Baby rice

[sweetjane]

Possibly a daft question, but my HV didn't seem to know the answer.. can you use ordinary flaked rice instead of baby rice? Do they do anything to flaked rice to make it "baby" rice or is it basically the same thing??

[Furball]

top tip - skip the baby rice. It's like wallpaper paste.

I don't know whether you have heard of Baby Led Weening (do a search 1001 threads here about it) It's very interesting and might be worth a read.

[Taylormama]

don't use baby rice - if you want to puree then just go for pureed fruit and veg (pear, sweet pototo etc) - if you don't then baby led weaning is fab!

[lulumama]

think baby rice is rice flour, i would not give it on its own, would go for pureed fruit and veg, and rice to thicken BUTwww.babyledweaning.comxplin s how to avoid purees altogther!

[ThomCat]

baby rice is gross and pointless. Either steam a carrot or 5 and hand it to her or steam some carrots and puree. Or a sweet potato or anything else, other than baby wallpaper paste!

[tiktok]

sweetjane, I'm less certain than others here about the horrors of baby rice but the truth is your baby doesn't actually need it...it's a processed product with vitamins added to it, and its main benefit is that it keeps a long time, and you can make up very small quantities of it, oh, and it mixes easily with other foods to thicken them. It doesn't really do anything to support a baby's kowledge of taste, texture and self-feeding, but in itself it's not a 'bad' product.

The 'baby' bit of baby rice is this fine texture and the added vitamins, and of course you can use flaked rice instead.

at your HV not knowing the answer to this, though.

[sweetjane]

Thanks very much for your replies.. I agree it does look pretty gross but I like that it can be mixed with breastmilk so I will probably use it or flaked rice (cheaper I imagine!)- thanks for the advice!

[Furball]

I'm only asking sweetjane not critising but why does it matter if it can be mixed with beastmilk?

[Furball]

that comes across wrong, sorry, trying to say, you can mix proper food like carrot or pear with breastmilk as well if you like to smooth it up.

[katelyle]

When I tried to wean my dd I used baby rice and it was a real struggle. I carried on, because it didn't cross my mind that you could use anything else at the beginning. Then my mum said "I don't think she likes it" I tried a little stewed apple and she hoovered it down and didn't look back! Carrot was very popular too and she loved potato pureed with a little breast milk. The advantage of using vegetables is that she can have some of what everyone else is having and some babies really like that, particularly if they've got older siblings. Also, and this is just my opinion, you're not giving them a processed food AND you're not putting any more money into the pockets of the baby food manufaturers.Good luck. And, my final top tip - if at any stage you give your baby weetabix, wipe up any spills before they dry. Dried on weetabix is IMPOSSIBLE to get off any surface and will still be stuck to the floor years later.

[sweetjane]

No probs Furball.. I just thought from stuff I have read that the rice would take on the taste of breastmilk better than anything else so would be a nice easy first food. Totally agree with the point about baby food manufacturers btw, hence part of my reason for just wanting to use ordinary flaked rice! Thanks to all for your replies!

[zebedeee]

Babyrice is a staple in my house with a baby around, as I avoid giving them cows milk and wheat until a year. It is very quick and easy to mix with other foods and helps provide a balanced diet by adding a bit of starch into my babies diet, and gives the nice creamy texture of yogurt. Not worried about adding a few pennies into baby manufacturers pockets as I don't by jarred food or baby rice cakes (they just chew adult unsalted) and I have never seen rice flour for sale unless it is in the baby aisle. Flaked rice needs to be cooked for a while - you would prob. want to add the breast milk after cooking rather than boiling it up with the rice. Not too worried about the processed aspect of babyrice either - were I not avoiding wheat I would probably be giving them weetabix, equally processed with added vitamins (and lining the pockets of breakfast cereal manufacturers). I would have thought wheat flour for bread, pasta etc equally processed.

[whomovedmychocolate]

Babyrice makes excellent custard if you run out of cornflower. (For all those of you who have it lingering in the cupboards because you bought it because your HV told you to and then decided to go down the BLW route).

I give my daughter sticky jasmine rice (she's six and a half months) and she loves jamming it in her mouth.

You can buy rice flour but it doesn't have the added iron and vitamins (oh and it's not terribly good rice used for rice flour because it's designed to make indian flatbreads and things and so it's fairly rough grains).

Okay, I've admitted to knowing far too much about this....I'll bugger off now....

[sweetjane]

Loving the idea of babyrice custard!

[whomovedmychocolate]

It's great for thickening sauces too. DH got it into his head that he should buy some every time he went to the supermarket and we tried one packet and decided this was a bad idea and that we'd prefer to feed our DD food, so we had somewhat of a stockpile

[Malaleche]

Hipp do a nice baby rice, no additives as far as i can see and its organic. I also am avoiding wheat so rice is a good carb. I mix in the pureed fruit or veg and sometimes a bit of soya formua to make it creamy. Am still bfeeding as well tho. Flaked rice is not the same thing - it needs cooking and still has quite a lumpy chewy consistency imo - wouldnt bother if i were you.

[AitchTwoOh]

whomoved, that is BRILLIANT! i have some in the cupboard and i don't know anyone doing purees. do you think you can basically use it in place of corn flour, to re-bind split sauces? is it really that fine? (i've never seen baby rice before).

[whomovedmychocolate]

Oh yes, it works fine but you need to mix it with a bit of melted butter obviously, as you would to make a roux to thicken a sauce, unless you want to have to beat your sauce. I personally just make a paste of butter and baby rice and then add a little of the (too watery) sauce and make it sort of soupy then chuck it in the pan and it works fine.

[sweetjane]

Whomoved, you really should post this in the good housekeeping section as a top tip! Got any more?? Loving it!

[AitchTwoOh]

that's great, thanks.

[LittleMissLate]

My dd actually likes baby rice (made up with expressed milk) - guess its because the flavour is so similar to bm. Loves it even more with fruit mixed in which is her normal breakfast! If you are going to give purees as well as finger foods rather than full-on blw it's a very useful gluten-free carb and needs no cooking, just mix with milk (I'm slightly lazy and give dd mostly cold food).

[halogen]

My daughter liked baby rice, too, and it was useful for using to dilute the taste of anything new that I was giving her. When introducing a new taste, I'd give it mixed with baby rice and milk for the first couple of tries. It seemed to work really well. She's now eight months old and eats everything. I also used it to thicken up some of the purees as she got older and wanted things that were less liquid.