Help me give up the packets!!!

[ames]

There are 2 parts to this problem. Basically dd is 6 months old and until now I have been feeding her mainly packet baby food. At weigh in today she had only just broken the 13lb barrier (2oz in 2 weeks - dissaproving hv who is convinced i'm starving her!!) anyway now that dd can have more variety I would like to give her my own food. Hv has said to try and use full fat cows milk in cooking and give more cheese and meat/fish. I have a couple of baby cook books but at her age they only seem to include basic vegetable and fruit purees. DD loves her food, has 3 meals and 2 good bf a day at meal times.(Hv is adament that I should increase the amount of food -dd has 5-6 tble spoons + yoghurt for dinner and tea and 5tble spoons for breakfast) Can anyone suggest some recipes which might increase her weight gain as I dont think i can significantly increase the amount she eats. She is very active rolling about and sitting up etc and has 2 bottom teeth nearly all the way through now.

Sorry have just read that and she doesnt have the bf at meals times she has them morning and night although I do offer at other times, she isnt interested.

Ames, I did exactly the same thing until my daughter was 6 months old, basically because I felt so overwhelmed that the last thing I felt able to do was cook massive batches of food. However, since six months I haven't touched a jar, as once I started cooking my own food I enjoyed it and thought it looked so much nicer, I couldn't bear to go back! (I'd never cooked before I had dd). However, think your hv is being a bit harsh to day it is because of packet food - as far as I know it probably has a similar calorific and fat content as home cooked food would. Cauliflower & Broccoli in a cheese sauce is really easy to make and quite calorific. I tend to make her fairly healthy things like pasta in tomato sauce or ratatouille (how do you spell that?) or a mash of sweet potato, carrots, & parsnip and freeze them and then add some creme freche or cheese to it when I come to serve it - the amount depending on how hungry she is/whether she is looking a bit on the skinny side that day! She has actually eaten a lot more since I've switched to home cooking - although this could be because she sees me eating half of it and wants to get some before I steal it all! She sounds very active though and all babies have those worrying weeks where they don't gain much weight, so I wouldn't worry too much or blame a lack of home cooking on this! Only do it if you feel you have the time/inclination.

Ames, my dd was on the small side, and also didn't really care for any milk other than mine (from me - bottles were totally unacceptable). We had similar advice from our HV to what you've been told. I found it impossible to increase the amount she ate - she ate what she wanted and no more (although she was a good eater, despite her size). She ate mostly the same food as us right from the start - as a working mum with one child already I never had time to cook lots of different meals, so we adapted what we ate to what she could have. Homemade salmon fishcakes went down well - ds had his with tomato ketchup, dd had hers well mashed up with full fat milk, and dh and I had ours with a glass of chilled Chardonnay. I also made ratatouille with a tin of beans (kidney beans or canellini beans) added to give extra protein - this can be mashed up, or served mixed with pasta, and freezes well. Something else dd loved was banana mashed up with full fat yoghurt (we got through loads of full fat yoghurt, both for the calories and the calcium). Roast chicken dinner was also popular (just whizz up some of the chicken, plus a bit of roast potato and veg, and add a spoonful of gravy when she's old enough). Thinking back, we fed dd very little jar/packet baby food, because it really doesn't taste too nice - dd definitely preferred 'real' food (surprisingly even homemade curry, made without chillies).

Out of interest, is anyone in your family small? I ask because, although my dh and I are fairly tall (6'1" and 5'6" respectively), both my mother and grandmother are/were small. It always struck me as strange that, when they were concerned about dd's size, none of the medical people ever asked about the rest of my family - I know that probably children usually take their height from their parents, but surely sometimes the genes from previous generations must show up?

I found the Annabel Karmel book invaluable and also have cooked a lot of the recipes in there for me and dh as well. I pick a good tv night, get the portable on in the kitchen and cook up big batches of stuff and freeze it - also I freeze small portions of stuff that we might be having eg spag bol, fish pie etc as I don't cook with salt anyway.

Cheese sauce in stuff would help add the calories but I wouldn't get hung up about weight as it sounds like your dd is eating really well - maybe she's going to be one of those girls who can eat like a horse and stay slim - we'll all be jealous!

Others might disagree but I introduced chicken at this age followed by liver and fish. Cook a chicken casserole with root veg etc and then puree. Also found Annabel Karmel useful and you can look at the next stages recipes and decide if they are feasible/safe. Bananas are easy and filling. Also what about rice pudding?

Like Zoe I do not use salt in cooking and since about 10 months DS has had near enough the same food as us. However by that age he had 12 teeth.

My dd is also very petite. She's eleven months old and weighs 16lbs. Her doctor is not worried at all, as my husband isn't a very big person. As well, she eats very well. One doctor had told me to feed her more, but dd's ped said to that advice, "how do you make a baby eat? Force it into her mouth? She eats what she needs, and no more." I do make an effort to give her full-fat varieties of foods, and for the most part she eats whatever we eat. She has little interest in eating when in her highchair but will eat half my plate of food while standing next to my chair. Tonight I offered her a bit of chicken with rice, but she refused it and polished off about a cup of taco salad that dh and I had for dinner. Figure that!

my dd has always been a good weight, apart from a blip whilst bfeeding was established, and I'm convinced it's because of her fondness for avocado! I used to mush it early on, then used really ripe slices of it as finger food. yum.

When freezing home made foods, I used the clean empty jars from my Lazy Days of bought food, sealed with those celophane jam jar covers. Using a flexible lid means the jar won't crack as the food expands. Also, using a jar means you get a full portion without counting icecubes. As your baby eats more, move up to the next jar on. Yoghurt pots work well too.

DS1 had mainly home cooked food and DS2 mainly organic jars, both were BF til gone 1. Both put on pretty much the same amount of weight, sticking to the same growth curve (91st!), so I don't think homemade v jars makes one bit of difference.

Maybe you've just got a "skinny" baby. I thought that if your baby is alert, active and gaining weight (not losing), there's no problem.