To not see how I can follow the advice 'feed baby what ever you are having'?

[ethelfleda]

Maybe I am being over cautious- 8mo is my PFB after all and am terrified of getting the weaning thing wrong!

But yesterday was the first time I've had him weighed since we started weaning him. All fine - perfect weight gain etc but the HV is telling me that as long as I'm not giving him honey or full nuts, anything goes!

So... what about the piri piri smoked fish I had earlier in the week? And should I not make him separate portions of chilli with less spice in? Tonight's dinner is veggie omelette - should I just get over myself and give him some of that? Or carry on giving separate food to us?

I feel pretty stupid for finding this so difficult!

Just wanted to add because I haven’t seen anyone else mention it - we always cut back spicy foods like chilli and curry with plain natural yoghurt (like we do for my DMum !)

What did you have with your fish? Any veg or potatoes you could give him? Both my kids mainly ate whatever veg I was cooking for me until around 12-18 months when i added more adventurous things. My DD5 loves spicy food and has done since around 1 1/2-2 years old. My DS wasn’t keen until he was about 7 but at 9 he will now eat pretty much anything spicy food included any fruit or vegetable. The only thing he’s fussy about is meat. He likes chicken pork and fish but not beef or lamb. I think it’s great to feed you kids something that you’re already making even if it’s only the veg on a day you have something spicy to start with. You can add in the spice once they’re a little older gradually and see if they like it. Being varied with what they eat is great for them as they get older.

Piri piri fish is fine for weaning babies- what's the problem?

Make the dish but hold back the salt and chilli- you can sprinkle that on at the end of cooking.

Vegetable omelette sounds perfect for a weaning baby.

I don't get the problem. my babies went pretty much straight onto normal family food.

Give him whatever’s easiest for you and stop stressing about what Hv said

Not RTFT, but spices I wouldn’t worry about. The earlier I gave spices (my 3rd) the better they liked interesting food from a younger age. Just watch the salt! GL!

Umm going against the grain here but it didn't work for us. I am veggie, DS is lacto intolerant. I ended up sometimes doing separate things for us and also doing the puree stuff too,

Also found DS had major gagging issues and while it was fine to do some finger foods or share some elements of food we were eating. It really depended - so yes to scrambled egg and soup, no to hot curry and macaroni cheese.

Don't get caught up on what HV and other people say. I found pureeing and freezing stuff easier at times that separating out a mild portion for DS. Find what works for you

I would feed what I was eating when it was something suitable. I eat a lot of spicy food but wouldn’t feed that to a baby, I could in theory make a milder version but sometimes it wasn’t worth the extra faffing and she would get a separate meal.

I would say go with the flow and feed what you think is best. It can be easy to fall into the trap of feeding separate meal which will do you no favours in the long run.

Mine got about 90% homecooked stuff, 10% jars when we were out and about (for various reasons I'm not arsed to go into BLW wasn't viable for us - much to the dog's disappointment we didn't have showers of dropped food for him to hoover).

I made a point of cooking a couple of things a week I knew I could squirrel portions off for the baby and I froze extra those days (I used washed out yoghurt pots) for days when we weren't having something baby-friendly. So mine got weaned onto chillis, mild curries and stuff like that - if I was doing a pasta sauce (I make from scratch most of the time) I'd do some small baby pasta and mix theirs with that and then freeze extra and I just got into the way of using the very low salt stock cubes and not going bonkers with chilli or anything.

DD2 was under a dietitian for allergies and when she asked what she was being weaned on she was very very happy with what we were doing in terms of giving basically the same food we were (I drew the line at personally eating dairy free cheese though - I have some standards!) and both my kids now are fantastic eaters - not at all picky and will eat anything - especially if it's my bloody olives.

We’ve always given both DDs what ever we’ve eaten started with the vegetables at the beginning and then they were having small portions of anything we ate. It made us stop using salt in cooking which was a great health benefit for us as adults. My youngest loved curry and spicy food, the more flavour the better and we never had any problems. We’ve been really lucky at 9 & 4 they eat anything and I’ve never had to deal with fussy eaters or troublesome meal times.

Watch his salt intake. Cook mostly baby friendly low salt meals. I.e. lasagne/spaghetti Bol.

I bought a recipe book that put food into different ages brackets. I noticed many of the recipes were great for family meals anyway, and they definitely included mild curries and omelette. Just take care with salt and undercooked eggs. We used to ask our local Chinese to make dishes with no salt or MSG and feed that to dd too.

