Am I feeding my soon to be 10 month old food that's good enough?

[Feetupkettleon]

Please be kind. I'm a single mum and overwhelmed. Since having my baby I've pretty much stopped cooking (I used to love to cook) and I feel guilty that she doesnt have home made meals (I currently live on ready meals and salads).My baby( DD) only naps on me so just can't find the time to cook. DD is still quite small for her age and breastfeeds alot (especially at night..) DD seems to love food but it's really hard to estimate how much she eats. A lot of it ends up on the floor🙂

DD typically eats:
Breakfast:
Porridge and half a banana OR bread, cheese, butter and banana/berries+ an egg

Snack:
Half a banana + some strawberries/grapes

Lunch:
Ready made chicken/ avocado, boiled potatoes + grapes/strawberries

Dinner
Pasta, tomatoes, bread, banana

That sounds like a very good range of foods.

Thank you for your reply. That's reassuring to hear!

It's a good range but would try and add some more veg where you can for exposure but also iron. So some broccoli with lunch, maybe a spinach and cream cheese pasta for dinner etc.
Snack again some carrot sticks, pepper sticks and some homous.

Will also help veg exposure which obviously isn't as sweet as fruit.

Also range of meats where you can - cooked prawns, fishcakes etc

No judgement here.

Broadly it's not bad but not wow wow great (which you acknowledge!) And almost no one artains.
I'd view it as working on "easy builds" from your okay/good base

Eggs Boil 3 or 4 eggs one .morning they can be eaten over 2 or 3 days. You can slice it, mash it on toast l, mush it on a cracker... whatever.
Avocado cut in half and mash with back of spoon.job done. Also mash and mix with pesto then add to pasta <chefs kiss>

Frozen Veg! So easy! you just microwave to steam

My personal fave thing is batch cook because i am lazy. Instant isn't expensive and is great for this but pan works fine.

Bolgnese - i buy mire poire ready prepped and frozen - oil, a pack of beef mince, tinned tomato and stock cube - done. 15 portions from a 500g mince pack.

my baby loves risotto so i do that (frozen peas, frozen precious onion, 1x low salt stock Cube, rice, chopped chicken, some oil, water) NO PREP just sling it in - makes like 20 portions i just take it out of the freezer amd 2 mins later - boom!
Once reheated i add dollop of full fat cream cheese or drizzle oil

Batch cooking really helps its "one shot" amd you can basically do 14 plus meals so you have a lunch for 2.weeks...if you do it 1-2 per week you build up a selection fast

Sounds pretty good OP! She will let you know if she's hungry, so don't worry about things going on the floor.

The two things that saved me when I was breastfeeding and had a young toddler were:

• pre-chopped frozen onions, garlic, and sweet potato. You can get frozen 'sofritto' in waitrose which is chopped onion, celery, and carrots - so the base for loads of meals and sauces.

• The oven, I barely cooked anything on the hob apart from bolognese! Roast a whole chicken, sausage tray bakes, slow cooked lamb shoulder. Anyhhing that doesn't need supervising!

My youngest still wakes multiple times a night and I find it really helps if I do the bulk of the cooking in the morning and then it's not such a drag when I'm tired at 5pm.

Thank you! Hummous and veg is a fab idea (easy!) so is fish cakes and prawns🙂. Will buy some tomorrow.

Thanks!🙏 That's really good advice. Will try and at least batch cook one meal this week.

Thank you! Using the oven more makes sense as does cooking in the morning😀. Will try a roasted chicken. I think DD would love that.

So appreciate all of you who have taken the time to reply. Fab advice. Feel a bit calmer niw and will head to the super market tomorrow.Also sorry for my poor English (non native speaker obvs)

I think that sounds good. My 10-month-old only eats pureed food—he can't even tolerate small pieces in it. When it comes to finger foods, he touches and plays with the food in front of him but refuses to put it in his mouth.

He has food three times a day, though sometimes he doesn't eat much. I'm not too worried—probably because he's my second child. He's healthy, happy, sleeps well, and is gaining weight. Also, don’t they say something like “food before one is just for fun?”