Ideas for home made puree baby food

[Blue2017]

Hello, my lo is now due to go onto solids and I'd love to make my own but I'm stuck for ideas on dinner options for lunch/tea I'm looking for some ideas my lo is dairy intolerant and is possibly intolerant to other foods as didn't cope with my breast milk very well x

Cooked carrots, swede and apple are the classics. And mashed banana mixed with some baby rice.

Mashed banana, mashed avocado, mixture of the 2. No need for baby rice.

Mashed banana and avocado- my dd loved this!
I made separate purée of pear, apple, carrot and sweet potato. Put them in separate ice cube trays. Then I just mixed the flavours up each time...pear and sweet potato was surprisingly popular!
I also made cauliflower cheese purée...with breast milk 😄. Bit extreme, but I struggled to give up bfing and missed it so as my supply eased off I used it for other things!

Sorry op, just seen the comment about possible intolerance...give the breast milk in the cauliflower a swerve then!

Read up on baby led weaning. (BLW).

No need for purees and easier to spot if a single ingredient causes a reaction.

I used 2 Annabel Karmel books, one purees and the other finger foods. Some great recipe ideas, but Started with basic veg purees frozen in cubes and combined carrot, tattie, sweet potato, pea, spinach, parsnip, etc

You don't need to give any purees if you start at six months. Babies need to learn use the jaw muscles to chew properly to help with speech.
Just give them proper food.

Agree with PPs. Don’t do purees. Waste of time and doesn’t help their development.

I used the Annabel karmel book and still do for fruit, Just for proportions really.

First foods: stewed Apple or pear blended up or steamed carrot/parsnip blended up.

Then add new food every 3/4 days at lunch time in case of allergies (haven't had one yet) and start combining.

My DD is also dairy free but I just substitute milk with her formula and use vegan alternatives. Fish pie was made with soy milk for example. Cheese sauce with vegan cheese.

Porridge made with formula and a blended banana has been breakfast 6 days a week for months now!

These days DD eats casseroles with small lumps and fruit purees at 9 months. She loves chicken and Apple and strawberry, melon and rusk atm. At 4 months she preferred avocado to other fruits.

Oh, lo will gag for a while no matter how smooth the food is but it's fine I promise!

What milk is your LO on currently OP?

Once you LO is 5 months you can offer sone finger foods along with purees if you’re not exclusively doing finger foods.

For DF finger foods try Violife cream cheese on Scottish oatcakes with cut up grapes ot strawberries.
Hummus and raw veg.
Slices of apple spread with smooth nut butter.
Blueberry pancakes made with an alternative milk.
Porridge fingers.
Mashed avocado on toast.
Eggy bread.
Smooth nut butter on toast.
Strips of chicken.

*6 months.

Are you under a Paediatric Dietician too OP?

Just started weaning my dairy free breast fed baby and these are a few of the recipes she has been enjoying ( all pureed );
Sweet potato , carrots and cauliflower. Steamed pear.
Mashed banana.
Sweet potato, red pepper and cauliflower.
Butternut squash, carrot and broccoli.
Mashed avacado with Breast milk.

I have found a cow & cage porridge (strawberry and banana flavour) that doesn't contain any milk powder so can just be mixed with baby's preferred milk.

Cow & Gate have a fabulous 5 step weaning book that you can sign up for on their website and they will send you a copy for free. It is really useful and helps you get up and running .

I made pureed:
Sweet potato
Parsnip
Carrot
Pea
Butternut squash
Broccoli
Kale
Courgette
Spinach
Prune
Apple
Plum
Peach
Pear
Apricot
Blueberry
Mango (strained out the stringy stuff)

Lentil (with chicken stock)
Homemade hummus

As well as mashed banana and mashed avocado, progressing quickly to a fairly rough mash with these two.

I fed each separately to check for intolerance. When they were all clear I used various combinations.

And ordinary potatoes too.

Even if you are not going the whole BLW hog and are wanting to spoon stuff in there is no need for purée. Squash banana/ avocado/ cooked carrots etc with a fork at most to make it spoonable. The other thing often mentioned here is the very slow and arduous sounding one flavour at a time for a few days to check for intolerances. Even in people with dairy intolerance ordinary other foods are not usually a problem( soya milk/ nuts could be) I am not sure how useful this is.

Thankyou for your replies some really helpful ideas, she is seeing a dietrician but not due till mid June and also on small alfamino, can I ask once you knew lo was okay on say carrot did you then add something to the carrot or try everything separate? Xx

I added everything separately. There is a history of multiple severe allergies in my family on my dad's side so I played it safe.

All of my DCs have either milk allergy or lactose intolerance or both.

DD1 got hives from apricots [little weirdo].

Like Math I’d just give things separately given the allergy and only once a day at this stage.

Like others have said though st six months you can just lightly steam the carrots and give them to LO to feed themselves, unless you actually want the extremely time consuming experience of spoon feeding that is

There is no way I would give lightly steamed carrots to a rookie eater to manage for themselves. Spoon feeding is a lot easier on the nerves than watching a 6 month old choking.

They would be steamed within an inch of their lives.

I just whizzed up whatever we were having. Later, I cut up whatever we were having into small bits.

Mine loved carrots red lentils and cheese blended.

I also blended lots our meals (spag Bol, fish pie, curry, risotto) and blended them less thoroughly until they ate them not blended.

My oldest I have single ingredients before mixed ones as I was anxious. The younger two less so, and I weaned much later (7-8 months) so they could go straight into meats etc

There is no way I would give lightly steamed carrots to a rookie eater to manage for themselves. Spoon feeding is a lot easier on the nerves than watching a 6 month old choking.

Gagging isn’t the same as choking.

They would be steamed within an inch of their lives.

There really isn’t any need from their perspective.

It's nerve wracking until you figure out which one it is though, and you have to sit and watch to make sure all is well.

Purees do no harm, while there is the risk of choking with food that can't easily be swallowed.

Started off with basics:
Potato, carrot, swede, turnip, cauliflower, peas, etc.

Didn't introduce any sweet things (pear etc) because that wasn't encouraged at the time (very old!!), until later.

Also introduced all sorts of foods for them to hold and try and chew - blw equivalent.

Before long they were having mashed down our finer- risotto, penne Bolognese, roast dinner.

Before long they ate what we ate.