Weaning and pureeing

[koalaoala85]

Hi all, DD is 4 months old and I’m starting to think about weaning for when she gets to 6 months. We’ve decided that pureeing is probably going to work best for us/her. But now I’ve made that decision, I’m completely clueless on the rest!

I’m assuming it’s best to steam the veg etc before pureeing? I’ve seen machines on Amazon that steam and then purée for you. We don’t have a steamer or blender, would you say it’s worth getting a machine? Any recommendations for good recipe type books? Thanks!

You might find that your dd isn't interested in purees, so I wouldn't buy any fancy gadgets just yet. I planned on doing a mix of purees and BLW but she just wasn't fussed about the soft stuff and preferred the food she could hold. So we gave up on pureeing pretty quickly and now she just has what we have.

Oh I just microwaved veg like carrots, or just cooked them as we would have them (eg for mash potato and roasted squash) just minus the salt and then blended 😊

A cheap stick blender to whizz up what ever you be cooked will work just fine. To counteract the pp, you might find that your dc gags and vomit at the tiniest lump and purees are necessary.

First things first, you will meet some strong resistance to pureeing, I did mainly purée with finger foods after purée for both my girls. No one said anything with dd1 (6) but when it came to dd2 (2) people were very vocal about how I ‘was doing it wrong’.
BLW is very popular at the moment, so just be prepared.

Now the practical bit.

• boil or steam veg, no salt or stock required. Then purée with some of the water used or formula / breast milk.
• pop into ice cube trays and freeze, then pop out the cubes into food bags in the freezer. Each meal to start with will only need one or two cubes in the microwave.

Start with veg (carrots, sweet potato, broccoli, parsnip work well) individually. Then once they are used to them you can combine (1 carrot and 1 sweet potato etc)

Fruits like apples and pears are great but make sure you keep up the veg too as they naturally gravitate to sweetness, especially after breast milk.

Other things to note

• once we started with dairy and meat my girls much much preferred strong flavours, curried parsnip, mature cheddar, peppery potato and leek soup. They often rejected bland tastes in favour of our dinner! (Stealing fajitas off us to suck and lick at 8mo) so don’t be scared to experiment!

I bought a £10 hand blender and would boil veg before; I wouldn’t buy anything too expensive or fancy as in my experience I used it so little as I quite quickly moved on to just mashing food up and cutting things like pasta up into small pieces as I wanted her to get used to lumps quickly

For steaming veg you can get a simple rubber insert that you pop into a pan with an inch or so of water in the bottom. Put your veg on the insert, pop the pan lid on and crank up the heat til it’s steaming nicely. For my DD’s food I just leave her veg in a bit longer than ours so it’s really soft then mash it with a fork. I didn’t purée as from 6 months she could easily handle mushed up food, it really didn’t need blending.

Completely agree with this...
Tommee Tippee do a great little one.
Finger food is great when you are preparing dinner etc but very messy and you can’t be sure how much they are eating.
The Ella’s Kitchen are also good if you don’t have time to prepare food all the time. We used to have a pouch at lunch and one of my purée/mashes for dinner.

We did a mixture of purée and finger food because I didn’t want to get to a stage that ds would only eat purée. Plus it is often handy to give him something to eat himself while I made food.

Something like this so you can freeze and turn stuff out into freezer bags.
www.jojomamanbebe.co.uk/d6707.html?gclid=CjwKCAiAj53SBRBcEiwAT-3A2IkttU-aZAncTdetSrzZxjZ1xZH7awro_Q_0nLnPgqTYiEV8KCkyvRoCZEQQAvD_BwE

Don’t get a steam and blend machine, they are only little for such a small amount of time that they are a waste, very quickly they eat what you eat minus the salt. Get a steamer topper for you saucepan and a stick blender. If you haven’t already got something like a ninja/smoothie blender.

Book - baby at the table was very good.