Q&A on weaning and feeding babies and toddlers with food journalist and author of River Cottage Baby and Toddler Cookbook - ANSWERS BACK

[RachelMumsnet]

We're joined this week for a Q&A on weaning and feeding babies and toddlers with food writer, Nikki Duffy. Nikki's latest book, River Cottage Baby and Toddler Cookbook offers recipes which aim to encourage a healthy and happy relationship with food from the outset. The first chapter of the book looks at the first year and weaning and other chapters look at how to ensure that your children have a balanced diet, and how to deal with difficult mealtimes and fussy eaters.

Formerly Deputy Editor of Waitrose Food Illustrated, Nikki Duffy also wrote a weekly food column in the Guardian. She worked for three years as the River Cottage Food Editor and is now a freelance food writer. Send your questions to Nikki before the end of Sunday 15th May and you'll be entered into a draw to win one of five copies of River Cottage Baby and Toddler Cookbook. We'll link to her answers from this thread the following week.

Hi
My toddler and 6 month old baby are both vegetarian, what foods to you recommed to help with developing t heir chewing muscles? My toddler doesnt like meat substitutes!

Hi Nikki - DS2 is now 5 months and so my mind is turning again towards getting started on solids in a few weeks' time. I did BLW very successfully with DS1 - given that this will be our most likely approach with DS2, what can you say to convince me that I need to read your book?

MrsSpa- Kallo do stock cubes with almost no sodium in, though they are beginning to become difficult to get hold of , Boots also do them.

Unsalted butter is also readily available. I was surprised to find how salty bread is though!

Now my children are over 2, I use (for example) 1 normal stockcube and one no salt cube in a casserole- I think it's good for the whole family to have a lower salt intake really- you're right it's in loads of foods, and I'm sure we consume too much of it.

Bloody tasty stuff though, isn't it?

This would be a lovely book for my new granddaughter who is a great smiler and very enthusiastic about her food. Unfortunately she has tested positive to allergies to both milk and eggs, so I am hoping the book will have many interesting things to conjure up for her.

Kallo cubes (the organic ones) are also brilliant because they are the only ones without MSG. So all sensitive children are better with these than with any other.

Hi as a mother of five I have found they all vary, just like us I suppose, the first two were great but the last three have been totally disinterested in food and tried to stay on the breast as long as possible. I feel as though I am sucked dry now, my last DD is 15 months and has only one thing on her mind. I have tried BLW, jars, sachets and purees and would do anything now. Any suggestions?

re: The trying to get them to eat vegetables question. I have two year old twin sons and they went through a very fussy stage at about 18 months. Previously they'd eat anything put in front of them and then suddenly it was down to fish fingers and beans or nothing. My advice would be to just keep powering through it and keep dishing it up anyway. If they eat it they eat it, and if they don't they don't. Just try to stay relaxed about it if you can and keep serving it up regardless. They say a toddler will never deliberately starve themselves. Six months on, they are back to eating most things again and I'm really glad I persevered.

The other thing that helped was changing the way I gave them their food. Anything mashed up or mixed together is no good. They have to see what every thing is on the plate - e.g. any sauce on one side, a seperate pile each of every different vegetable or meat. Basically "meat and two veg" type meals. Failing that, most things can be disguised as a pizza, just cut it up really small and hide it all under cheese (or their favourite thing on top). Then make a big fan fare of what an amazing pizza it is! If you're lucky you can even get away with disguising a jacket potato as pizza..

I am interested to know where you turned for nutritional advice/guidelines for this book as I think there is a lot of conflicting/misleading advice around e.g. the dubious "is your baby getting enough iron?" formula ads on TV, BLW vs pureeing debate, guidelines on when to start weaning/steps to prevent allergy changing repeatedly, etc.

I'd love to win a copy-- someone's put a list of their favourite recipes from it on amazon and they sound mouthwatering!

I have a 1 year old who (with the exception of fruit) is doing well, however I have a fussy husband. I'm dreading my son realising that Daddy won't eat this, won't eat that and deciding to follow suit. Any advice?

I'm interested as to why you thought there was a need for a specific baby/toddler cook book, rather than a family cookbook, where the recipes are low salt so suitable for babies too.

It seems to me that this is where the need is - theres another 17 years of feeding children after weaning, and surely if you can get people changing their eating habits at the point they are most likely to be open to it (ie when weaning their baby) you can be getting them to make a permanent change for the better. Wheras by cooking baby food, they will cook that and not make changes for the rest of the family, and therefore the baby will move onto unhealthy food too

Hi Nikki, I have this book and agree with Mishy that it is a world apart from the standard baby/toddler cookbooks - it's really a family cookbook tbh as almost all the recipes are aimed at the whole family, albeit with variations where necessary (eg no honey for under 1s, etc). Love the common sense approach to feeding fussy toddlers and the chart on what to do with gluts of veggies. And wonder if the title is as is rather than 'family cookbook' because a) there is already a River Cottage family cookbook and b) there is emphasis in the early chapters on nutritional needs for babies and toddlers in particular. Certainly, thankfully, there's none of that dressing up food to look like smiley faces, or animal faces, or whatever, that you get in some famous baby cookbooks.... so thanks Nikki, I love this book.

