Best shops and brands for baby's first solids ?

[maloosak]

My DS is coming up to 6 months soon and I intend to introduce him to his first taste of solids !

I haven't got a clue where to shop for things like wholegrain oatmeal (which I am told is more nutritious than baby cereal). If these are not available in shops, is there a good website where I can buy them on the net ?

Also could you please recommend a good ORGANIC brand for ready-made baby meals ? I have seen them in Boots and Tesco, but again not sure which to buy.

Hi,
We love Hipp organic jars. Good variety and nice taste.
You can also check out the Organix range. DS loves the apple/raspbery cereal. Yummy.
From Boots, the creamy porridge is good ( oatmeal+ rice + maize) and the baby muesli is packed with goodies but texture is a bit coarse for beginers!
Don't know where you live, we are in London and there are a lot of organic stores around.
Good luck and be patient. They often love or hate first tastes, if your baby does not like something, try again a week later, he might then love it!

Holland and Barret for oatmeal?

I preferred Baby Organix to Hipp (they smelt tastier!) but DSs would eat either.

I don't think there's much to choose between brands of jars but have tended to use Hipp because of availability - also Boots for powdered cereals. Any healthfood/whole food shop will sell oatmeal, I tended to use whole food shops quite a lot for things like rice flakes, millet flakes, maize meal, unsalted rice cakes, dried fruit etc. They're good if you like to make your own and experiment a bit, and don't always want to buy high value-added 'baby' food - also useful for wheat alternatives in the early days of weaning.

My dd wouldn't eat savoury stuff from jars/packets so I had to make my own ie. purees of carrot, sweetpotato, parsnip, squash etc (almost any veg !). However, she loved the breakfasts and puddings! - Boots organic are good, we also tried Baby Organix and Hipp - personally I think they are all much of a muchness but it was fun choosing different tastes from different ranges.

Cow & Gate and Heinz do organic ranges as well. I tend to find the jars much of a muchness. I tend to find Boots have the best variety, as they carry their own brand stuff as well as the other makes.

cow & gate are I think the only people who do a jar containing lentils, and hipp organic are I think the only people who do a jar containing spinach (relevant as DS is being brought up veggie!).

yes I've often thought that jars have a pretty limited variety - no pulses, no fish. Both things I given ds's a lot of. and most of the puddings have added sugar which I wanted to avoid.

Actually for early weaning the best 'jars' I thought were the Heinz simply fruit and simple vegetables range.

for fish - have found a grand sum of 3 stage 1/stage 2 fish jars(!) - DS is having some fish tho - I know a bit of a loose definition of veggie(!)

Heinz Mums Own do a 7 month seaside pasta jar - tuna/pasta/tomato, Hipp Organic do a 7 month fish and tagliatelle in a creamy sauce, and Heinz do a 4 month can of fisherman's pie

Many thanks to you all.

I intend to cook most things, but its handy to know the good brands for emergencies (i.e when I am too knackered to cook or out and about, etc).

I have a feeling he will spit out anything I give him at first. He has never had anything apart from breastmilk. He even hates expressed milk out of a bottle !

Maybe I will start with a homecooked puree of fruit first, like pears, as they are very sweet like breastmilk, so less likley to be totally disgusting ?

Eventually he may like one of the organic jars (I hope !)

Maloosak my DD was like yours when I started to wean, breastfed and unimpressed with EBM but she has loved solids from the start. Definitely a great fan of pear. But I actually started her on baby rice mixed with EBM - so at least a familiar taste. It was Cow and Gate organic and I made it fairly thin. I would also recommend the Boots baby porridge which is one of the few without added sugar and also organic. DD has now moved on to ready brek for breakfast.

Organix the best IMO and at least they smell like real food. Tumbleweed may roll past here but I liquidised whatever we were having (within reason - no vindaloo) and DD seemed to like it better than the jar stuff.

Oatmeal is always wholegrain. For babies, you want the fine milled stuff, where the flakes are really small. Health food stores are the place.

My DS1 rejected most jars except for a veggie korma by Baby Organix.

Pear is often popular. Sweet potato and carrot are also good starters.

This time around, I plan to do like Pagan, possibly even skipping the liquidising, if DS2 will tolerate lumps. I'll probably be cautious and introduce one food at a time to get through the big allergen risks (dairy, egg, wheat) and then just give him table scraps.

I suspect that avoiding the jars (and breastfeeding) are why DS1 is a good and adventurous eater. His favourite foods are marinated baby octopus, and a Nigel Slater creamy, mustardy, spicy sausage pasta dish. He eats ratatouille. He loves mussels.

(Oh, you can give homemade food when out and about, although it's a bit of a slog. I used to take a capped avent bottle with a cube or two of frozen puree in it, and ask for hot water to thaw it in a restaurant. Of course, the sooner you move to the table scraps plan, the sooner this sort of thing is unnecessary.)