Smoothies for my 8 month old

[OliviaL9530]

Hi

Does anyone have any smoothie recipes for an 8 month old?

Why would you like to give your baby a smoothie?

They're insanely high in sugar, and low in fibre compared to eating the equivalent amount of whole fruit.

The only drinks and 8 month old should be having is water with meals and breast milk or formula. I wouldn't even give a toddler a smoothie.

I wouldn't give a smoothie either. Too high in sugar and too easy to eat lots of fruit in a short space of time

Do you need a recipe as such? If the baby has trouble with whole fruit you could just blend it and feed it to them as a purée? I’ve sometimes done that with babies at nursery who struggle to eat whole fruit.

Ignoring all the sugar and reduced ’good stuff’ that comes with blitzing fruit, why would you make things harder on yourself? So much easier to just give them fruit and a separate water, or some milk or yoghurt. I didn’t even warm up milk as it was too much effort (especially when going out)!

This

at 8 months you need to be encouraging chewing and swallowing and enjoying different textures, which natural fruit is perfect for. Bananas , pears, apple, melon, grapes, blue berries , strawberries, peaches, raspberries all have different tastes, bite feel, and textures. Why would you want to mush them into something that doesn’t develop your child’s experience of food and is positively unhealthy in terms of sugar and fibre.

I would say pick something like cooked carrot and orange and spinach for example. So only give a single of portion of fruit blended with some veggies. Then spoon feed/drink so it’s low in sugar and high in goodies!

Also, how would they drink it? Would be too thick for a sippy cup or equivalent, and impractical with an open cup. Also too runny for a spoon or scoop with hands. If you’re spoon feeding, just mix the purée with some yoghurt.

Do you mean mixed purée rather than a smoothie drink?

Apologies if I've made myself unclear I just meant recipes to make like broccoli and spinach for example. Not fruit.

She has 3 or 4 meals a day with water but has massively massively gone off her milk and will only have 9oz on a dream feed in the night when she's now consciously aware she's having any. She won't touch a bottle in the day time so I'm trying to incorporate the milk into food.

I've tried it on cereal and every which way I could think and she just won't have it

Have you tried a sippy cup instead of a bottle?

@FusionChefGeoff I have! It's like she doesn't like the taste since she's introduced on solids. Sometimes she'll go for it but a lot of the time she won't

Huh that’s a tricky one! How is her weight etc? It may be because she’s eating so much it’s maybe put her off her milk/she prefers food more than milk! Could you try at one meal offering milk before food? If she’s full of food that might be why she’s rejecting her bottles. So when she gets up in the morning offering a bottle before breakfast or something?

I'd try yoghurts and cheese and other dairy products rather than smoothies.

In that case I would be going for banana milkshake. Literally milk and banana blitzed together. Less sugary than other fruits blitzed.

Yoghurt and cheese also count though.

Or lots of milky mash potato?

My dd went off her milk once food was introduced so I just made sure she lots of other diary .. cheese and yoghurts .. she's still not a fan of milk at 3yr but to be fair I hate milk so never pushed it ..

Give her cheese, plain yoghurt, butter etc to get the calcium and calories in.

Or mix the formula into porridge etc

All good ideas! Thank you.

I've tried bottles before milk but she just clamps her mouth shut. This morning she had whole milk on a weetabix with a yogurt and polished it off she just does t want milk haha she's on the 95th centile so her weight is fine lol

If her weight’s fine and she’s eating well I really wouldn’t fret. I understand how it feels to worry/stress over it etc but if she’s gaining weight and healthy in herself then I just wouldn’t panic.

As PP said, cheese and plain yoghurt also count if she likes those.

Homemade macaroni cheese can get a fair bit of milk in, or other things with a bechamel sauce, like fish pie. Also homemade rice pudding - you can even make a savoury version with veg and cheese, rather than fruit. Savoury bread and butter pudding as well (although I don't put as many veg in that, maybe some tomatoes or onions).