First breakfasts

[prufrock]

What do you give for breakfast before 6 months? A friends baby seems to be getting hungry for breakfast, but wheat and gluten are not allowed before 6 months are they? So that rules out Weetabix and Readybrek. She wants organic, plain and sugar free - GF suggests gluten free oat cereal but neither of us can find this in the shops. Help

We used those powdered cereals that you add water to, or there are some baby cereals in jars.

Fruit porridge

1 apple peeled and chopped
4 prunes chopped
1/2 tbsp oats
5 fl.oz water

boil then simmer for 5 mins, liquidize

This is a Lizzie Vann recipe (Baby Organix) and my dd loved it!

Baby Organix banana porridge (powder and jar) was a favourite with my 2. Great if you can't be a**ed to make your own. They also loved the recipe Tissy posted below and variations on it, basically just lots of assorted fruit, oats and water - bananas always went down well in this. Once I was happy with the basic recipe, I just experimented with it. I used to soak any dried fruit in apple juice over night to make it nice and plump and soft. When DS2 got older, I simply stopped pureeing it.

The basic recipe I used most often is 1/2 tbsp oats, 150ml (5fl oz) water, 1 small ripe banana, mashed and 2 tsp sultanas. Same method as Tissy's one. I then adjusted the quantities, changed the fruit and froze portions (it freezes fine with the banana but does need extra liquid added when thawed/reheated)

I seem to remember that the gluten found in oats is different to the gluten found in other cereals and is OK for babies. It says something like this on the Baby Organix porridge packets.

Hipp Organic do a mixed cereal breakfast to which you could add fruit purees etc.

The Planet Organic "Organic Baby and Toddler Cookbook" by Lizzie Vann is great. No tarting about a la Annabel Karmel and some nice recipes and information.

Hi there
We had a discussion about whether oats had gluten in them on another thread - I'm still not 100% clear on the definitive answer but I think it is something along the lines of - they have a protein similar to gluten which may provoke sensitiviy like gluten, but is less likely to. Anyway I decided to avoid them to 6 months anyway (you will find baby foods with wheat in them labelled from 4 months, so I don't think you can assume that just because its on the shelf its ok).
Yes, breakfast before 6 months is tricky, endless baby rice is very boring - I tried a few different grains but found porridge made with millet flakes worked best(available from whole food shops, cook exactly like oats, v similar consistency and flavour). You can also make a runny porridge from maize meal (polenta) which is gluten free but I found that less satisfactory.

OK, maybe I'm a bit weird but I did get a bit bored with it all and experimenting with various strange things from the wholefood shop kept me occupied!!

Then of course if you're not too bothered about avoiding dairy you could try yoghurt for breakfast.