To think that ‘just feed them what you eat’ when weaning is much harder than it sounds unless you already make everything from scratch?

[AliceinSlumberland]

I’ve got a 6 month old and we’re doing a bit of a mixed BLW/mushed up approach which is working for us, but I’m struggling with the ‘just feed them what you eat’ advice. I hate cooking, I should start by saying, so I have become a bit more reliant on easy to make meals, especially after a long day at work, but these just aren’t comparable with BLW. For example, I make a hotpot every so often but I use one of the packet mixes and I just feel overwhelmed about how to make it without that? Same with sausage casserole - but the baby can’t have these things as the packets have too much salt for him.

Sometimes I’ll make a pasta bake with a jar, and I do know how to make the sauce myself but it takes a lot longer. I feel like I’m having to rejig our entire menu and find new meals to have, so it’s not anywhere near as simple as ‘just feed them what you eat’ unless you’re already making everything from scratch?

Any simple hotpot recipes with less salt appreciated!

I remember my mother being asked to speak on radio news about a baby who had died when his parents fed him the same food they were eating - pies and all kinds of things full of too much salt. It was heartbreaking.

I found it easiest to spin off the meals.we ate. Cook the veg a bit longer in the microwave for baby then dunk it in cold water. Plain rice no sauce. So technically they are what we ate, but it wasn't exactly the same.

@FatBanana see so this is where I struggle, how
much of each vegetable? How long to simmer? How do I know when it’s done? I don’t have that natural feel
for cooking I think, it doesn’t come naturally to me and makes me a bit stressy.

Definitely going to batch cook some pasta sauce, I can do that, and I love the fish cakes idea.

He‘s not actually had any pouches yet other than a banana purée one which naturally he loved 🙄 He’s had quite a lot of steamed veg with mixed success 😂 but I know it’s all about tastes at the minute.

I hear you @AliceinSlumberland ! I second what @PrimrosesandPears said about What Mummy Makes. I’d also recommend Charlotte Stirling-Reed’s book How to Wean your Baby. Once you get past a few weeks, there are plenty of easy things that will work for you and your baby too. It does get much easier quite quickly, but it’s a lot to contend with at the start. Good luck!

@Clefable thanks for the taming twins link, I’ve not come across that before and it looks like it’s got some great ideas

@ShellySarah that would be fine for the baby but if the idea is that he’s eating what I eat, I like my pasta with sauce 😂

-steamed broccoli and peas

• boiled egg
• banana
• potatoes
• sausage
• pasta

One super easy one that both my girls have loved is just pasta mixed with cream cheese and peas. Takes no time at all. You can mix tuna in there too or other bits of veg.

We found there was usually some element of our meal DD could have and then filled out her plate with other stuff, so for example.

Adult meal - enchiladas
DD had - wrap, grated cheese, slices of tomato and cucumber

Adult meal - chicken curry and rice
DD had - some plain chicken cooked before the curry was added, rice, steamed veg (done in the microwave, takes 4 mins)

Adult meal - sausage, egg and chips
DD had - omelette or scrambled egg with bread and butter fingers

Bearing in mind that for the first 6 months of weaning the portion sizes are tiny, it's just a taste of everything, milk is still were the majority of focus needs to be.

I totally get you OP I felt the same at the time! Thankfully DS ended up with a mixture of loads of batch cooked low salt meals like fish pie made by his grandmother and lots of more basic things like scrambled eggs or jacket potato made by me. And pouches when we were out which I look back quite fondly on now I have to pay 5 quid for a kids meal. Now he's a toddler he often does eat what we have but not always.

It really makes no difference in my opinion how they are weaned they are all the same by about 18 months! Just do what works for you.

The odd baby food pouch isn't an issue but they shouldn't form the main part of a child's diet as you can really struggle to get children to then transition to family food.

There is a report about pouches on this link you may need to scroll down

https://www.firststepsnutrition.org/babyfood-composition

I felt like this! We cook a lot but I didn't feel like anything was suitable for baby at first.
As others have said just keep it really simple at first. For example if your having sausage and mash take a bit of potato out before you add salt. Add a bit of cheese to the babies for protein and serve whatever veg your having.
As they get older it gets easier and they eat more but under a year there is really no point giving them loads of different things each meal.
What mummy makes is a great book and having a stock of a simple homemade pasta sauce in the freezer is always a good back up.
Personally I also always had a few ready made baby foods in. Probably used less than 10 in the first 6 months of weaning but it made me feel good to know I had an 'emergency' option. I used to keep one in the changing bag as well for if we went to someone's for a meal and there wasn't anything suitable.

Ooh and those veg steam bags (Aldi do their own version which is much cheaper than the branded ones) are great. Essentially you can bypass a lot of the chopping and dicing part if you pay a little extra for the convenience (which is more than worth it for me). I mostly used frozen diced onion, garlic etc. and use the veg steam bags a lot as they're easy to just chuck in microwave for 2 mins to serve alongside whatever the main is.

Thanks everyone who has made me feel better! I’ve got the What Mummy Makes book so I’ll pick out some recipes for us to try as a family, maybe one new one a week and then work with what I can actually do.

I think this thread has made me realise that actually I cook more from scratch than I give myself credit for - it’s probably only 2 or 3 meals a fortnight where I’ll use a jar or packet so those are easy to tackle. There’s lots of things I can have and I’ll do some batch cooking of pasta sauce - then even if we have the dreaded jar then he can have the good stuff. I’ve found that Tesco has a knorr no salt stock cube so I’ll grab some of those too.

