If you use toddler jars/pouches/ready meals...

[Greys007]

Firstly, this is not intended as a debate on what’s healthier etc. If your kid is fed, happy days 👏🏼

I’m curious as to how you manage the cost of it?! Conversation with DH last night - he’d been chatting to an ex colleague that he’d recently got back in touch with. They found out they’d both had their first DC within 2 weeks of each other so were catching up on all things “dad”. DH had mentioned our DS (currently 13m) and how much he was loving his food. Colleague said his was the same but he couldn’t believe how much their weekly food bill had increased by - they spend around £60 per WEEK feeding their DS alone 😳
DH says he wasn’t sure exactly what they were buying but that the colleague had mentioned “a couple of those Ella things, a microwave meal and his snack bars each day” plus his formula.

I had no idea what was the kind of cost involved 😳 I’ve met a few mums through a local baby group and 1 in particular really struggled financially - but I know that’s she also uses pouches and ready meals etc.

Is it not a horrendously expensive way to feed your child?! 😳

DS just eats what DH and I eat. We both love to cook so I’m aware that alone makes a big difference. We are both lactose intolerant and DS is not so we do now buy cows milk/yoghurt/cheese etc on top of our dairy-free versions which does add to our food bill a bit but certainly not to that extent!

We just used them occasionally like choose friendly ready meals. Wouldn't use all the time as too expensive.

Child friendly.

Our 1 year old eats what we eat pretty much except for fruit, he eats apples as we do but needs most other fruit pureed and because I am a lazy cow I give him pouches of fruit for ease. He has to have his fluids thickened as he has dysphagia, we will trial fruit again but are waiting until his SaLT gives us the go ahead.

Glad it's not just us that sends a scary percentage of the food budget on soft fruit! They don't tell you about that at the parenting classes do they 😂

We did use pouches for maybe one meal most days (I won't pay 'Ella' to puree apple for me though...) And found the supermarket ones went down just as well. By the time we got to the tray meals DD rejected all of them (they do look and smell grim, I think) but by that point she was more happy and capable of sharing with us. Aldi and Lidl have done a great job of paying homage to the expensive baby foods in my opinion, just a shame it's a very limited selection.

It's a bit of a marketing con really - there is even some interesting stuff written about this if you go looking. Babies don't need special "baby food" but if you put that on a package, on a tiny package because babies are small, you can charge twice as much as it costs for the identical product sold to adults at four times the size. And people will see that item with baby written on the packaging and assume that the existence of it means that the adult version is unsuitable. Even if it is exactly the same. There is an assumption that products are created due to a need, so if baby food exists it must be because adult food is not suitable for babies, but if you look into it it really isn't. It's all just marketing. You can go into the fruit tins and purées aisle and buy pure Apple purée with no added juice or sugar or you can go into the baby aisle and find the same product but repackaged with a teddy on the label.

I know that most of the value in baby food is convenience, and while you can buy a carrot and steam it yourself a jar of carrot purée is not found in the adult aisle. But it seems like the message that gets across to some people is that babies are like pets that need a special baby food diet and can only eat that.

DS is nearly 3 and usually has 1 ready meal a week (the Annabel Karmel frozen ones), occasionally 2 if it's a busy week for us. As it's not many per week, I don't really find it adds much to our shopping bill.

For people saying they just give their kids normal (not 'toddler specific') ready meals, do you manage to find ones low in salt? Not meaning to be arsey, would love to find some if they're cheaper than the toddler ones, but they just don't seem to exist at my Tesco!

Have a (it's homemade)

When my DC’s were this age there were only the branded range with less choice than now available but my friend with an eight month old now buys them in bulk when there are on offer to get some savings.

At 3 I'd probably give normal ready meals or half of one, which is easier if you have multiple children. You don't have to be nearly as careful with salt at that age (up to 1g per day before a year, 2g per day from age 1-3, 3g age 3-6) and if it's only once a week then that's fine as you don't need to worry overly if they do go over the limit on a single day, it's about the average they are having in general. I don't know how much salt a ready meal contains offhand but I'd be surprised if it was a huge amount, especially if they don't eat the whole thing. I'd check that on the labels. But it's likely no worse than frozen chicken nuggets and chips which most people would feed a 3yo.

@BertieBotts

At 3 I'd probably give normal ready meals or half of one, which is easier if you have multiple children. You don't have to be nearly as careful with salt at that age (up to 1g per day before a year, 2g per day from age 1-3, 3g age 3-6) and if it's only once a week then that's fine as you don't need to worry overly if they do go over the limit on a single day, it's about the average they are having in general. I don't know how much salt a ready meal contains offhand but I'd be surprised if it was a huge amount, especially if they don't eat the whole thing. I'd check that on the labels. But it's likely no worse than frozen chicken nuggets and chips which most people would feed a 3yo.

