Do you give your children pre made meals/pouches?

[soapylaces]

Wondering if you give your babies/toddlers the pre made baby meals from pouch or tray? I do, as it's very convenient. My dd loves them too!

I'm feeling a bit guilty about it as a conversion came up about it with friends and they've never bought them. I just don't know how they do it without, even on the odd occasion.

If you do, how frequently do you you use them?

We don’t use them. We did BLW here, just straight to regular table food. DS2 is a particular nightmare to spoon feed anywhere, even if I try to give him a yoghurt, he wants to do it himself, is grabbing spoons and generally being a PITA so I just chuck it at him and let him get on with it.

I did buy a couple of emergency backup pouches when he was 6 months old, had just started weaning and we were going on holiday. However I struggled to find any pouches that were a decent quality. I was struggling to find ones that weren’t primarily just apple and pear based with a smidge of other flavours. They seemed full of water too. Babease was the only half decent ones I found..:.and DS2 still wouldn’t touch them!

I tried buying the occasional Ella fruit pouch to mix a squirt with Greek yoghurt for variety but even that’s rare because again, they are all mostly apple and pear based and just all taste the same. So gave up on that pretty quickly.

That’s just us though. I don’t think you need to feel guilty for using them occasionally. But I do think most babies enjoy them because they’re primarily fruit based (even the savoury flavours), I don’t think they’re particularly nutritious and I wouldn’t want to feed them regularly as a baby’s primary source of nutrition. But the odd one for out and about or an emergency quick dinner? Sure, not going to do any harm.

I have a freezer stash of bath cooked meals like fish pie, spaghetti Bolognese, shepherds pie etc, frozen into baby sized portions. A big batch has lasted us almost three months, although I need to stock up again now. Two mins in the microwave and home cooked meal ready to go. Also very convenient once the initial leg work is done.

I did and found them so useful. I tried to cook from scratch as much as I could too but when I wasn't home from work til 6 and they needed to eat, the jars were invaluable. My kids both loved the Mam ones and later on the ones in plastic trays. Not every night but probably 3/7 nights.

Plus having a couple of fruit or yoghurt pouches in the baby bag was really handy if we were out longer than expected.

My children are older now but I never gave them any pouches or anything similar

I never eat or buy ready meals and there was no reason for me to do it for my children. Doesn't it get very expensive apart from anything else?

If it suits you carry on

No, they were so expensive, it was better to purée some of our veg, maybe add some cheese or egg or meaty gravy.

Absolutely. They never liked my lovingly prepared meals so from 6-12 months pretty much solely survived on bits of finger food and pouches.

I used loads because
a) saves time - we have more money than time as both work FT
b) baby might only eat 2 bites, would be depressing if had cooked specially
c) never fancied making salt/spice free food for the whole family so we could all have the same, cos I strong flavours for my own food
d) easy way to give DC meat without having to cook it (I'm veggie)

As soon as they were beyond the pureed food stage they just got normal stuff though

I do now and then - mostly when we’re out and about, as they’re convenient. I never give them to him when we’re at home. Maybe once every couple of weeks?

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it - they’re convenient and healthy. I try not to overuse them because they tend not to be recyclable, but I think they’re absolutely fine from a baby well-being perspective.

Yes we do. A lot. DS has major issues with food which we are working on but he generally has a ready meal for lunch every day.

We did both as it was easy to grab one whilst out.

I buy the fruit purée ones to add to Greek yogurt or porridge as it’s far easier to buy a pouch of 100% mango/ prune/ pear than to buy whole mangos, hope they are ripe and prepare myself at 7am

He eats chopped regular fruits as well. I don’t buy any savoury as they all taste the same, and I don’t think particularly good ie a Bolognese has only something like 2% meat in, and mainly carrot purée.

We've done BLW with our two so didn't have need for puree, did try some of those little dish ready meals and were firmly rejected which was a bit annoying tbh as they look they'd come in really handy on busy days.

Mine both had a mix of normal food (same as mine, or v similar but not as spicy) and pouches were used as a side thing. Like weetabix for breakfast and a fruit pouch. Weirdly, the older one who is near to secondary age still asks for the fruit pouches! I sometimes get some for her, as there are worse snacks than fruit in a pouch

Anyway, it doesn't matter what others do. I'd recommend trying to get them into normal meals to make life easier, but even those kids who eat everything can suddenly become irritatingly fussy at age 3, 4, or 5 (both of mine did).

Personally, I have only ever given yoghurt pouches and fruit/prune puree (for constipation). Occasionally, I offered a green smoothie type one as a snack to get some extra greens in. Not regularly though and not really since they were about 18 months. I generally found most of them didn't taste nice when I tried it.

Yeah we use the food pouches/jars. Not all the time, but if it's something quick after work or out and about. I like using some of the jars as pasta sauces or add fruit purées to her porridge. I don't think they're as bad as they used to be years ago e.g. no added salt or sugar and organic veg. Just gotta do what you gotta do when you don't have ideas, when what you cook fails (tried to cook baby curries and it was just awful) or you don't have what you need.

I used to use pouches about once a week or if we were out or at someone else’s house; usually on a Saturday night to give me a break from cooking in the same way that as adults me and DH would have an easy dinner or take away. Now DD is bigger I do easy oven dinners on Saturday night with the same logic

Yep. Loads of them. People will trip over themselves to tell you they never did.

It was jars or powder you mixed with boiling water when mine were small. I had them as back up but mostly I just mashed up whatever we were eating. They loved shepherds pie and things like that so I froze lots of small portions.

I used them for when they needed to eat quickly or out and about when I wanted to minimize mess.

Otherwise they ate what we did with spices like chilli and garlic. (Adults added their own salt)

I used pouches, and jars, of fruit. I prefer the jars as the pouches can't be recycled.

I bought them for when we were out and about as they were handy but in general I just fed them whatever we are eating. I find them very expensive anyway.

I never did with DS1, I did totally baby led weaning and I was never without something I could quickly make for him, even if it was just a banana or slice of toast. It was just the two of us and I tended to feed him whatever I was eating myself at the time.

DS2 loved being spoon fed and ate loads more, plus we were a family of four and it didn't always work to prep him food with someone else, so jars were useful for him.

I never really did the meal ones but we still do the fruit ones at 3yo, easy way to get a portion of fruit into dd

I used them when out and about and for some variety (much to my health visitors disgust despite organic type)... Mainly things we didn't really eat at home, to expose to more flavours.. Fish pie, spinach bake, some of the more unusual fruits...
Some are disgusting and tasteless others are actually quite nice

I use them for my 19 month old but he does have a medical condition that means his oesophagus doesn't work properly and generally has to eat a certain consistency of food. So I use the ones I know are safe to save me making 736384 different meals a day for each member of the family. I do feed him what I can of our food but I always have a few in the draw as back up incase he can't manage home cooked food for that day. I didn't use them with my eldest he used to eat what we did and now he's turning 5 and basically lives off pasta, cheese and peas 🤦‍♀️

Haven’t used any up until now - I batch cook one or 2 meals a week and split into baby sized portions to add to a freezer stash so that there’s lots of options to rotate for dinners or he eats what I eat. For breakfast DS usually has scrambled egg and toast or porridge with berries or with banana and peanut butter. For lunch I tend to either give whatever I had for dinner the night before if he didn’t have it with me, or a “picky plate” which he really enjoys. Whenever I cook veg I’ll always cook a bit extra for him to have as finger food the next day or whatever.

Works well for us that way. BUT - hes my only child and I’m currently on maternity leave. So I’m under no illusion that it might not be as convenient to do once I’m back at work etc. Can totally see why people find jars and pouches convenient!