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!

First baby needs individually frozen cubes of organic, non salted,freshly puréed and perfectly balanced meals you have slaved over.
Last one gets what there is mashed upa bit.
Guess which one is not a fussy eater in adulthood.

I'm already really excited about including DS2 in family meals and he's not even born yet

I loved BLW with DS1, was one of my favourite things ever. They really don't choke, basically if they can hold it and get it to their mouth themselves it's probably fine - raw apple can be a bit of a problem and anything largeish and round like cherry tomatoes, grapes, sausage but you just cut them into a different shape. It's amazing to see them handling and exploring all kinds of foods. Omelette and fish are brilliant things to give a baby.

Unfortunately at 9 he's a fussy bugger but since this behaviour (take all foods, section off favourite 10%, declare all others poison, recalibrate any time a new favourite food comes up, rendering 90% of old favourites discarded) is also replicated with clothing, underwear, leisure activities, TV programmes, and friends I'm not sure that feeding him a varied diet as a baby did him any harm.

I think it's really beneficial to them not to hold back actually. Why not let them try spice? They will soon let you know if they don't like it. I might be worried about hurting their mouths if I went with something too strong in spice too soon but I'd start off with milder things and work up, or something like piri piri tends to taste stronger at the edges so I might break it up and give pieces from the inside to get some of the flavour. Things like chilli con carne can be moderated with a spoonful of sour cream or natural yoghurt. Salt content must be carefully watched before 1yo but they eat such small amounts I did not find it very difficult to stay under the limit simply by avoiding too many processed foods.

I didn't choose to puree but if I was going to then I would either mash things with a fork, a mixture of what we were eating, or I'd save a selection of the day/meal before and blend it up ready for the next meal. Probably with some spares in case we had something like takeaway or beige tea or frozen pizza or whatever. I'm not going to worry overly about jarred sauces though I will have to go back to reading the labels and I might be more careful about what I buy in the supermarket. But for example from a random jar of tomato and basil sauce from the Tesco website: 0.83g salt in 100g (which is a bit more than 1/4 of the jar). Even if I'd used the whole jar in the pasta for all of us, I wouldn't expect a baby under a year to have even half of an adult portion, so that's maybe 0.3g max. I wouldn't have added salt to the pasta when cooking and I wouldn't add cheese, bacon, olives or sausage to the baby's portion if I was worried about the sauce. OTOH if I'd used a can of chopped tomatoes then I might feel OK about letting them have a few bits of the saltier ingredients.

I have heard about certain fruits being discouraged in other countries but they aren't mentioned on the NHS weaning guidelines so I have never worried about them. The only things I stayed aware of was salt levels, honey and choking hazards as mentioned before.

We stopped cooking with salt altogether, then we added it at table if we felt we needed it

Then just fed anything from food we were eating

Going against grain and I’m gonna be flamed but I don’t even cut grapes or tomatoes

MissP103 Wed 18-Jul-18 19:49:03

Yanbu op. I could never understand this. We cook with alot of spices (spicy not just for flavour) and completely not appropriate for my DC at 1yo. We also ate sushi alot and that wouldnt have worked. My ds is 2yo and I still cook a separate meal.

Actually, babies and toddlers can certainly eat spicy food. It's a case of gradual introduction of herbs and spices. By 2 years old, I had certainly introduced a wide variety of herbs and spices to my DCs diets. Not too hot early on, but both grew up liking spicy stuff.

I'd tone down the spice but other than that go for it. My LO likes a whole load of different tastes at each meal so I find it very hard to follow 'eat what I eat' and do more of a 'bit of everything in the house' because I'm so desperate to get LO to eat a decent amount! Good luck but yes it's scary so don't worry. There's loads of apps etc so just checkout some if you need more confidence or google 'piri piri baby food' etc to get an idea of spice content

@Imagingerbreadman you sound like the baby boomers who roll their eyes at car seats and tell us it never did us any harm to be shoved in the boot in a Moses basket.

Titty, lots of parents aren’t home until 6-6.30 and babies often can’t wait until then to eat. Are you suggesting keeping an exhausted baby up to eat with its parents at 7-7.30? My dh was usually home between 6.45 and 7.15. I was picking DCs up from nursery at 6pm and they’d already eaten at 5pm. We ate together at weekends and holidays. Now they’re older they have a snack after school and we eat at 7pm but they weren’t able to do that until about 6yrs.

Okay. At 6 months DD was sleeping midnight till noon, so eating with me at 7/8pm was no problem.

Just buy one of those fried egg frying pans, the tiny ones, and use it to cook less spicy options. Otherwise go for it. The pans are also a great size for single egg omelettes too.
Steaming fruit and veg too also makes it safer, but yes.
Anything goes, rice, spaghetti, mince, bread, pies, lasagne, curry, fish, fajitas, enchiladas, etc

Okay. At 6 months DD was sleeping midnight till noon, so eating with me at 7/8pm was no problem.

Mine were all put down at 7pm every night from about 1wk old regardless of how often they woke. By 8mths they had to be up and out by 7am to get to nursery though which isn’t uncommon.

