Weaning when on holiday

[Colinthecaterpillar35]

Hi all

We've just started weaning our little boy who's 6 months. We're doing a mix of purées and finger food but not a lot is being swallowed at the moment!

We're going down to Cornwall in a couple of weeks for a holiday. At the moment I'm making all his purées and finger food from scratch but I don't want to be spending loads of time steaming/cooking whilst on holiday. Does anyone have any suggestions on what we could buy/make so that we're not cooking all the time whilst on holiday? I'm trying to stay away from pouches as I don't want to introduce lots of sweet tastes but maybe I might have to? Any suggestions also for finger food for on the go as well please would be great 😁

At 6 months, they're still quite young so you can be quite flexible about how much solid food they have and for a short break, if they have more milk than solids, it's fine.

We holidayed with mine at a similar age and they would typically have:

Breakfast - Mainly milk but also a bit of Ready Brek with mashed banana or fruit purée.

Lunches & Dinners - mainly milk but also gave them stuff from our meals to chew / pick at, such as steamed carrot sticks, broccoli stems etc. I would sometimes mash a potato and some veg from our plate and flake some fish / chop up chicken / add mince (depending on what we were eating) then stir in some Philadelphia and milk (or sauce from our meal if there was one and it wasn't too salty) to make it a bit creamier and feed to them on a spoon. If it's a fairly thick consistency it will stay on the spoon quite well for them to take the spoon from you and mouth at it like a big lolly!

They can also suck on some bread and butter (or toast) cut into fingers, make a plain omelette (you can do this quickly in the microwave) and cut into strips for them to handle and chew at. Or scramble an egg and feed it to them on a spoon.

Yogurts are easy.

He’s really young that it’s all just for fun and joining in with mealtimes really isn’t it? Mine is coming up to 9 months, doesn’t let me spoon feed him so it’s all finger food, more goes in than it used to though.
yours will be younger so this list might not work so well yet as it depends on his grip and how well he can cope with finger foods.

taglitelle boiled soft to pick up
tortilla wraps when we go out with hummus or marmite or salmon cream cheese
omelette done well and cut into fingers
avocado fingers
some pouches will be fine, just get savoury ones (I don’t worry too much about the sweetness of fruit for him to be honest)
porridge
mashed banana on toast
pureed peas on toast
sweet potato wedges
if you have a handheld blender if Judy take that (mine was about £14) and just use it to blitz up things while you’re there. You could always pre steam and take them with you. Or just take the steamer attachment for a saucepan and use that.

You can get pouches that are just pureed veg, just look at the ingredients. I wouldn't worry too much about sweet tastes, sure he's been drinking sweet tasting forumla/breast milk since he was born, just give a variety.

We were on holidays abroad last month when my son was 6.5 months, we normally did porridge or yoghurt for breakfast. For lunch, I packed my own homemade brown bread and gave strips of that toasted with peanut butter or ricotta cheese on top, scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, plenty fruit...in the early days we had the most success with avacado, banana, watermelon and blackberries in terms of feeding himself.

We normally did just did one meal out every day so I would give him a pouch for that (not really fair to let him make a big mess feeding himself in a restaurant high chair) or else order something like a jacked potato and spoon feed him that.

For finger food on the go at home I normally like roasted veg because it's easier for him to hold and less messy than steamed or boiled. Things like roasted carrots or parsnips are easy for him to hold and keep him busy for awhile. I wasn't bothered with roasting veg while on holiday though!

We used Ella's pouches when out and about. They seemed to be the best ones i could find that weren't sweet and actually tasted how they were described.

Their tomato pasta one actually tastes really nice (I used to finish them when DD was full)

He's still so young, don't stress about it

Breast milk is sweet. And I presume formula. So not sure why 'sweet tastes' from pouches is an issue? Anyway, aljust give him bits off your plate? Toast? Cut up fruit? Eggs?

I think it’s one of those things that some people do, try to avoid fruit etc when they’re so little incase they get ‘addicted’ to sweet tastes and pick them over savoury. They went on about it in NCT. I don’t subscribe to it though as a PP says, breast and formula tastes sweet anyway.

If you want to stick to what you've been doing, puree/blend and freeze as ice cubes before you do, then pack with ice blocks and bung in the freezer when you get there. I always did weaning by cooking batches and had bags of blocks of different stuff in the freezer anyway to microwave.

Why don't you just give the baby some of whatever you're eating?

Easier at home sure and with most meals. Personally on holiday I wouldn’t be giving the baby fish and chips or burger and fries or a 99 with a flake which is probably what I’d be eating 🤣

...why wouldn't you give a baby fish and chips, or burger? Just don't salt it, and cut it into sensible size chunks.

