have you/would you/do you let your 14 month old eat any of these?

[jollyfolly]

i am rubbish at knowing what to feed my 14 month old and whilst he does eat a lot of veg and some white fish that really is about all he will eat.... very fussy and also we are bringing him up to not eat animal meat (until he decides otherwise!). So anyway was told that i can now feed him anything a four year old would eat!?
So walking round tesco i made a list of all the things i thought i might try him with but was not to sure if they would be a good idea.
organix do a range of 12 months + crisps with the promise of no added badness etc surely they are ok.... or will i be teaching him to like crisps?
Ambrosia custard/rice pudding pre made in pots....
frozen cod steak in parsley sauce
milky bar white choc puddings
raisins or is he to young ie will he choke on them?
cheerios??? ok i know the answer to that,full of sugar!
please help i have a baby recipe book and have tried some of the recipes but ds just seems interested only in the food he always gets.... ie mashed veg... if it comes on a spoon it has to have minimal lumps but he will eat lumps himself ie broccoli/cauliflower etc but not enough to call a proper meal!
oh one last thing is wheetabix good or bad? someone told me they had to much fibre in so i should not be giving him them.... what alternative cereal (other than ready brek) can i try?

DS is 13 months and he thoroughly enjoys raisins. I don't give them more than once a week because of tooth decay, but he'd eat them every meal if I let him. Keep an eye on him when you give them to him - well, that applies to everything really!

I'd definitely avoid the ready made puddings - very dear and full of rubbish. Greek yogurt and chopped up (or mashed up) fruit is yummy. We also give DS the baby organix snack type stuff. I don't think it's given him a taste for pringles! I'd avoid white chocolate - if you'd like to introduce him to chocolate, why not a bit of plain or milk? DS loves pasta - any kind! - with either a cheesy sauce or a tomatoey/veggie sauce. Oh, and you could throw in a few lentils or tinned beans (the cannellini/borlotti kind, rather than HJ Heinz!) for some non-animal protein. DS also loves cucumber & tomatoes. All kinds of fruit. And baby sweetcorn boiled/steamed to oblivion! And courgettes. Really, anything we eat ourselves. Just keep an eye on the salt content and IMO you're a lot better off giving him a little bit of sugar than anything with aspartame or any other artificial sweetener in it. As for breakfast cereal, in winter you can't beat porridge, and in summer, DS loves mini wheats and raisin wheats. They gloop up really nicely in milk and he shoves them in.

Sorry for the essay. hope this helps.

I do find you can hide loads of things in cheese sauce / white sauces at this age.
Agree that yoghurts are better than most pots of pudding.
Does he eat much fruit. Now is a great time to try loads of different types - melon is good at the moment.

wow thanks for all that!!! will re write the list and hit tesco tomorrow. poisson i now feel really thick but did not even think about making my own sauce for fish... doh!
ta everyone for that, am to poor to be eco friendly and organic but also dont want to feed him total junk (am sure he will do enough of that later in life!).... just one more quick thing, everyone says they can eat what i eat now does that include salsd leaves or will i be encouraging him to eat leaves in the garden.... or is that me just being totally neurotic??? oh and what a bout pasta sauce... or does anyone have a good recioe for a low salt one???? ta

Sounds ok to me ,but would avoid the ready made puds atm.

Parsley or cheese sauce to go with fish is pretty easy and contains less salt than a ready-made version.

Raisins and rice cakes fine imo. Total nightmare at times isn't it!!

We do the salmon/rice combo and bung in frozen peas too.

Also I do a jacket potato and scoop out the insides and mash with cheese and ham, re-fill the skins and oven for 15 mins.

ds2 likes raisins and cheerios too . He is 12 months btw.

Salad leaves are fine. Have you tried cucumber yet? Most babies seem to love it. Cottage cheese makes a really quick lunch - easy for them to eat with a bit of bread or rice cake.

pasta sauce
chop up an onion and a bit of garic
fry for a bit
stick in a can of tomatoes....
bring to boil then simmer for about 15-20 mins

you could add other veg if you wanted abotu 3-4 mins after adding onion

and a bit of philadelphia at the end makes it lovely and creamy.

For pasta I use penne as ds2 prefers this. I skin deseed and chop up tomatoes. Saute them in butter until mushy and add a generous dollop of cream cheese. Stir through the pasta and serve . (5 yo likes this also)

bagpuss - is there an easy way to skin and deseed a tomato? I tried it once for ds1 and it was really fiddly so never tried it again!

I always bung a carrot and maybe a stick of celery or a few mushrooms/half a courgette in the food processor with the onions when I make a tomatoey pasta sauce.

Annabel Karmel's bang bang chicken is always popular too - basically just bash a chicken breast until quite thin and then coat in flour, egg and breadcrumbs (with some grated parmesan if you like), then fry and cut into fingers. I also do this with white fish to make homemade fish fingers.

Ddd2 loves tortellini as well (although check salt content as some of them can be a bit high).

zubb - pour boiling water over tomatoes and leave for 5mins before skinning - only works if they're ripe though.

Thanks BonyM! I'll keep that in mind if I ever need to do it again, but still sounds a bit of a faff really. I tend to use tinned tomatoes in pasta sauces so no deskinning needed.