Don't cook with salt anything goes then

Okay. At 6 months DD was sleeping midnight till noon, so eating with me at 7/8pm was no problem

Also often not an option. They could need to be up to get to childcare, or have school runs to do for older children etc. When the baby I am currently pregnant with is born it will basically have to do the school run with me every single day at 8.15am from very early on. Mine sleep 7-7 as 7am is usually when we need to be up, for a variety of reasons.

I literally gave DS whatever I had, off my plate on to his. Only exception was very salty stuff, honey and nuts. This included curry, spicy food, sea food.

Not at all lookingforspace I’m a lot younger than a baby boomer. Don’t get me wrong I have never be pfb but with this I didn’t realise the advice was to cut them and had been feeding dd them whole for a while so didn’t see the point in changing what I was doing

Sorry, couldn't RTFT. I'm sure this had been said but just in case

Until they are 1yo, I understood baby-led-weaning as getting used to flavours and textures, not as the only way to feed and gain weight, as they are also having milk. Just put a small portion of what you have but remove anything that might not be good (spices, bones, honey, too much salt, etc). For spices or salt, I divided the preparation before adding sauces or spices, so I had two pans going, one with spices and one without. Only one extra pan to wash but no extra work. That meant that sometimes they had plain grilled chicken when I had a chicken curry (i.e. I didn't add the sauce to theirs), but it didn't affect my cooking time much and they still are with us pretty much the same.

I gave my little boy everything, even spicy stuff (but then I don’t like stuff hot hot!). Other cultures have their food hot so it’s not going to do them any harm! As others said the biggest thing is salt, we don’t add any salt to his food where as I would add salt to mine (DH hates added salt!).
He’s just over a year and a half now and eats almost anything!

Well very sadly I know of a 6yr old who died from choking on a grape so it’s not just babies at risk. It’s not overly fussing either. I always cut grapes, cherry tomatoes and sausages length ways

The only thing you need to worry about with BLW is honey nuts and salt.

I know it seems weird for babies to be eating spicy foods but from my experience my daughter absolutely lapped everything up that had taste to it (home made curries etc) and hated plain bland things.

Even now at nearly 2 she stole one of hubbys Walkers Max hot chicken wing flavour crisps (I can't even eat them they're that hot) and went back for more.

Honestly just feeding her what we were having was the best approach and she's not fussy at all - apart from eggs, she will only eat them in omelette or scrambled form, not boiled poached or fried!

A friend’s 7 year old nephew died from choking on a grape.

Also to add we had chili con carne for dinner tonight and she cleared her plate! I didn't cook any extra with less spice in it.

I gave my children chilli, curries, pasta, roast dinner (no salt) if we were having a takeaway I usually boiled some veg and grilled some chicken or fish. When I started weaning I used to purée fruit and veg and freeze in portions.

ohbabynutrition.com/blog/the-difference-between-choking-gagging-coughing

Babies have inbuilt gag reflex at 6 months so introducing them to lumpy and chunky food is actually safer at a younger age.

My DD (16 month) eats anything she gets her hands on... sushi, strong cheese, spicy food, quinoa salad, seafood. Never fed her purées.

OP I would recommend looking up baby led weaning groups on Facebook or online. I've had really good advice from people on there.

I try and do a bit of both. Avoiding spicy salty and sugary foods is probably easier than it sounds though.

I've started adding chilli at the end of meals (eg chilli oil rather than fresh chillies) so I can easily set aside a mild portion.

If this isnt possible I'll mix a bit with creme fraîche or yoghurt to take the heat away

I'll very finely chop meat etc and add it back in to a bit of sauce to make a paste though - with curry I'll take out chicken,chop it then mix it in with the sauce

It's hard with smoked fish etc I'd probably avoid that and cured and processed meats etc

It is a bit of a pain I think unless you're a meat and two veg type person there's quite a lot you can't give them (I had olives and feta and red onion and cucumber for lunch - the only thing I could give was cucumber out of that) but it gets better when they start getting teeth!

@AmIRightOrAMeringue honestly you could have given your child any of that lunch - obvs just cut be olives to minimise choking hazard! Even a small bit of feta (within reason) would be ok just watch the salt intake for the rest of the day!

Babies may not have teeth but their wee gums are hard and fully capable of breaking down foods

I would give a baby olives (stoned of course) and red onion. I don't know about feta, because I don't eat cheese so I don't know if it's on the listeria risk list but if it's not, I'd give that too. Not too much of the olives and cheese because I think these can be quite salty but I might bulk it out with some bread or other veg like peppers, tomatoes etc if I felt it wasn't very much for them.

Why smoked fish out of interest? Do you mean like smoked salmon ie not really cooked? Or is there high salt content? It's just a few people have mentioned fish as a no go but I think it's a great food for babies because it's so nutritious. I'd flake it and check for bones but I'm quite careful about bones for myself since my sister got one stuck in her throat when she was about 4 and found it quite traumatic, which also scared me - I had to run down the street and get the neighbour because DM thought she was choking!