My granddaughter was eating chilli squid at 10 months and loved it. My daughter never cooked anything different for her and now at almost four she eats everything and anything.
To be honest I think this is just luck as I have 4 children myself and all were weening as my daughter has done. Two eat everything, one is middle of the road while the fourth is a pain in the arse and is the fussiest child on the planet!🙄

Don’t stress about it. I think you are over thinking it. As long as you have a healthy and varied diet yourself it’s completely fine to share it with your child. The only adaptation I made was use low salt stock. I never really add salt to food anyway so it wasn’t a hardship. I can’t say for sure if this was the reason but both my children (3 and 5) eat virtually every food possible and will merrily eat new things without batting an eyelid.

Go for it!! And enjoy it

We always have what we had for the most part.
Sometime we have seperate meals as little ones like tea about 4.30/4.45 & husband and I don’t eat til later, so we’d save the non kid friendly meals for then (spicy foods etc).

I would echo a PP too, don't put too much store in what your HV tells you, they are so variable and give completely different advice in my experience. Try the baby led weaning Facebook groups even if just to ask Qs.

When I was weaning DS I went to a talk given at my local surgery by the HV who held up nothing but a potato masher when answering the question “do I need any special equipment?” I was a little sceptical so I started pureeing and preparing special meals to freeze in portions for him. He was eating fine but there were times I got lazy and just let him eat off our plates. It was a revelation- we were in a restaurant on a Massachusetts highway on our way to Boston and I hadn’t packed any “baby food” to take with us. DH and I both ordered an amazing lobster pie and DS gobbled up each bite we gave him. A year or so later he picked off mussels and clams from a seafood platter we had ordered. He also loved curries.

It really is the best way to give your DCs a varied appetite. Makes your life a helluva lot easier too!

Sounds like you are doing fine as a 'good enough parent'. At 8mo I figure it may be all new. You maybe worry about doing the right thing 'cos you love your baby. Your child will let you know they don't like a thing, so unless you are doing a chilli eating challenge for YootYoob trust your instincts. I think they are doing a good job so far.

Ours ate what we ate, but we did modify our menu somewhat (less hot curries etc, but mine both loved well flavoured food).

Salt was my main worry, but they eat so little of the food it wasn’t a major concern and we generally cook from scratch and don’t add salt. So the odd time we eat out or get takeaway I figure it’s wasn’t a priblem.

Personally I’ve always hated that particular bit of advice. The only way to follow it is for the adults to eat nursery food. Maybe that’s what the nanny state wants for us.

Huh? Why? If you give dc chicken nuggets and chips then that's what they'll develop a taste for but my dc live Thai green curry, normal curry, chilli, spicy chicken fajitas with onion, courgette and peppers. I used to add a bit extra coconut milk so it wasn't quite as spicy but only initially. As long as there's not lots of salt they can eat like adults.

We're going to an Italian next week that doesn't have a kids' menu it's just smaller portions of the adult food. Perfect for my dc who aren't impressed by nuggets (they do have nuggets occasionally but don't see them as a treat food, more a mummy is shattered food).

I don’t understand the nursery food thing either.

The only way to follow it is for the adults to eat nursery food

Only if you feed your children ‘nursery food’. Which I don’t.

I gave both dc what I was having, within reason. I cut salt down in my cooking, if I was doing something spicy I either took a bit out before adding spice, or with curry added some yogurt. Omlette was a favourite from first weaning! As long as the food are cooked appropriately and given in suitablely sized pieces there's not a lot you can't give.

As a result of giving them what I was having, neither are keen on typical kids food like chicken nuggets, fish Fingers etc.

Agh, I found weaning incredibly difficult to get my head round the 1st time too. Just found it really complicated. Too much advice, I think looking back.
It was a lot easier when my Mum said why not try a squished up banana, don’t worry about it so much. So I did, ds hated it and I suddenly realised I just had to hand over softish bits of stuff and he would or wouldn’t go for it. I did puréed stuff also at times BLW wasn’t the way for us.
My kids eat normally now, btw, so it must have been ok.

As a result of giving them what I was having, neither are keen on typical kids food like chicken nuggets, fish Fingers etc

Or, in my case: Despite giving them what I was having, one will eat anything other than avocado and the other will only eat typical kids food like chicken nuggets, fish fingers etc.