Sausages etc

[NigellaSeed]

When can you introduce sausages, good ones, fish fingers, and low salt gravy and stock?

DS is 14m and I'm very health conscious but not to the point of never wanting him to eat sausage. But I don't know when it's okay to add it to his meals.

I haven't made him a roast dinner because I can't make him gravy. And all his casseroles and saucy foods are Passata based because I haven't used stock.

Thanks :)

My baby has had all of the above since 6months old, everything is moderation I say.

I would have introduced them before now probably. I'd say go for it

I used all of these at 6 months, Kallo very low salt stock though.
Sausages are DD’s favourite, she’d eat ham and sausage for every meal if allowed-so we do ration, but she has them most weeks.

I have never given my kids sausages. The oldest is 4. I wouldn't feed them something I wouldn't eat myself.
I used stock since I weaned them, generally the kallo low salt one and adults can add salt if they want. I just give them normal gravy, I can't remember since when, maybe 12-18 months.

I gave that sort of food fairly young. If we were having sausage and mash for dinner I'd make DS some but take the skin off and give it all a good mush until he could chew it properly. I only buy high meat versions anyway so I didn't feel too terrible.

I still don't give gravy but only because I don't want to do a totally salt free version for the adults. They still eat the roast without it quite happily.

They tend to eat what I do with some modifications TBH and have done since weaning. Fish fingers and chips maybe from when they were 18-24 months just because I knew they'd like them too much and didn't want that to be all they wanted 😂

All from the start of weaning here as well. Probably not the absolute first foods, but I didn't wait until a particular point to give them if I thought they could handle the textures.

Stock definitely from the start. They eat such tiny amounts to begin with that it's not a significant amount of salt.

You can give a roast dinner without gravy. I didn't tend to give them gravy until more like 2 but not because of the salt content particularly, it just never really seemed necessary.

With salt I just tried to stick to the no more than 1g per day (0.4g sodium / multiply sodium level by 2.5 to get "equivalent" salt level) until 12 months and then no more than 2g per day 12-36 months rule. I'd figure it out by looking at the salt level per pack/serving and then dividing it until I roughly got to the size of a baby portion.

I found from 6-12 months this meant I was limiting foods like bread, cheese, ham, sauces and snacks but from 12-36 months I very rarely got close to the 2g recommendation so I stopped counting fairly quickly. But this way no foods were off-limits it just meant that I'd balance the meal differently e.g. giving more potato/rice/veg and less of the sauce/meat or perhaps if I was planning something saltier for dinner I'd make sure lunch was lower in salt.

If I did have the odd day where baby probably consumed over 1g of salt (as it was only ever an estimate) I did not worry overly about it. It's not about 1g being some kind of lethal limit but about general eating patterns. It's OK for them to have the odd day of more-salt as long as you're not feeding them a high salt diet all the time.

If I did have the odd day where baby probably consumed over 1g of salt (as it was only ever an estimate) I did not worry overly about it. It's not about 1g being some kind of lethal limit but about general eating patterns. It's OK for them to have the odd day of more-salt as long as you're not feeding them a high salt diet all the time

This is the approach we're going with too.

DD is 12 months and is about to have fish fingers for the first time tonight actually. I was meant to go food shopping but were both not overly well and DH had car trouble.so needed to take mine, couldn't face walking into town for so fish fingers it is.

We eat mostly veggie with a little fish at home so no sausages but her dad eats meat when out and about so hes had sausage in a cafe breakfast and given her a little, and shes had bits of his roast dinner when we've been out - probably had gravy on it but not loads.

I try to cook from scratch and keep salt low but dont sweat it if we have the odd meal that isn't perfect.

We're veggie so veggie sausages from 6/7 months for both of mine. We use the kallo low salt stock cubes for everything. I give mine a roast dinner without gravy, sorry kids.

6 months here too.

Follow WhatMummyMakes on Instagram, she has a book on Amazon too. I don't even have kids yet and her recipes are awesome.