You’re doing a great job. You sound very thoughtful. BLW tend to bring out the people who did it all 120%.

I’m here to tell you that my baby mostly ate toast and babybel for a year and is an incredibly robust eater now they are at primary school.

I lived by the “food is fun until they’re one” mantra. It was just about trying little bits of whatever you were having. Variety is key. I’m sure you’re hotpots will be great.

Dont stress, don’t change anything.

We just fed our dc what we were eating if it was something like chips and egg with either beans or peas or a jacket potato with tuna and butter or some beans on toast.

If you don't want to use the packet mixes for the salt thing, Google copy-cat brand name recipes and you can usually find out how to make their spice mixes and you can then control the salt.

I think its maybe becoming more of a deal than it has to be to be honest. Dolmio has 0.71g per 1/4 a jar (full adult portion) so a baby would be less than half that. If you use one Oxo stock cube for a full recipe it's 0.97g salt, so a baby portion might be 0.2g of salt. If you use low sodium its even less. And anything you serve alongside it just add your salt later. If you find pouches less stress of course you can use them.

My youngest was born at a very busy time for us and we were on a very limited budget so he got a little bit of what we had. He had baked potatoes with cheese, curry and rice, scrambled eggs, everything in fajitas except the fajita mix, neeps and tatties while we enjoyed all the haggis. Some days if we were having something too hard to eat like steak I did low salt beans with cheese on toast. Or some pasta with cheese and cucumber on the side. I'm a BIG fan of snacky plates.

You're doing great OP.

I also couldn't really cook when my first child was 6 months. I decided to try one new recipe a week, and keep the other meals simple but not processed - jacket potatoes, omelette, pasta and basic homemade sauce, stir fry, roast dinner.

Nearly 20 years on, I'm now a confident cook with a wide repertoire and I really enjoy it. My son is off to uni next weekend and he said he's going to miss my cooking! I would never have imagined that in a million years when he was a baby 😂

I've found cooking videos helpful over the years as you can see exactly what to do and pause it as you go. Kitchen Sanctuary on You Tube is fab - she does family meals and is very easy to follow.

Best of luck.

I totally feel you OP. I found it super hard, especially as my DD is/was allergic to eggs, milk protein and soy.

I really like cooking some green veg (usually do broccoli, spinach and peas) blend and freeze into pots. Get some quick cook pasta (takes 5 mins to cook and you can chop it up smaller when they're younger if you want to) cook pasta, defrost a portion of green sauce, mix together with some cream cheese (vegan in our case!) And add some tuna, cooked cod or salmon. So easy and quick. I sometimes do tomato puree and cream cheese.

I promise it does get easier and you'll learn what baby will and won't manage. Give lots of well steamed veg, gradually cook a bit less over time. My DD loves berries (so expensive though) plain rich tea fingers occasionally, eggs if your LO isn't allergic, toast fingers.... I always found lunch tricky and most days now it's a bit of a lunch picnic of things like avocado, thinly sliced tomatoes, maybe a few crisps, toast or crackers, some fruit, yoghurt (obviously not all on the same day!) And never feel guilty about the odd freezer meal. My DD loves all fruit and veg,but also loves the odd potato waffle! What Mummy Makes is also a great cookbook.

i tend to give the baby what we ate the day before if it’s suitable, as I could never prepare a full meal with that tiny dictator shouting at me and I eat much later. When I cook something I think she can eat (typically bolognaise, chilli con carne, curry, pesto pasta etc) I just make it with the low salt stock (if it includes stock) and then make 2 baby portions, 1 for the fridge, 1 for the freezer. Then when it’s dinner time I just have to put rice or pasta on to boil and heat up what she is having. It’s taken the stress out of it massively. It doesn’t always work out like that though so sometimes she’ll have an omelette or fish fingers or even toast.

Get a slow cooker. And get frozen sliced veg.

You won't look back! Cooking 6-10 portions is as easy as dumping a few packets of frozen veg in, a pack of frozen mice and a couple of tins of tomatoes etc.

Stir it after an hour and add flavours. Add extra salt etc after doing baby portions. Piece of piss.

Ah you’re all so lovely, thank you. @NewCurtain ah maybe that’ll be me! I’ve never even thought to watch a cooking video, I think I’d find that super helpful
so thank you for the recommendation.

@OdeToBarney theyre great ideas, thank you, definitely give those a go! He quite likes gumming away at avacado so that’s good.

@thecatsthecats I was thinking about asking for a slow cooker for Christmas from my mum, sounds like it would be worth it? Can you leave it on while you’re out at work or only when you’re at home?

@Nicole1111 one for the fridge one for the freezer makes sooo much sense to me, thank you for that. Yes we eat a lot later than him at the minute to be honest but I keep seeing all this stuff about eating as a family, just not sure how I can fit that in by the time my husband finishes work.

Cooking from scratch can be incredibly easy - you seem to have built it up in your head to be this big thing. You can just place a jacket potato in the oven, add tinned tuna, cucumber, tomato, whatever to it then eat it and feed some to the baby. It's only complicated if you want it to be.

@thecatsthecats you can't feed mice to a baby! :)

Not necessarily for now but if you wanted to try new recipes, I always recommend this site
You can move the slider to adjust for how many portions you want, there is no weird ingredients and a lot of it freezes well
Every single recipe I've cooked has been fantastic
https://www.dontgobaconmyheart.co.uk