Friend demanded my honest opinion re her child's diet.

[Eastie77Returns]

My friend's child is just under a year old. She mentioned to me that he eats several pre-prepared pouches (Ella's Kitchen, pureed fruits) a day. On an average day she might give him 3-4. She asked me if I thought that was excessive as her MIL has been highly critical and also said she should cook everything from scratch for a child of that age.

Inwardly I partially agreed with her MIL. I don't think everything needs to be cooked from scratch (who has the time?!) but 4 pouches seems a lot. However I remember the stress of bringing up young DC and didn't want to pile on so I just replied that as long as her DC is happy, fed and gets a variety of food it is fine. Friend replied "you didn't really answer the question...do you think that's too many pouches" and insisted I give her an honest answer. In the end I said yes, it seems quite high if it's that amount every day. She was then clearly upset and things have been really strained between us since.

I mean, I don't get it. In the grand scheme of things it's really not that important - the pouches are not poison - but if you want honest feedback on what you are feeding your child then surely just accept the opinon when it's given? If you don't like what you hear then ok, just move on.

my babies could g stand purée so we never did pouches much anyway so this isn't coming from a defense position but you know that a teaspoon is 5ml so roughly 5g of anything with a density similar to water
so
15g carrot
8g onion
and 1g parsnip is approx 5tea spoons of veg

Shes feeling the Mum guilt and was hoping for a different answer. I’d just say sorry if you are offended but you did push for an answer and I won’t lie to you as you’re my friend. Offer support and let her know it was without judgement and you do understand. Offer some easy meal ideas if you have any. She just sounds like a new mum struggling and being made to feel guilty by her MIL comments. If MIL was nice she’d offer the above support rather than be so rude about it. When I struggled with meals for my baby at this stage family brought meals including frozen ones all home made to make it easier for us and it was invaluable at a time I was struggling.

Pouches don't encourage the development of chewing and swallowing that other textures of food do. The fruit ones are also extremely high in sugar and there have been instances of baby food pouches testing positive for high levels of heavy metals. So personally I would use them occasionally for out and about convenience or prune/pear ones for treating constipation. But try to feed as much different finger and mashed foods as possible. By 1 year old they can basically have small portions of whatever meals you eat (minus salt and too much spice ect). The nhs has good advice on age appropriate baby weaning.

Sounds like you have a great family 👏🏻

The thing with pouches is they're a very consistent taste and texture that you don't get with fresh fruit and veg and homemade meals. So the fussy baby is not getting a chance to get used to food being different (e.g. some blueberries sweet, some sour) and is likely to get more fussy.