non-meat-eating mum/meat-eating baby

[blossom2010]

Has anyone else been in this situation or in this situation currently? DD is 10 months old & is pretty much weaned onto most foods, including meat & fish (I eat fish but not meat, DH eats both but doesn't tend to have much meat at home as it's easier). She's getting better with lumps & will feed herself toast/ricecakes/sticks of cheese but seems to prefer being fed her main meals at the moment. I've always been of the opinion that eating meat or not should be her choice not mine, which is why I've been giving her meat along with other protein sources including fish, beans & pulses in an effort to keep her diet as varied as possible. While she was on purees & smallish portions it was reasonably easy as I had a whole stash of ice cubes of different veggies & pureed meats/fish that I could mix together, but now she's on lumpier food & with an increased appetite I can feel myself getting increasingly stressed about how I'm going to make sure she gets a varied diet without making her a seperate meal from scratch every day (don't mind doing this occasionally but am back to work soon so time will be an issue). I have the idea of making casseroles of different meats that I can freeze in larger portions to mix with different veggies that DH & I have for supper & I've also made a spag bol that I've frozen in portions for her but other than that I'm a bit stuck for ideas.

Basically, can anyone give me some ideas as to what they have done or would do in this situation? Thanks & sorry for long post, am new to this & haven't yet learnt the art of keeping it concise!

Not me personally, but a good friend is veggie and bringing up her daughter with meat and fish. I think she basically does mostly veggie meals, but a few times a week cooks meaty for DH and daughter, and does herself something extra. There's no need for your baby to be eating meat twice a day, as long as the veggie days of her diet are healthy she'll be fine and it sounds like you're thinking well about variety.

I was in this situation. I rarely made separate meat dishes for the dc's, they just ate what the whole family ate. At the weekends I might have done chops for the family and a veggie option for me, but mostly they ate veggie dishes. This hasn't effected their health or appetite for meat - dd1 is a carnivore and will happily eat rare steak, aged 8.

Just freeze what you and dh have and don't worry about the meat side of things.

I'm veggie, dh eats fish and the dc (in theory) eat meat. The oldest 2 are now 4 and 6 and have not noticed that i don't eat meat, but the 6 year old is going off meat. I make stuff like spicy chick peas and cous cous and the kids have sausages on the side, fish pie in which the bit I get has no fish but more egg , sardine pasta, shepherds pie just for them. I aim for them to eat red meat no more than once a week and to eat as much fish as possible.At the moment we have to many fish fingers as dc3 (10m) is wild about them .
I think your right that variety in your dc's diet is important.

Hi thanks for your replies. I suspect I'm overthinking it a bit, but not having eaten meat for over 20 years I'm a bit scared of it tbh! I'll continue as I am & make sure she continues to get the variety, which, I think, is key.

DH and I are veggies (though DH eats fish so not strictly veggie) - I've always tried to encourage DS1 to eat what we do so he eats veggie +small amount of fish at home - outside the home he eats what he wants which means if often chooses meat. He is in Reception and has school dinners 4 days a week and often chooses meat I'm happy with that even encourage it. I've explained why we are veggies but try to be fairly laid back about it and that though we don't eat meat at home outside the home its completely his choice. We decided to go down this route as we don't want to cook different meals (+ as its 24 years since I cooked meat I am clueless how to do it safely - warming up a fish finger is my limit!!). Will take the same route with DS2 who is just starting weaning.