Because the baby is 6 and a half months old…and very new to eating solids…so no, I wouldn’t.

But why not? Potato, fish and meat are all suitable foods for a baby. The only thing they can't have is honey! Take a look at the NHS guidance on this, family foods are recommended from 6m.

I agree with you, they're only exploring and not eating a whole pile at that stage anyway. Although I wouldn't give any allergens (like fish) for the first time while away from home, maybe just me being cautious.

Personal choice then. But while I’m more than happy for my baby to have family meals that I make, while he’s so young, I wouldn’t just be willy nilly giving him foods that have been fried or prepared with salt or lots of cooking fat that I might be eating whilst on holiday. I think that’s probably just common sense isn’t it?

You’ve taken what I said out of context anyway- I wasn’t talking about family foods and giving the baby part of your home cooked meal, was I?

Unless you’ve cooked it yourself it’s difficult to know how much salt has been added. That’s why lots of people are more cautious about sharing what they’re having when eating out.

OP I’d take a load of Ella’s pouches so you know you have stuff if you need it. If there’s something better that’s convenient then they last ages and will get used eventually.

You're hardly going to be eating out multiple times a day with a 6m old baby, and they only need one meal a day at that age anyway! So just feed them the meal you're eating at home.

Mash up a bit of carrot, sweet potato is super easy, just microwave. Easiest are banana, and avocado. I would try him with a bean or chunk of Broccoli or pieces of toast to suck. I used Ella's pouches when abroad and only just started weaning.

Well it’s a holiday. That’s the point of the post. They aren’t at home, so are likely to be out and about eating different things. I think you’re just being facetious at this point, frankly.

Lots of good advice here but two things I would do if it were me- one would be to batch make a few savoury muffins before you go, there's tons of different ones but they would travel and store well. Also I'd be making the most of pouches this week, if you're being especially conscious of sugar/hidden fruit then I'd recommend Babease as the brand to get hold of. The Ella's puff stick things are good for making baby feel like they're joining in with a meal when out and about too. Ready made scotch pancakes make a great breakfast but there's nothing wrong with toast with something on it either, maybe pack a couple of bananas and avocados? Really at 7 months you're only wanting a couple of 'meals' a day and from experience it really won't matter if you make more use of milk, however you're feeding, that week and ramp up the food the following week. My DD is 7 months and we had to pretty much have a week off food as she got constipated then had a sore bottom, but back eating with a vengeance this week no harm done, did it with her sister too when she had an awful cold at similar age and just wanted to comfort feed all the time.

But deffo savoury muffins and Babease to make life easy while still sticking to how you want to feed!

Breakfast - baby porridge ( can just add hot water to many), mashed banana. Blob pear purée from pouch into porridge.

lunch : avocado, scrambled egg, toast or sandwich with cream cheese or butter. Raspberries

dinner: some kind of savory pouch, or similar to lunch. Greek yogurt with some purée blobbed in. You can buy yogurt baby pouches for convenience that week if your in restaurant or out and about.

I buy very very little ‘baby and child’s’ snacks or baby food. But when travelling it’s all for convenience and Ds definitely had some yogurt pouches instead if food we had wasn’t suitable travelling

Baby porridge
Avacados are good to quickly mash
Sweet potato can just microwave and scoop the insides out
Not sure if you'll have a freezer/fridge and what the travel is like but u could freeze a few bits let them defrost on the travel and pop them in the fridge when you get there for the first two days? Then just use one or two pouches If you run out ?

He's six months so he doesn't even need a meal a day. Literally just offer him something once a day from your plate - a finger of toast, a bit of banana, whatever. Sometimes you can even miss a day, it's fine.

I'm not being facetious, I think there is a HUGE degree of overthinking going on and that the answer is very simple. A baby that age needs hardly any solids at all, so when OP is eating something suitable for the baby, which is bound to happen at least once a day, she should just give them some of that. A slice of toast. A bit of banana. A slice of avocado from her brunch. A bit of fish from her dinner. Etc etc etc. It's really not as complicated as all that and it certainly doesn't need to be a giant thing she worries about weeks in advance!

Well no on that I actually agree with you, at that age sometimes we didn’t even bother doing food at all. And then it was a slice of toast here and there or some banana or whatever, it built up slowly. There is a lot of Instagram shite and various shiny books on weaning, it’s big business and mostly unnecessary.

But OP did ask for advice. So nothing wrong with sharing a few tips and ideas.

alrhough I stand by my point that when eating out or not planning what to eat in advance, it’s not always easy to just bung the baby a bit of what you’re having.