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Weaning

Find weaning advice from other Mumsnetters on our Weaning forum. Use our child development calendar for more information.

Home-made weaning food

7 replies

Dozeyland · 12/03/2011 17:48

What tips do you have in regards to batch making
Purees?

Dd is 5mo, and I think ill start to wean at 6mo.

OP posts:
Dozeyland · 12/03/2011 18:01

Also:

How many of you

ONLY home-make your babys foods, or mix with shop brands?

OP posts:
Flossie69 · 12/03/2011 22:19

I started with apple, and carrot. I used ice cube trays, and once frozen, transferred the cubes into freezer bags. Once she was established on the apple, I tried her on some carrot, then made some more purees - parsnip, sweet potato, brocolli and cauliflower - whatever you like. Then moved onto to protein - making a new batch every few days, of things such as chicken, cod, pork loin. So after a while, once DD was eating proper meals, I could go to the freezer, and select the ingredients for a lovely meal, with plenty of variety. I found a little went a long way, especially as you need to add some of the cooking fluids to the purees.

I found it very easy, and not too much work, as you dont need to make all the purees straight away, and once you have them done, then making meals is very easy. A good tip is to mix the fruit with the savories - ie apple with pork, lamb with apricot. You can then add things like couscous or pasta stars to add texture, and anyway the home made purees have a fair bit of texture.

DD is 10 months now, and I have used up all my purees, and have gone onto to making little meals for her such as shepherds pie, which I freeze. I will also use left-overs mashing as necessary and freeze them. She loves her finger foods too. I do give her some jars too, for when I am in a hurry, but they never taste as good as the home made. But it is a good idea, as you never know when you might need to give your LO some.

One more tip - when you first start, just go with one cube with perhaps some baby rice - then you wont feel quite so devastated if LO rejects your hard made lovely food!

Hope this helps - and enjoy :)

emmylou157 · 13/03/2011 00:02

Hi,
I mix shop bought with my own - try to give my own most of the time but tend to use shop bought when out and about as find them easier to heat up.

At first I just did things like sweet potatoes and butternut squash - just pierce their skins and bake them in the oven when soft scoop out the insides, I had to liquidise them at first as sometimes were a bit stringy. Now i just do her bits of whatever we are having if it can be liquidised. If we have a stew/spag bol/salmon I just do a bit extra liquidise it and freeze it in portion sizes - did use pots but ran out so now just use freezer bags.

For fruit I sometimes buy packs of frozen pears/apples and stew them (just with water) they are already peeled and chopped up and are cheaper than fresh.

hope this helps!

FunnysInTheGarden · 13/03/2011 00:05

since we both work FT I have only ever bought DS2 purees, mostly Plum or Ellies. But he does eat a lot of normal stuff himelf.

If you have time do it, if not, don't worry.

Oh and if you batch make you own freeze in little pots. I did with DS1, poor DS2 has the short straw Grin

muslimah28 · 14/03/2011 18:01

silicone mini muffin trays are my top tip! Much easier to get he portions out of than an ice cube tray. Also i wd say dont make too many at fist-i made loads which ds wasnt interested in and now we blw.

applejelly · 16/03/2011 11:12

I did much the same as flossie
DS has only had homemade stuff so far - I'm not against jars etc but they are quite expensive and it doesn't take long to make up a couple of batches for the freezer.
Liking muslimah's silicone muffin tray tip!

clara10 · 16/03/2011 13:23

Same as flossie
DD 5mo and so far i've batch frozen - using the ice cube tray to freezer bag method - carrot, swede, and i'm doing pear tonight and apple tomorrow. As mentioned if you do the same with meat you can then select what you want from the freezer to make a diff meal everyday.

Once meals are bigger i use about 20 tommy tippie pots and when we have a suitable meal i chop and freeze.

Ready done stuff has its place, esp useful are the squeezy pouches, they go straight on to the spoon or straight into the mouth!

My tip for the freezer - label!

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