Hi Zubb, yes there is. You just have to knick the tomato skin at the top near where the stalk was and then put them in a bowl and pour boiling water over and leave for 5 mins. They should fall off fairly easily after that.

Sorry crossed posts with BonyM

zubb, to deskin a tomato, drop it in boiling water for a wee bit and the skin will peel off

re. cucumber - my ds (admittedly a week off his 1st birthday so a bit younger than yours) has chunks of cucumber with the skin cut off as he finds that really difficult to manage (mind you he only has two teeth ... maybe I'll go away now... )

Argh, crossed posts with everybody [roll eyes emoticon]

I've been having the same thought thought process with ds (15 mths). His staples are:

Penne or fusilli pasta with tomatoey sauce (home-made as above or Waitrose Arrabiata/stir through Sacla tom & marscapone if feeling lazy)

Cheesy chicken pieces - strips of chicken dipped in flour then egg white then breadcrumb/grated cheese mix and baked

Shepherds pie

Fish pie - smoked fish + white fish mixed with mashed potato, peas etc with grated cheese on top

Macaroni cheese

Various chunky steamed veg (when really lazy use bird eye microwave steamed veg!)+ chunks of cheese

Rice with tuna, sweetcorn & mayo

He also eats Cheerios, Shreddies, Weetabix,Yeo Valley yoghurts plus the odd mouthful of whatever indulgent crap dd and I happen to be eating!

I think its fantastic he likes fish.. SOOO healthy and theres so many thing you can give him with that. Has he tried our fave fish in milk? Undyed smoked fish poached in milk/ rice milk served with mash and peas... yum.
Mine were very fussy when little and so i tried evrything new under the guise of mash with..

pasta sauces.. onions, garlic, tomatoes and whatever else you want them to eat chopped teeny weeny and hidden in it (still do this for fussy DD age 9yrs)

Its called Magic pasta sauce and she still cant work out why !!! Ha ha

i wil cut and paste my " adult " tomato sauce - leave oy the tabsco nad there you are youc an whizz up any veggies or let him taste a few lumps
this of course youwld also be great for a fish sauce

"Tomato sauce

Dice an onion really small and sweat it slowly in oil till it softens (low heat) then add a tablespoon of tom puree and garlic (? 1 clove)

Stir around briefly

Add a splash of old wine if you have it to deglaze the pan, then add a carton of passata and some sugar to taste. I also add a drop of Tabasco. It will look pretty unexciting a tthis point?BUT let it simmer slowly for 30 mins or until it thickens and turns dark red and it goes very sweet and nice.

Add veg to taste and simmer or parmesan on top of pasta.
"

i am really envious that you all sound so good at cooking and have a far better imagination when it comes to food than i have ever had!!! thanks again for the inspiration and recipies.
tonight ds had brocoli and cauliflower with egg noddles wizzed for a few seconds in the blender and a lump of philadelphia mixed in.... he pulled a face to start but ate most of it and normally with new food he spits it straight back out again. pudding was not such a massive success as the greek yoghurt was spat straight out again but when mixed with a banana was eaten (maybe with a little) reluctance. and as a special treat was given raisins this afternoon... he loved them and now recognises the packet (already!?) with several grunts and finger pointing when he see's it!.... tomorrow we will attempt a fish sauce!

Jollyfolly...fish is an animal- therefore "animal meat" as you put it.....?

Try this- cook a load of pasta, throw it in a casserole dish, add some chopped raw smoked haddock and throw over a cheese sauce, bake for 20 mins, you can add some more grated cheese to the top if you like. It's dead tasty.

eeek - am I a bad mum? Ds2 is 14 months and has been eating the same as us for as long as I can remember. These days I still feed him spag bog and baked potatoes, weetabix and yoghurt, but anything else he feeds himself - lots of mess, but little hassle.

I'm a bit anal and attempt to avoid processed foods (used to be cos I wanted to be an earth mother, now it's cos we're just too skint to afford anything other than the basics). I'm trying to think what our staples are ...

... chicken nuggets (cut chicken breast into strips, dip in egg & milk mix then in crushed cornflakes, then cook in oven for half an hour)
... pasta and pesto
... variations on spag bog (e.g. fry onion and add toms, then for spag bog add mince & mushrooms, for pasta bake courgettes & top with mozarella, for lentil stew add lentils and stock, for chilli add kidney beans and a tiny amount of chilli)
... burgers (fry onions, mix with mince and bread crumbs and make into burgers)
... baked pots
... macaroni or cauliflower cheese

oh, and we have jam sandwiches every day for tea - I'd get lynched if I didn't!

bramblina... ok so fish is a meat.... i re phrase 'we are hoping to bring ds up not eating the meat of anything that has legs!!' (wink)
not sure if you are all getting bored of my incompetence yet but when you say ur's eat family foods (ie pasta etc) do you mash it or stick it in the blender first.... am not sure ds would be up for big lumps yet (certainly not from a spoon... might try and use his fingers... will it make him choke?)
one last thing.... can i give him tinned tuna, even the sort in spring water has added salt, i cant afford to buy fresh.