Brilliant, thanks @BertieBotts!

I find this rather goady. There are so many reasons why people might feed their DC pouches, not least being that they eat ready meals and snack foods themselves, so there is no lovingly prepared shepherds pie to apportion.

@Candycats my youngest is 2 and the ready meals I get her that are within the salt limit are from M&S and Waitrose - normally pots that are aimed for an adult to have for lunch.

@TraceyLacey

I find this rather goady. There are so many reasons why people might feed their DC pouches, not least being that they eat ready meals and snack foods themselves, so there is no lovingly prepared shepherds pie to apportion.

@TraceyLacey it really wasn’t intended to start any kind of debate into pouches/jars vs homemade! I was genuinely just shocked at the cost of using pouches and ready meals exclusively! Completely get that people us them for all different reasons. I feel the same way about this as I do about BF/formula - do what works for you and your family!

I don't think it was goady, OP.

I was genuinely wondering why people don't just mash up their own food to share with baby? Not because I'm some supermum, but because that's just what I've always done. I don't want to come across as if I'm judging, because I'm really not.

I'm also the same about BF/formula. A fed baby is a happy baby and that's all that matters. I formula fed :)

The food we eat isn’t baby friendly so jars and pouches are easier particularly when you’re late home after work and in a hurry.

@catperskn ah I hadn't thought about lunch pots, thanks!

I've found my tribe amongst the others on this thread blowing the food budget on berries. We try to buy organic and I worked out having read this that my toddler is eating c.£25 a week in berries alone

Also joining the berry bunch

We’ve got some of the EK & Aldi rip off snacks, mainly for being out & about or occasionally as part of his lunch. I’ve also bought the odd yoghurt pouch, though he seems to prefer plain Greek yoghurt.

He’s never had a meal pouch, he seems to prefer things with a bit more bite/texture.

Friends & family seem to rely on the pouches though for at least one meal a day. My version of it is to have some frozen homemade snacks defrosted (fish cakes, savoury muffins with cream cheese) with some microwave bags of veg.

We used the occasional jar/pouch if we were on a day out but mostly just gave dd what we ate, or food that we had eg boiled veg and fruit in early days then just normal stuff with less salt added - cottage pie, pasta, toast, beans, hummus , veg sticks, bananas, avocado, scrambled eggs etc.
I think some parents aren't v confident in their own cooking abilities and worry they won't provide their kids with the proper nutrition - which basically the baby food industry plays on.
I felt secure in the knowledge that I could provide my child with a more than adequate diet and didn't need to buy into over-priced, over-processed rubbish.
They play on new parents' insecurities.

Like others have said, we seemed to spend a fortune on fresh fruit - mainly berries! A blueberry nappy scared my husband once!!

We seem to be going through an apples, oranges and bananas phase at the moment, thank goodness! I wonder what percentage of soft fruit sold in a given supermarket is bought to feed small children?!

My DD has terrible issues with food, starting from weaning. Starting from birth, actually, because of her CMPA.

Those pouches and ready meals were ALL I could get her to eat. If I bought an apple and blended it so that it was exactly the same as the pouch stuff, she wouldn't eat it. If I opened a pouch and squeezed it into the same bowl, she'd eat most/all of it. She knew. I don't know how she knew, but she did. It was bloody expensive but it got some food in her and that was all that mattered at the time. Without the pouches she genuinely would've lived on milk and milk alone until she was about 2. She's 7 now and getting better (she started eating actual food when she was 2ish, but limited things), but it's still a struggle. She actually had more fruit then than she does now...

And then DS is 3 and a human dustbin. He will eat anything and everything, or at least try it before rejecting it. He's never really had a pouch, except I used to squeeze one into plain yoghurt... that lasted about a year, now he just has fromage frais like a normal kid He'd probably eat a pouch fruit if I gave it to him, he doesn't give a shit as long as something's going in!

My kids ate a combination of jars and prepared foods and homemade (still do but not babies anymore!) I used to buy whatever was on offer, on a really tight budget (£60 a week was a good week for the whole family shop). Sometimes shop own brand snacks like baby rice cakes, crisp puffs etc. But more often snacks and would be toast sticks, and cut up fruit and veg (whatever was cheapest at the time usually carrots and apples) and bits of cheese. Breakfast would be weetabix or porridge. So a pouch or jar at lunch and/or dinner.