Do I really have to cook DD a separate meal 3 times a day?!

[SarahCaroline]

Up till now, I've been happily cooking big batches of individual purees in the evenings, filling ice cube trays and freezing them. But DD has now reached 6 months and I've started reading all these recipes (e.g. Annabel Karmel) for fish dishes, chicken casseroles and the like. Karmel's planner for 6-9 months involves 3 different meals a day!!! How am I supposed to manage that AND cook for me and DH in the evening? I would just carry on pureeing and bagging up individual foods, but am also determined not to let food get boring for DD -- the recipes do look nice ...

Any tips to help me avoid spending all day and night in the kitchen, without compromising DD's little tastebuds?

I used to cook for us and give dd the leftovers the next day - eg shepherds pie, fish pie etc. I would make a mini one for her with no salt etc.

I would certainly say that you can make a casserole or pie or some such for yourselves, perhaps with less salt than you would normally, and give some to dd.

I can't see how you can be expected to produce 3 gourmet meals a day, and give your child stimulating play, and keep up with the washing/ironing/housework etc etc AND keep your sanity.

Anyway, I always assumed that ds would develop good, varied eating habits if he ate what we did. At 8 months he regularly ate things like Hungarian Goulash and Spag bol.

And don't forget that eggs make good nutritious quick food. At lunchtime share some scrambled egg or omlette, that sort of thing.

mix different puree combinations together? like one meat, one potato, one carrot etc? make what you have without salt/ sugar into little portions for your dd in little foil trays and freeze them?

Give her finger food for one meal??

Ah, I feel a Lakeland storage moment coming on!

Great ideas, thank you. Is all this OK even at 6 months?

busybee, where do you get the little foil trays?

And thanks for the reassurance, Easy!

And also do a big batch of meals and freeze them. I send dd2 off with two little frozen meals a day.

However, best recommendation is to avoid Ms Karmel before she makes you feel overly inferior. She is, I would say, just a little bit obsessive.

Oh, just remembered, I often used to buy the fresh soups (Covent Garden, altho' Sainsbugs do their own now).

One carton would nicely serve us both at lunchtime (wizzed it up if too lumpy for ds)

Oh, and I just bag the meals up in freezer bags. When I say meals, I mean pasta in sauce, couscous, that sort of thing. Nothing overly taxing. Think it should be OK unsterilised at your baby's age. Do not stress too much.

Surely at 6 months she should still mostly be on purres still, perhaps gradually mashed instead of processed to start getting a bit of texture in.
Cooking in batches and freezing and sharing what you eat are good ideas but probably closer to the 9 than 6 months.
She's young to be introducing eggs I think.

from the local market...in all shapes and sizes. or the supermarket.also, i freeze all of ds2s in icecube trays then pop put how many he will need for the day and defrost them and heat them up.

Your dd does not need three specially prepared meals a day. You are putting far too much pressure on yourself!

What is wrong with simple healthy food? Mashed banana, yogurt, mashed potato with broccoli and cheese, fresh melon blended, any fruit or veg blended, really.

Or whatever you're having, spoon some into the blender before you add seasoning and whizz it up.

None of my kids ever tasted shop bought baby food but I didn't find it a big chore, I just kept it simple. You don't need to worry about it getting boring, if they don't want it they won't eat it, so you try something else. If you've mashed a banana and they don't want it you shrug and try something else. But if you've spent all day making some fancy AK dish and baby spits it out you're likely to break down and cry.

Don't do it to yourself!

Go Janstar!

I agree with janstar/motherinferior. when i made lasagne i used to keep a couple of spoons back and freeze it, or make a vat of tomato sauce and do a whole bag of ice cubes of it - then all you have to do is get that really fine pasta which takes 4mins to cook. giving her the stuff you have will also help her to be less fussy. oh the vats of cauliflower cheese I made

You know, before I had ds I knew nothing about babies / children. I said to a friend of mine who happened to be a HV " I'll have to get some books about it." That was how I approached work issues, if I didn't know, then I'd read up.

Anyway this friend said "Oh for God's sake don't go buying baby books. They will ruin your enjoyment of your baby"

I now know how right she was. Thank heavens I never found Gina Ford and AK, just got on with it. DS is now a strapping healthy bright 5 y.o.

DON'T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF

Well, for a start do something simple for breakfast - like Weetabix. If you are not keen on that, try porridge - you can make a big batch of porridge, whizz it if need be and freeze.

I used to cook up batches of AK's casseroles on weekend and freeze in little pots as well.

Other quick and easy meals are scrambled egg, or french toast (once your DD is on wheat and egg), couscous, pasta and sauce - you can freeze batches of cheese sauce. Also try mashed potato with various things mixed in like veg, cheese, fish, canned pulses. Freeze batches of rice and mix with pureed broccoli and carrot (DS used to eat this, no more!). I found it took much longer for DS to graduate to "real" food than AK seemed to expect, but your DD may be more adaptable!

oh and big bag of mixed frozen supermarket veg (i buy organic now) is handy - just pull a carrot and bit of cauliflower out & boil, when she's a bit bigger for finger food.

I cook meals and freeze them in batches now instead of just pureed veg and stuff. Also, use aseletion of frozen cubes and melt some cheese over - instant vegatable gratin! I like AK but I think she's a bit ambitious at times - e.g you probably eat the same thing for breakfast every day so it won't hurt your DD if she does too!

Snap, Janstar.
Er, breakfast = baby rice or corn flakes soaked in water. Lunch = mashed banana with yogurt or hand baby some rice cakes. Eve, cook some simple veggies for us (eg, boiled carrots, brocoli, swede, no added salt). Mash down & serve a few pieces to baby. No extra cooking required.

Worked for us, anyway.

There are some really nice recipe ideas in Annabel Karmel's book, some of which are still in our regular meal rotation, but if you read the book too closely you will have a nervous breakdown trying to follow the meal plans and worrying what will happen if your child ever eats a sausage.

Have a go at some of the ones you fancy, learn the nicest ones by heart and then put the book at the very back of the highest shelf you have, is my advice!

I just give him what we eat the day after but with no chilli if its a hot dish. At lunchtime from about 7 months I gave him something on bread; cream cheese, humous, tuna, avocado with tomato and cucumber or sometimes a cooked veg (also left over).

message withdrawn

For a start ds (who was widely considered a good eater) would never eat as much as was in the meal plans - sandwiches aren't a snack as she suggests, they are a meal for example. Then I used to make some of Annabel's meals for all 3 of us (eg goulash, one pot chicken and rice etc). I would add a bit of garlic and a few herbs to make them more interesting. Also never bothered with breakfast - DS had baby cereal until 6 months and then ready-brek/weetabix thereafter. Still does at 3.5.

Also agree with Twiglett's last point. Ds routinely when called to the table says he doesn't like his meal and then asks what it is!

Agree with twiglett, just mash up your own food. Except my ds is 3.5 and the only thing he's ever turned his nose up at was McDonalds...said he wanted one of mummy's meals at home.

With both of mine, I did a month or two of allergy testing foods (ie serving them unmixed with anything else) as there are lots of food allergies in my family. And then I just mushed up whatever we were having for lunch or dinner for them, or if what we were having didn't really mush well (ie sandwiches, spareribs) then I'd serve them leftovers or very occasionally cook something specially. My children eat everything now.