Weaning + 3 year old - What meals do you make for the whole family?

[MariaVT65]

I have a 4 month old so starting to think about weaning in a couple of months.

I also have a 3 year old, who is thankfully good with food so far.

If possible I’d like to make as many meals as possible that all 4 of us can eat, but I have the concern about salt, as we do also have things like sausages, pesto pasta, and stock-based meals like risotto.

Please you tell me what meals you cook and feed everyone when you’re weaning?

How concerned about salt are you? I use the 25% less salt oxo cubes already and don’t add any further salt to anything.

Good thread. I did BLW so these won’t work if you want purée style and mine are older now but I remember doing cottage pie (low salt stock, Worcester sauce to add flavour for adults) in a big pot plus some in little ramekins that I could freeze for the DC for another time. Roast chicken (or whatever) with veg and roast potatoes, carrots and parsnips, no gravy for DC. Then chicken pot pie with the leftovers (white sauce, leeks, ready made puff pastry lid). Spanish omelette (not with chorizo, just onions and potato). Lots of different types of soup with bread to dunk and fruit on the side. Fish baked in foil, with couscous or rice and steamed veg. Stir fry (add soy sauce for adults when served).

Any of those sound any good for you?

I have a 4 year old and a 1 year old.

I make a lot of:
Soup
Stews
Curries
Bolognese/chilli
Mashed potato recipes - fish pie, cottage pie

All good for spoon feeding.

I suppose it depends on whether you’re planning on traditional weaning or BLW?

We did BLW from 6 months. Just gave him everything we were having with a few exceptions and made sure everything was cut appropriately. Knorr do a zero salt stock cube which we used in meals. And we just added salt to adults plates after we had removed the kid portion.

if we had meals slightly higher in salt such as sausages then we just balanced out his meals the next few days with zero/low salt options.

we ate lots of meatballs and pasta, sausage & mash, chicken pies, risottos, steak & chips, cottage pies etc. LO loved them all.

if you’re doing traditional weaning I’m sure you can still use the same basics and just puree them?

Thanks so much, these are great suggestions and have given me some ideas! I’ll be making a note of everything.

I feel it’s a shame I probably shouldn’t use chorizo. We use it in slow cooker casseroles and it goes lovely and soft. My 3 year old loves it.

We have a 6yo and a 7 month old who is doing BLW so he mostly had what we’re having or a version of it. Recent meals

Chicken and cheese quesadillas with beans + dip
Roast dinner
Tomatoey pasta
Homemade pizza
Halloumi pittas (baby just has pitta and veggies with hummus cos halloumi is super salty)
Omelette
Veggie noodles (put some to the side before adding soy sauce)

If we’re having something he can’t eat (either too salty or too small for him to grasp yet) I usually just give him picky bits of fruit, cheese, toast, etc.

@MariaVT65 If you like slow cooking, I’ve got quite a few slow cooker recipes that work or can be adapted to work. DM me if you’d like any of them, I don’t want to spam your thread.

Ah wow thanks so much, that’s really kind! I’ll DM you :)

Ah thanks, that’s really good to know that we can still be a bit more relaxed about a bit of salt on some days. I’ll have a look at the zero salt stock cubes as i haven’t seen them before. I already buy the 25% less salt stock cubes.

Thanks!

I know it’s really random but my 3 year old likes noodles with beans and cheese as a quick dinner sometimes so i may also mix up some of your suggestions 😁

I didn't do much differently really. Avoided a few things that would have been too hard for baby to eat like tacos, tortilla chips etc. Tried to avoid stock where I could or used reduced salt ones. If we had an item high in salt like veggie sausages, ketchup etc type sauces or condiments, or gravy I'd just not give them that part of the meal til after they turned 1 and they didn't really notice or care. Extra salt or chilli just added to me and DH's plates afterwards which we were already doing anyway to avoid them for our then-3yo.

I honestly didn’t bother checking the salt content of sausages or anything like that. Processed stuff was a few times a week- i’d just offer more hydration to compensate. She spent most Saturdays gnawing on a bacon rasher.

i also continued to add a bit of salt to pasta and veggies whilst cooking.

i only really swapped to zero sodium stock cubes because that didn’t make a difference with flavour

as you have no concerns about babies fluid intake it’s absolutely fine to bung a bit of chorizo in a casserole once a week, assuming the rest of the diet is fine

remember the sodium advice is lowest common denominator stuff to stop people feeding babies supernoodles.