is it really bad to give jars to baby still after one year of age

[bumbly]

just with difficult baby never have time to cook properly except weekends

is it really that bad? unhealthy?

ditto nappyaddict - dd gets leftovers or scrambled egg, microwave spuds. cheese on toast etc. Agree cooking 'properly' is hard with screaming baby, but that doesn't have to mean jars.

You bunch of smug cows.

No, jars aren't wrong and if you have the money there are "toddler meals" out there (Little Dish and Kiddilicious to name 2 of them) which do not all taste the same, are "real food" and don't have lots of cr*p in them. Of course it's better to have freshly cooked food but sometimes that just isn't going to happen.

It is easy to give your baby today what you had yesterday if you can't eat together - this is probably the easy option, easier even the batch cooking/freezing.

For the 1st few years of my 1st dd's life I never cooked as I did'nt know how! DH and me - we ate crap - ready meals and so jars would have been better (toddler meals as SD pointed out). In my ignornace I used to give DD adult ready meals.
However, I gradually taught myself to cook and DD had all her meals cooked from scratch - I now cook most of the family meals too!
DD 2 is a better eater that dd 1 and I think it is because of this!
IMO, jars are better used for holidays and 'emergencies' but I can totally understand what OP is saying.
SD is right there is a lot of smuggery(?) going on here

I can sympathise with the crying while you are cooking thing as DS was just the same, it was seriously traumatic to cook with him screaming. That lasted until he was about 2-ish. LOL at the suggestion of child playing happily in the kitchen while you cook.

A really good cookbook that I used was Finger Food by Jennie Maizels. I still make her tomato sauce now and freeze to stir into pasta or top off pretty much anything. The fishcakes are pretty good too and freeze well.

Also rice balls are great, you can do it sitting at the table with your ds. Put a small spoonful of hot rice mixed with tiny bits of chopped cooked veg and meat into something flexible like silicone paper or foil then twist the silicone paper to compress the rice into a ball.

I used to try and feed ds Kiddylicious but he didn't like it, I think because I didn't eat it. He was only really happy eating if I ate something with him or he'd seen us eating it previously.

Jars are fine to give to your baby, and when you have had enough of that try ccoking three meals in the evening and saving one for your baby for the next day.

I forgot to say when I made something from the Finger Food book I made enough for all of us, so it would do quite well if you made say 3 adult sized portions, you and your dh eat 2, you serve half a portion next day to ds and freeze half a portion.

I don't see how it's smug to say 'There are quick and reasonably easy options that you can give your baby that are freshly cooked and probably more interesting to eat than jars'. Really I don't.

My daughter doesn't play happily in the kitchen while I cook (nearly two) but she will tolerate me cooking while I try to respond to the constant requests to look at the sleepy baby doll, put Po's dress on, draw a banana, put a hat on her head, kiss her foot, tickle the cat etc etc etc. I'm not cooking her three course meals, it's a case of five or ten minutes of whinging while I cook and then I play with her for a bit and then she whinges while I turn the sausages over in the pan or whatever. And I don't think it's a bad thing to sometimes say to your child that you have something important to do and he or she might just have to live with being bored and whinging or even crying for a bit.

Actually, I do think that jars of mush, even if it is nice-tasting and healthy mush, for a child who is over one is probably not ideal.

I don't think you really get the extent of the lack of 'playing happily' lucicle and that's probably what comes across as smug (certainly to me).

I can't speak for bumbly's DS but my DS screamed as though I was dipping him in boiling oil, and if he was allowed in the kitchen he would try to get between me and the oven/counter and try to push me away. I did have quite a lot of comments at the time that implied that any adequate mother would be able to do a small amount of cooking without her child screaming, but I forgave the commentators (in a smug way naturally ) because they really didn't understand the problem.

Well, I'm honestly sorry if I sounded smug. I genuinely didn't mean to. The boiling oil does sound rather extreme!

I suppose I have had the same thing to a degree in that my daughter appears to be suffering from the world's longest and worst case of separation anxiety ever invented and cannot bear to let me out of her sight and hasn't been able to for about the last 20 months (she's 23 months old). People are all 'Oh, just leave her and go and do whatever' and I do feel that they just don't get it. So I am sorry if I sounded smug. I know how you feel to some degree. I didn't mean to sound smug at all. I still think that jars aren't ideal, though, if there's a way to offer another option at least some of the time.

Another thing that might help is preparing a cold meal and letting the child 'help' a bit. My daughter really likes standing up on a chair at the counter (I used to put her in her high chair when she was smaller) and arranging bits of cucumber, bread and ham on plates etc.

And the other thing that helped with cooking when the separation anxiety was really appalling was a ring sling. You can sling them round your back so you're in between them and anything hot or sharp.

DS1 had home cooked, organic everything.

DS4 had whatever was going, including jars.

It's not unhealthy, just bland.

Don't stress. Enjoy your baby.

Bumbly, would it be helpful to give you a few east to cook ideas?

I'm sure jars are fine, but I wouldn't want to eat a jar of baby food so personally never used them (other thn those Ella's kitchen pouches as out and about emergencies)

Anyway you can't do jars forever so maybe think about phasing them out a bit.

Don't feel daunted by it, try and enjoy it and have fun with it, experiment, take pics of her trying new things.