Anyway I do have a question as well as praise - I get a veggie box every week and recently we keep getting kohlrabi, which I usually braise with garlic in low-salt stock and add Parmesan, following an Abel and Cole recipe - do you have some other child-friendly ideas for kohlrabi, since you miss it out of an otherwise quite comprehensive vegetable list? Thank you!

DD2 is only 3 weeks old, so I've got a while before I have to think about weaning but I would still very much like a copy of this book!

One question though, how much veggie food is in it? I'm veggie (DH & DDs are/will be carnivores) so 99% of the food we eat is veggie - is it worth me buying your book? We prefer to eat tofu/beans/pulses rather than rely too heavily on "meat substitutes" so I don't want to get your book if i'd have to be eating alot of pretend chicken etc

I have a 3 year old who used to be good a eater, recently she has stopped eating fruit and vegetables she used to like. I am concerned that she will become a fussy eater like her brother. Neither will eat meat, both of us enjoy fresh and nutritious foods. My husband does most of the cooking and would love us all to enjoy a Sunday roast together. Any suggestions?

Hi Nikki,
Have you any specific advice to deal with really fussy eaters? My 2.5 year old is awful - currently he only really reliably eats pesto pasta and cheese or houmous sandwiches! We all eat together several times a week - and he eats nothing usually (will eat plain pasta if pasta based) - though he sits happily with us and stirs it around and happily tells us he has broccoli and that he doesnt like it, etc. Is this right approach - I worry that he is essentially skipping so many meals (though he usually eats some fruit afterwards) but I don't want to give him what he likes every meal when what he likes is so limited! Will he ever eat normally - do kids just grow out of this (he has always been like this, it's not a new thing)?
Like the sound of your book by the way!

Hi Nikki
Do you (or anyone else) have any advice for encouraging babies to eat? My son is 6.5 months old and we've been gradually introducing food over about a month. He is very active - he is desperate to crawl and walk and can stand clinging onto the sofa - and just wants to play with his toys or move about. He will eat virtually anything without complaint, but doesn't demand more and looks completely disinterested. He's no longer really interested in his bottle, and it doesn't matter whether I do bottle or food first. He'll eat or drink enough to sate his hunger (about 100ml of a bottle, but often much less) but then won't want anymore and tries to wriggle off to play. We still do the late night feed but over the last couple of nights he's started to wake at 2-4ish for a top up feed of 100-150ml. I think he's doing this cos he's not having enough during the day. But am treading when he can actually move as I've no idea how I'm going to get him to eat!
Thanks!

Many thanks for all the questions which we'll be sending over to Nikki tomorrow morning. We'll also announce on this thread the winners of the 5 copies of River Cottage Baby and Toddler Cookbook. As soon as we've got Nikki's answers back, we'll create a transcribed Q&A which will be linked to from this thread.

I would like to know at what point a baby can start eating family food, from a salt point of view. DD is 10.5mo, DS is 3.5yrs and avoids vegetables; three of us eat meat while DH is veggie - so getting a family meal sorted is logistical nightmare! I try to cook sauce for all 4, remove DHs and add lentils, quorn or cheese to his, add meat to ours, serve DDs, add a little salt to what's left for me and DS... Plus, as her food then seems tasteless I end up adding lemon/apple juice/tomato puree (salty?) or cheese (salty?) to give it more flavour... When can I start using normal stock cubes for her? (and in case anyone wonders why not just cook veggie all round, DS won't eat pulses or nuts and mistrusts vegetables... so we'd end up on cheese/quorn only diet).

Nikki's answers are now back and you can read the full Q&A here

Nikki Duffy Q&A

Congratulations to: thisonehasalittlecar, CharlotteBronteSaurus, Grumpla, Bessie26 and MrsSpa who have all won copies of the River Cottage Baby and Toddler Cookbook. We will be in touch via Personal messaging to give details on how to claim your books. Big thanks to all those who sent in questions.

thanks for the Q&A, and in particular the detailed answer to my question.
and the book will be the icing on the (nutritionally balanced) cake!

I wonder if any mums could offer me their thoughts on mobile phones in the classroom.
I teach 19 year olds (so we are talking grown up!!), and I am trying to encourage them to use their phones constructively, as opposed to secretly text under the table. I was hoping it could be used for dictionary, thesaurus, calculator, language barriers, internet and camera. I read an interesting one last night, that suggested they could text homework back to their parents, from taking a photo of the board!

Would you object?
Would you feel financial pressure to get the best phone out there?
Would you trust your child with this responsibility?
Or has the world gone techno crazy!

Thank you for your comments and time.

Sorry I am new to this and have posted incorrectly!

Many thanks for your answers Nikki and thanks for the book! Can't wait to try out the recipes on dd (nearly 6 months) and her siblings!

mmm book looks great! There's enough veggie stuff in it to keep me happy!

Thanks very much for the copy of the book, dd just turned 6 months so it was very timely! I would really recommend it to MNers or as a gift to a new mum as it is packed with information. In fact if I have one small criticism of it, it is that as it's billed as a cookbook it could do with a few more recipes (and some of ones in there are a bit like filler. I do know how to make porridge. And eggy bread) but as a reference on nutrition, seasonal eating etc it is brilliant. And very balanced, for example the author is very pro-bf but the section on formula is the most clearly put and enlightening information I've ever read on what all the different varieties actually consist of. I've only had it a couple of weeks but it's really inspired me to be a bit more adventurous feeding the baby as well as my older dcs. Can't believe they actually ate fennel!