Rolled oats or iron-fortified baby porridge for an eight-month-old?

[Nandini99]

Hi everyone! What type of oats do you give your babies? The NHS recommends iron-fortified cereals for babies, but the options I’ve found seem to be mostly oat flour rather than flakes. I’d like to introduce some texture by using rolled oats for my 8.5-month-old.
So I’m a bit confused—when making oat porridge, should I prioritise iron fortification or texture?
Would love to hear what others have done. Thanks!

Baby porridge has all sorts of extra ingredients and is expensive. Porridge oats are just oats with no added iron etc. Third option is Ready Brek or supermarket own brand, has all the extra minerals and vitamins but no added sugar or salt and is much cheaper. You can then introduce rougher oats a little later.

I give my boys the plain porridge sachets and add peanut butter in it, but not every day. Some days they have Weetabix.

I wouldn’t buy any of the ‘baby’ porridges as they have so many unnecessary ingredients. We’ve always done a mix of oats and ready brek in my toddlers porridge

Not baby porridges it’s inch higher in sugar and has other unnecessary things in too. We gave Readybrek at that age then moved to normal porridge.

Another vote for ready brek then normal porridge oats.

You can give them readybrek and stir jumbo oats in for texture. We used to add almond butter and cream to up the calories. We do Greek yoghurt and oats now because if turns into quite a solid lump that he can feed himself

Porridge oats. All the baby stuff is completely processed and ridiculously expensive.

My daughter at that age was doing baby led weaning and gnawing on things like chicken drumsticks, sticks of broccoli and sticks of pear. I recommend looking it up. It’s really amazing what they can eat and how they eat even at that age.

Are you breast feeding or formula feeding? IIRC the guidance if breast feeding is to use a fortified cereal to ensure sufficient iron. You can get baby porridges with minimal added ingredients.

I gave the supermarkets ready brek. Mainly for the added iron to be honest and all the other fortified stuff. You can always add a few rolled oats. I never bothered with the baby porridges, too expensive. I just used to add a little honey, sometimes a dash of sugar. Nothing much.

Thanks all for the suggestions, they are super helpful! I got ready brek today and am planning to mix it with rolled oats for the baby.

Appreciate all the help!

Mine had normal, organic oats the same that we have as adults.

Oats are sprayed with a lot just before they are processed into food so it’s one of those foods that’s worth buying organic and is usually easily available. I get them in Aldi 😂

I would focus on other ways of giving baby iron rich foods. They don’t need processed cereals to receive iron.

Also there are some really fun baby porridge recipes out there, I think it’s Rebecca Wilson who had lots of recipes. I remember a Pima colada flavoured one (with pineapple and coconut) and a carrot cake flavoured one with carrot and the spices of a carrot cake.

Even I was giving her the usual rolled oats but will try the combo now. Thanks for the recipe suggestion, will check her out on Instagram

Just make normal porridge.

Mine is big now, but I used to do organic oats with grated pear or apple and a bit of cinnamon.