D3 is 11 months old and some easy, (and cheaper than jars), things she eats are:

pitta bread dipped in or spread with houmous, served with cucumber, a falafal, & breadsticks

little cheese sarnies, served with cucumber, tomato, dried fruit (apricots, prunes, raisins)

avocado scooped out and mashed up with a banana (she's getting a bit old for this now and doesn't like it to be mashed anymore)

fishfinger and veggies such as a corn on the cob (she knaws at it and loves these), or peas and sweetcorn, carrot batons, asparagus, tenderstem broccoli, green beans (most of that veg is really easy to pick up and eat themselves)

jacket potato with cheese and beans (she adores baked beans and makes a right mess feeding them to herself!) (I sometimes start off helping her with scooping out mash with a spoon but then I tear potato up and she picks bits up and eats them herself)

pasta with either a home made sauce I've made in the evening or at weekends that I then put into ice-cube trays and defrost them as needed.
Or pasta wit a bit of pesto stirred in

Home made pizzas. I use mini naan breads, throw on a bit of pizza topping and voila. You and DP can ave the rest of the jar of pizza topping on some grown up size naan and have home made pizzas when he gets in.

I also make things at weekends etc and freeze them for use during week,like
chicken & apple balls
spag bol
shepherds pies etc

Deserts - fruit like papaya, plums, cut in half and stone taken out, ditto nectarines.
Grapes, cut them in half lengthways if your nervous, blueberries (the most popular fruit in the world in our house and so easy for them to feed themselves and practice pincer grip with) strawberries, large one kept whole and watch them make a mess, raspberries, and the old fav - bananas.

Or a yoghurt.

Or again easy to make steam some apples, and dried apricots, or apples and berries and then freeze in ice-cubes and defrost as needed.

yes my child does scream like in oiling oil when i cook too

tom thanks sooooooooooooooooooo much for your ideas will read them all now...unless lo wakes up

you arte truly amazing for spendig time to give me tips and hints

we have had a very bad night

zzzzz

I must confess dd2 is still quite partial to the odd jar - maybe once a week. She likes looking at the pix on the front, so it keeps her nice and happy while she tucks into the food.

It's like having beans on toast occasionally isn't it? Nowt wrong with it for a change and if you're in a hurry...

the only way i can cook is by plonking a rice cracker, some cheese and some banana in front ds and sitting him in his chair. would that work?

well tried just now baked potato and baked beans and lo ate nothing

don't know why??

skin on beans? potato too sticky for his palate? bit low about it all -

placing any food well he will eat rice cakes but in chair will just scream even if has rice cake as has no attention etc...

by scream i mean scream! so placing in high chair and cooking in day not a solution and when naps any noise in kitchen wakes him up so can't cook then

you can still give him attention and caht to him at the same time. that's what i have to do with ds.

Hi Bumbly, I too have a DS (18mo) who won't entertain himself while I cook

He has a jar of spag bol once a week because he likes it and it gives him some protein (we are veggie and he is allergic to eggs). I always give it with some fresh veg eg peas or sweetcorn.

Otherwise I batch cook at weekends (while DH takes him to the park), I do one thing a week and make 4/5 pots' worth. I freeze them so they can just be defrosted during the week. For lunch he just has a picnic in the front room with bread, cheese and fruit. So all I have to do is reheat his tea.

At the weekend (when DH is around to entertain him) I cook something that takes a bit more attention eg fish fingers.

It's all very well for people to say "Just give him what you eat" but not all toddlers will eat everything you eat! DS won't touch pasta (apart from in spag bol), baked beans, any type of potato, etc etc. After much stressing I have simply decided to give him the food that I know he will eat, most of it is home-made and he will at least eat lots of fruit and veg.

Dont worry about the jars. They are not bad for him at all so dont stress about it.

DS1 had the odd jar now and then up till he was about 2!

Try to phase it out bit by bit I'd say. I can imagine how daunting it is to hear 'just cook for him, its easy!'

What really helped me (and still does with both my boys!) is to make extra every time I do cook.
Like you I cook and eat after the boys are in bed as DH doesnt get home till 8pm.
I cook family friendly things most nights and make sure I cook enough for 4, then put the childrens portions in the fridge for the next day.

When doing things I know they love like spag bol, roast dinner, sausage and mash etc, I cook enough for 6 or 8 and freeze portions for the kids.

That way they always have home cooked meals and I only cook once a day after they are in bed!

In the week why don't you try saving him some of your dinner and reheating it the next day?

At weekends I would really recommend trying to eat together as a family. I found it made a huge difference to the amount they ate/general fussiness.

They taste bloody vile - would you eat them?

Oh that was very helpful

When cooking up meals for the twins (11 months) I look after I either put out a special selection of toys that are kept for tea preparation, or put on a quick dvd likebaby einstein or baby IQ.

It sounds like the screaming i attention seeking rather than being upset, just close the kitchen door, or turn up the radio - unless he's hurt or sick, then he can cope with being left on his own for 15 minutes which is time enough to make up a simple chicken roast dinner, brown up a chicken fillet, boil some potatoes and put on some veg, reheat batch cooked meals, boil an egg, heat up some beans and make some toast.

I used to look after a baby who didn't like being left, put down and would moan, cry, scream, etc but you just have to get on with stuff and get your life back and not be at his beck and call.

x