Thanks for the replies guys. Ive seen Kallo stock cubes so I'll pick some up. We all eat the same meals and I'm just getting a bit sick of all wet foods being tomato! Would be nice to make a cottage pie etc.

Salt wise, I think his diet is pretty good. I do give him bread sticks and oat cakes as a snack and he loves cheese, but otherwise I'd say it was very minimal so I think I will look at sausages. I would just go for Tesco own for just me but our Heck any good.

Also I wanted to add fish fingers because I miss them! I used to eat them alot. I even put them in my stir fried chopped up

Probably about 8/9 months here for sausages, once they were chewing well. We get lovely ones from the butchers! We give both ours chipolatas most of the time as a bit smaller & easier to eat (particularly the toddler). Gravy, no idea but I’m from Yorkshire & gravy is on a lot of stuff here 😂 I’m not that keen but don’t tell my parents! From about 1, I stopped overly worrying about salt. I make conscious choice not to add salt to stuff, ie, I portion off pasta sauce before we add salt for the adults. Or I don’t add salt to scrambled egg for the kids but I add a small sprinkle for myself. We eat mostly home cooked food. But I don’t worry about them eating sausages, fish fingers etc or eating food in a cafe. My DD’s fav is a tuna melt from Costa 🙈 probs pretty salty! As PP’s have said, it’s about 2g salt for a toddler over 12 months but it’s not lethal if there go over that a bit one day. It’d just be bad if they were exceeding that most days.

Let your kid enjoy some sausages, mash & gravy 😄 you can buy stockcubes with no salt if you want!

www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/308093589

Knorr stock cubes are lower in salt than Oxo but actually have a taste unlike Kallo which are rubbish.

I do remember checking the nutrition info of different brand fish fingers to see what the salt content was. Actually the own brand were better than Bird's Eye.

Personally I would avoid sausages for as long as possible due to them being class 1 carcinogens - as in there is sufficient evidence that processed meats such as sausages can cause cancer www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/cancer-carcinogenicity-of-the-consumption-of-red-meat-and-processed-meat. Not wanting to scare or shame anyone - everything in moderation, but the less processed meat (and the less children learn to enjoy processed meats), the better.

Mine has had all these from 6m too 😬I thought they could just eat everything adults do but without the huge sprinkle of salt

Thanks for the link Bobholll :)

My DD was eating them all, cut into 'fingers' by 8 months
In my experience, the people I know who have not given 'proper solid' foods until a lot older are now very fussy and refuse foods they actually have to chew

He could eat all of the above now, but be careful how you cut the sausage. Cut lengthways and then into pieces so you have a semi circle cross section insted of circular pieces that could lodge in their throat.

Definitely by 12m in moderation (so maybe had once a month?) Don't understand why you don't give the roast dinner though - that was one of the first things I gave because DC could just have same as us in terms of veg/potato/meat/yorkshire pudding/bit of gravy - either use a low salt version or make your own without salt - give to DC without the gravy if the rest of you want a high salt version.

@BertieBotts your approach is similar to mine. I used ordinary stock because actually their portion is tiny and so not actually much salt when you calculate it

We’re veggies but I’ve given my 8mo veggie sausages once or twice. I keep an eye on salt content as a pattern, so one saltier thing now and then isn’t harmful.

I make my own fish gingers using shredded coconut and they're delicious. They're from the what mummy makes recipe book. I also made my own sausages again from that book initially but now I give my 15m the sausages we get from the butchers

You’re overthinking it. We did baby led weaning so they are what we are from a young age. I tend not to add salt to cooking because of that and add it at the table instead. They definitely had sausages, roast dinner, and shepherds pie from quite young, but not all the time. A balanced diet it about moderation and no foods being off limits. A healthy relationship with food also requires kids to truly enjoy food, so that also means that they need to be exposed to truly delicious foods even those that might be ‘treat’ foods.

Before my baby was 1 I'd make a separate little cottage pie / gravy with low stock. But now she's 1 she has the same as us generally. Just a little drop of gravy and I do boil her veg separately as that's no trouble.

Everything in moderation.