What to feed 5 month old baby? Help first time mum ! :(

[Millen]

I am a young first time mum and I am interested i n finding out about foods for my baby girl. We have no problem with her eating as she is a greedy little pig! I am currently feeding her from Jars but I would like to offer her home cooked meals. Can she have fish? How would I store meat? She currently eats rice and milk for breakfast, milk for brunch, milk and half of Jar of food plus a pudding then milk for dinner and water for drink. She will eat half jar of food for tea and a pudding and milk then a big milk before bed. Phew!!! Afraid to offer home cooked meals chicken, fish, cheese etc please please help

Millen, why are you afraid to offer home cooked meals? They are probably better for her and better tasting. Just go for it. When you say you are giving her milk, do you mean formula, or just plain milk. You shouldn't give plain milk as a drink instead of formula or breast milk until 12 mo. as it doesn't have enough nutrients all on its own. Anyway, chicken, fish, cheese etc. should all be fine if there are no food allergies in your family. If there are, just try them one at a time for a day or two before introducing something new. Good luck

Millen

Home cooked babyfood is much better than jars.

The main thing you need to be aware of is salt, you shouldn't add it to a baby's food as its kidneys can't cope.

Start with simple fruits and veg, potato, sweet potato carrots, cauliflower, courgettes swede etc were favourites of my dd.

I introduced meat and fish when she was 6 months old, chicken is a good meat to try first. Wit fish you have to carefully go through it with your fingers to check for bones. You may want to avoid wheat(gluten) too until 6 months.

You can freeze portions of home made puree in little pots and then defrost as needed but be sure to thoroughly reheat meat pureees.

For puddings I used fruit puree mixes with babyrice and formula then moved on to mixing fruit with wholemilk natural yoghurt.

If you're a bit uncertain about which foods to offer and how to prepare them, I would suggest you get hold of a baby/toddler cookbook. I used Annabel Karmel's `New Complete Baby and Toddler Meal Planner' which I found to be very good. There are plenty of others to choose from though. Happy cooking!

Mango puree/broccoli & sweet potato puree/potato & cauliflower puree etc etc. My ds also loved prune puree, well sieved until about 8 months, and then just whizzed in the food processor.

Anything frozen must be thoroughly defrosted, and reheated well, then allowed to cool down. Cheese from about 6 months I think, and I was advised to give fish from 8 months. I bought a really cheap book from Tesco (£1.99 I think), which was really helpful, and gave meal plans to help you see what sort of meals to provide at which age. You don't say how old your dd is.

Millen - Making homemade food is really very easy. You shouldn't introduce meat, fish, dairy or wheat (ie pasta) until 6 months, and then make sure that meat is coed through and very finely minced up. I used to simmer a chopped up chicken breast and some vegetables (parsnips were our favourite) in a little formula milk and then puree. For now though just vegetable or fruit, steamed or boiled and pureed are perfect. As well as the above suggestions try carrot, buternut squash, green beans - basically any veg you can find. Steer clear of citrus fruits until about 9 months though.

The way to make this really easy is to cook big batches whenever you make anything, then put it into ice cube trays and freeze. You can then turn the trays out into freezer bags, and just take a few cubes out for each meal, and experiment with mixtures. Just reheat either in the microwave, or by sitting the bowl in boiling water.
Do get a book to help - Annbel Karmel was a bit fussy for me, I wanted something that wouldn't take up my whole day! But there are lots of others.

Thank you all so much. As to some of the feed-back:- she is on formula milk and I would never add salt to food, but thanks for the advice.

Any good simple cook books?

I don't know that home-cooked is always better than jars. Some of the organic jars especially seem very nice and they are very convenient. Admittedly more expensive though. I did find that with my 4th child I just had no time (or energy) to be preparing things form him (even if it did mean just whizzing down what the older children had). With my 1st I made her lots of home-cooked stuff but she preferred the jars so a lot of the time my effort was wasted.
If you can get your daughter eating both (home-cooked and jars) that would be perfect!

Millen - I know what you mean about being afraid to offer first foods, i was neurotic about dd's first foods - everything had to be super sterilised and thoroughly cooked and absolutely no lumps. She's now 16m old and eats soil, food she's dropped on the floor and anything unsuitable really (as well as whatever's on my plate and the odd meal from her own dish, depending on her mood !) In a few months you'll be a great baby chef, and probably too busy with teething to worry about food ! Good luck with it.

Just be careful with the avocado. We had an exorcist moment the first time we gave it to the sluglet. Projectile vomiting vivid green...yum

Annabel Karmel's book on cooking for babies and toddlers is very useful! Almost my mum friends have a copy! If they don't they borrow from one of us who does...

I don't know about any of you others out there, but my own "greedy little pig" who would eat just about anything, suddenly changed at 6 months (almost precisely) and started being more fussy (something about taste buds kicking in at this stage) and so don't stress if she doesn't suddenly like your pureed carrots anymore, but keep persevering... Remember your frozen meals will last for 3 months, so you can keep getting things out and trying them again every now and then!

Your HV should have given you some information on weaning, but (top tip) call up the various manufacturers (cow and gate) and ask about weaning, and they send you all sorts of free stuff, and charts and information and all sorts, which you might find useful (even if you don't use the free packets!)

Baby Organix used to do free recipe cards for some of their 4 month and 7 month jars (try 0800 393 511, a freephone no.)which are great as the ingredients are familiar and the recipes simple to follow and easy to vary. You can then blend /puree as much as you need to which is a good way of getting a baby onto lumpier consistencies later on. I think Lizzie Vann also has an organic Baby and Toddler book out, title something like Planet Organic (?).

Perhaps your local library carries this or some of those previously mentioned (I too had Annabel Karmel) or could order one from another branch for you.

hth

LizS

Millen

At a postnatal class the 'Milipa' man told us to give herbs and spices freely from 5 months old.
My DS was a very hyngry/greedy baby(now 2.5 he still eats everything in site!. We have him things like curried potato. Parsnip/pear. Potato/brocolli Carrot/appple. All frozen in ice cube trays. Just mix a few batches up and then pop a mixture for the day in a bowl to defrost/microwave and serve. Really easy. Home cooked so nutritious etc etc. Weetabix/readybrek
were good breakfast ones for us. (Filled him up)
Chopped chicken and fish is alo great with the potatoes and veg and also rice.

I always tried to keep some our tea in the fidge for him to try the next day. Worked a teat in our house - but then we like our food!!

Hope that helps. Good luck and have fun with it
we did/do.

On the book front, I would recommend Optimum Nutrition for Babies and Young Children - can't remember the author but its full of good advice and recipes for healthy eating.