How will we ever move on from baby food?

[JuliaGulia]

Hi,

I think we need some help. My b/g twins are nearly 1 year old and I just can't see how we're ever going to get them to move on from baby food and eating adult food all of the time.

The babies eat a range of adult finger food (fruit, toast, pitta etc) but the basis of all their hot meals is still a jar of baby food. When I've tried to cook adult food (spag bol, pasta etc) they've just spat it out as it's too dry and full of lumps.

The HV said from 1yo they can eat whatever my husband and I eat but we work long hours and tend to buy oven food (not ready meals) or cook things like chili and curries. The babies would never eat these I'm sure.

We were at my mum's for a sunday lunch today and really they should have been able to eat everything that we ate (she doesn't cook with salt) but I still found myself giving them a jar of baby food and them keeping them entertained with finger food while we ate our roast.

Does anyone have any tips on how to make the food I give them smooth-ish, healthy-ish and doesn't take a long time to prepare? The HV was mentioning things like fish fingers and chicken but how should I prepare it (bearing in mind our time constraints) to make sure the kids are likely to eat it. Jars of baby food always have a thickish sauce but my spag bol was made with a tinned tomato sauce which was much runnier - so I'm not surprised they hated it. I've brought cous cous after reading it was ideal for weaning but I just don't know what to do with it.

I can just see us still feeding them jars of baby food when they're going to school!

Any help you can give me will be grately appreciated. I feel like I've survived the first year of twin motherhood relatively well but this is starting to cause me some worry.

x

It really is as simple as giving them what you eat. It sounds like they are very used to jars, so i'd recommend you gently wean them off - by giving them pieces of whatever your meal is alongside a portion of the jar food.

I know its difficult working fulltime, but why don't you and your husband change your eating habits to things that suit your children - this is less time consuming as you only have to prepare one meal.

I've always given my babies the same food as us purely because its easier than preparing something seperate - yes sometimes they have a bit of salt or chuck in the oven things because i'm in a rush, but they've all survived!

Try out different ways of giving them food e.g. as finger foods, or chopping and spoon feeding. See what they go for.

Why not try them with some more 'adult' food that is the kind of texture they like? Like hummous - good with dipping, pasta with smooth sauces like cheese or tomato.
The idea with using your own food is simply to cook it in a way that would be palatable - ie, not too hot/spicy, less salt etc and then puree it, leaving it a bit lumpier as they get older.
In terms of time - I tend to cook a big batch of something like tomato sauce and then freeze it in single portion - I can get a meal together for DD in 10 mins tops.
Like at your Mums - I'd have given my DD a few cooked veggies (she doesn't like meat) and you could have offered them a few shreds of chicken.
Meals for tots don't need to be too complex and their tummies are still quite small.
Don't worry too much - I'm sure you're doing fine.

I agree with Hattie. And also chilli and curry are fine. Maybe just add a touch of natural yoghurt or creme fraiche. They may just love it!

Do you have a hand blender. You can blend some of the food and leave a bit lumpy until they get the idea/taste of it and then just whizz a bit less each time

Things like fish pie, shepherds pie, pasta and baked potato with cheese & beans/tuna usually go down well

To be honest I think I would just go cold turkey on the baby food and give them things they can pick up at eat with their hands!

They could pick up and eat fishfingers couldn't they? And you could make batches of your own chicken nuggets, meatballs etc for the freezer for an easy meal for them. Pasta like fusilli or rigatoni that are easy to handle?

Were they not interested in picking up roast potatoes, vegetables and feeding themselves at your mum's?

The dryness of adult food was an issue for DS too. I just used to add more moisture to his, whether that was gravy, cheese sauce or whatever to make it more like the texture of baby food, but not quite iyswim. And ANYTHING in little bits mixed into mashed potato went down very well!

Something like a risotto with cheese in it might be good too, as it sticks together and is really soft. (There's a butternut squash one in the Annabel Karmel book that I've now been making for years as both kids love it - I just add extra salt and pepper for me).

Good luck!

I have been wondering this today too! DS2 can't do finger food / self feeding at all (he has downs and just can't seem to get it yet) and I'm terrified of him choking so have been using sachets/hipp pot things. But I don't think they are filling him up, but then the one time I did hive him lots of something he sicked it all up. Stress.

Thank you all for your responses. You've given me some good ideas.

The twins are just starting at nursery and apparently they have been eating home cooked meals so I know they're open to new foods.

I think some of the problem is the time it takes to prepare home cooked food. They don't like to wait a long time for dinner but they're too young to be left unattended so I end up putting them in their highchairs - something they're beginning to hate - while I prepare things from scratch. Any thoughts on how to get around this? I can't have them under my feet while I'm cooking...

I've decided to make up some tomato sauce with some small bits of vegetables and then freeze it into batches to add to pasta. Also I think fish fingers with baked beans sounds like a good option - that's nice and quick.

Just one last question - we use prepared cooking sauces (uncles bens/dolmio etc) to cook our meals sometimes. Are these ok to us? How much salt would be too high for them?

If you've got any other ideas or suggestions, I'd be really pleased to hear from you.

Thanks you,
Julia Gulia

Hi Julia,

can you not leave them playing whilst you prepare the meal? Or if they want to be near you, give them empty saucepans, dried pasta and wooden spoons to bang around - my dd loves this.

Generally shop bought sauces are high in salt and not as great as home made sauces, but I have to say i use the odd shop bought thing once in a while. Substituting with plenty of home made stuff the rest of the time.