Prepping with a weaning baby

[SnuggyBuggy]

Is anyone else trying to do a food stash with a baby who is weaning? She usually eats a mix of finger food and homemade purée (which she prefers to eat with her fingers )

So far I have a box of milled porridge oats. Forgive me if I sound thick but can babies eat tinned vegetables? I'll also have all my usual frozen stuff.

I'm curious as to what others with babies are doing.

My son is 2, so past the weaning stage now but it's fresh in my mind.

Most things that shouldn't be given to babies/toddlers have a warning on the back - like honey, condensed milk, some powdered milk. But a lot of it is more just common sense, i.e. avoid if it has a load of added sugar or salt.

Tinned veg is fine - the ingredients are usually just the veg plus water. My son ate loads of tinned peas and carrots when he was weaning.

Porridge/oats is a good thing to stock up on - you can add milk, water, fruits, raisins, whatever else you want to try. So stocking up on oats, UHT milk, tinned or frozen fruit could be helpful. I used to get those bags of frozen mixed berries to add to my son's porridge and he seemed to enjoy it. He even had tinned peaches and/or pears with his.

Maybe try experimenting with longer life food just now to see what she likes - there's no point in stockpiling things she's not going to eat. I've got loads of tinned pears and peaches as my son loves them, but no tinned pineapple as he won't even look at it.

I'm also storing the Alpro Soya Growing Up Drink. It's a good milk alternative for him and he enjoys it in cereal/porridge as well as a drink, so it won't go to waste.

Thanks for your response. I'm enjoying weaning but I don't find it very instinctive, so much has changed since I was a baby. We both like porridge and it's so easy, just make a bowl for myself and give her some.

Try the fruit pots, cow and gate do them and loads of other companies too, cow and gate on offer in Asda at the moment. They have quite long shelf life.
My boy 15 months and likes mashed potato with stuff mushed in (still not many teeth) so I'm stocking up on instant mash, tinned tuna and salmon and sweetcorn. Pasta twists are good finger food too. Pittas will freeze, they're popular here. Rice cakes have good long life, good with peanut butter. Weetabix and whole milk UHT at the worst... bleurgh.

Thanks for the suggestions, I'm trying to get into Weetabix without much success. Luckily DD isn't that picky yet.

My son is fast approaching 2 but the other week he had a really sore throat and would only eat pouches of Ella’s kitchen and yogurt. It’s worth getting a few pouches for reasons like that as they often have good dates: and you can use them up in sandwiches if they get close to their BBE date. Pouches of purée fruit are handy for giving medicine, and can be added to other plain foods so they won’t go to waste. Also pouches of prunes are good for constipation (common in weaning when they move on to more solid food).

Lots of snacks like rice cakes, wafers, and veg baby crisps have good dates.

But yes, as someone else mentioned: tinned or frozen food is fine, just avoid lots of food with added salt/sugar :)