How do you prepare baby food if you haven't got a freezer?

[Chocoholism]

I know it's madness that I don't have a freezer.
I currently rent a small flat with a small kitchen and only a small fridge was here when we came. I do plan to move by time DD is around 1 year old.
But any tips on what foods or how to prepare foods that will be best for our situation. Or is it just a case of prepare daily small amounts and have waste and or take longer

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

BLW? No purées to freeze at all!

[MinesAPintOfTea]

Just feed her what you eat, fork mashed with a bit of butter if you want to go down the puree route. Its only tiny quantities and a variety of flavors is good for them. I did blw but you can still feed what you're cooking for yourself for purees.

[ilovepowerhoop]

purees would last a couple of days in the fridge. Would a tabletop freezer be out of the question?

[PotteringAlong]

I think baby led weaning is your friend here!

[Theas18]

Mush a bit if what ever you have around - banana, carrot, avocado and give fingers of toast etc ( and weetabix/ ready brek).

Food is for fun until age one etc so tastes of this and that and baby led weaning with soft chunks .just don't add salt to veggies and baby can gave them too.

Weaning doesn't need to be a mystery involving lots of frozen ice cubes etc even if you don't use read prep mushes. ( or over sugared petit filou etc)

[3boys3dogshelp]

That sounds a bit tricky. We keep pureed food for 24 hours in the fridge.i spent a long time cooking especially for ds1 but ds2 very quickly progressed to having some of what we were having. So you could make soups/stews etc for your meals and whizz up a couple of portions for your lo to save waste. Some of the pouches seem good too if you are struggling to prepare. Also bananas, mangoes and avocadoes are great just blended if you're in a hurry.

[Chocoholism]

I looked into table top freezers and the dimensions don't fit on our work tops as we have cupboards above that make it smaller.
My DD is only 4.5 months so not planning to start yet but just starting to research it, never heard of baby led weaning until recently and not sure what that means yet so I'll have to look Into that properly.

[BertieBotts]

I did baby led weaning and I don't think I ever froze anything :) You just give them what you're having.

[AnythingNotEverything]

We've been weaning for about 4 weeks and haven't frozen anything yet. I don't think we will.

DD has baby porridge at breakfast, some fruit at lunch (sometimes!) - like some banana or clementine, and at dinner she has some of our veg (unseasoned and over cooked) or some apple or pear lightly softened in the microwave. Once she's 26 weeks she'll start having a portion of our dinner.

No specialist equipment or techniques required. It's honestly not as hard as some people make out.

That said, I know some babies who really haven't taken to real food at all. You can still prepare fresh every few days and refrigerate.

[HolidayCriminal]

er, cook vegetable, mash with fork, serve with tiny spoon. Not hard to do since we have veg at main meals, anyway. Mash bananas, scrape apples, mash papaya or other fruit. Cook porridge, scoop yogurt... Bread crusts or potatoes or chips, just hand them over. I didn't do BLW because I don't like mess. I didn't have a freezer either, not relevant.

[LittleMilla]

I freeze but only because I over cook on purpose to have lots for ds2.

I'd just suggest getting used to cooking without salt. That way your lo can have whatever you eat. Early days you blend with a hand squizzer and as they progres you just whizz less and less.

He eats anything from spag Bol to mashed potato cheese and beans!

I really stressed about making 'baby food' for ds1 and this time I've found it so much easier to just give him our food. And they really don't care if they happen to have the same meal two days in a row!

[Rosa]

Shines halo - I never froze anything .... Cooked veg every other day mashed it in its broth kind of thing and added baby rice ( shick horror) to start off then baby pasta . Then meat cooked an finely chopped / fresh fish . Also did some finger foods as well. BLw was not for me as kitchen was tiny. Once grasped the basics I gave what we ate always mashed/ chopped ..If only they ate now what they did then ( sigh)

[Chocoholism]

Thanks for replies, I asked as it's what I hear from most people, they do batch cooking then freeze it but actually just keep it simple and should be fine I'm getting from you guys

[PotteringAlong]

Definitely keep it simple - don't overthink it!

[AnythingNotEverything]

I think people batch cook because they think they're supposed to, possibly because Annabel Karmel tells them too.

Honestly - it's just food you eat food, right? Share your food. It's really quite simple. You don't even need to mash it if you wait until baby is ready.

[KikiShack]

I'd just like to add in reply to anything that it's not necessarily true you don't need to mash if you wait until they're 'ready'.
DD is 28 weeks and only really likes purees or really soft stuff, eg I soak her miniwheat cereal before giving it to her and she still gags loads on that. She really can't cope with lumps, gags on very well gummed breadsticks etc.
I was upset initially as I wanted to give her finger food near enough exclusively, but I realised she prefers mush. Fair enough, I love mash potato!
So I think it varies a bit baby to baby.
OP I have frozen hardly anything, I normally make enough for just one or two portions, eg stick half an apple in the microwave then fork mash with butter, or hoik a tiny bit of mince/mash potato/tuna etc out to one side while I'm cooking for myself. Same as most other posters have written!

[AnythingNotEverything]

Fair enough Kiki. Good luck with it!