nevyn

check the box.

deisemum

Yes and you can find the information on their website

hepcat

ON my 8 yr old I used to boil veg such as potato and cauliflower, mash together and use a bit of the jar stuff to mix it up with. She loved it - used to eat tons and tons of it.

tred

deisemum wrote:

Yes and you can find the information on their website

We did check the box last week in tesco and ther ewas nothing on it about age. Whats there website, i tried that as well and couldnt find it!!!.

deisemum

www.weetabix.co.uk they are updating their site but there is an email link to contact customer services for info.

tred

deisemum wrote:

www.weetabix.co.uk they are updating their site but there is an email link to contact customer services for info.

cheers is readybreak made by weetabix

parsi

I second the recommendation for the Boots International Range - our guys loved them. Boots also do Heinz tins which are not available in the likes of Dunnes...

luckat

One problem with jar foods is that they're often surprisingly salty. Myself, I'd generally go with whizzing up whatever you're having yourself once the kid's gut is mature enough to take it. (This is assuming that you eat good healthy home-cooked food, of course, not stuff heated up from packets!)

A couple of caveats, though I'm sure you know these: never give honey to a child under a year old (or even more), because it can have levels of botulism that won't harm an adult or a child but could harm a baby. And never give peanuts to a kid under 5 or so, because it's easy for them to breathe in tiny bits when they're chewing, to the great detriment of their lungs.

Mothman

Just started our 6 1/2 month old on solids. His favourite so far is sucking on Granny Smith apple. (just be aware of choking) For 30 minutes+ he'll knaw and suck.
Today he gulped down potato and leek soup. He was grabbing my arm with mouth open waiting for the spoon.
He doesn't seem as partial to pear or other types of apple...

This is our 2nd one and have to say, that we've never (and never will) bought baby food. Generally just give a bit of what we're having.

Our first one refused solids at times when she was teething. She was breastfed and we didn't consider it an issue. She really only started eating plenty of solids when she was well past a year old.

davidoco

8 month old girl. it takes about an hour once a week to prepare her foods. Everything as far as possible organic apple, plums, peaches, turnip, carrots, sweet potato, butternut squash, parsnip. She snacks on plain rice cakes.

Attached photos of food dessert in the yogurt cartons and veg cubed.

I personally wouldn't eat any of that jar stuff so wouldn't give it to her.

Ickle Magoo

My son hates jarred foods & refuses point blank to eat them....so that could be the problem rather than not wanting to eat?

He is not a fussy eater & at 15months will happily feed himself a mini-portion of whatever we eat - and that's anything from chicken tikka to haggis, to fish or veg.....when starting him on solids, I just made various combination batches of potato, carrot, peas, beans, lentils, pear, sweet potato, apple, etc, etc. and blended it with some formula - popped it in ice-cube trays & then emptied the trays into some tupperware ready for reheating........through time I lessened the volume of formula I added and reduced the blending until he could eat food unmushed and with the appropriate sauces.....

I also found letting him eat when we did encouraged him to eat more & feed himself.....often he would turn down a spoonful of food we try & give him but would happily finish the bowl if allowed to feed himself....hth

shabbyroad

If you get a few of those ramekin (sp?) dishes you can fill about a dozen at a time from a single preparation of homemade food.
Our 3 are long past the baby stage but I remember that at the time it wa a real life-saver for us to prepare a copule of meals and freeze them in small dishes that could be individually defrosted and heated.
The most important advantage was that we knew exactly what was going in the food. And it was much more economical.