Is petits filous really suitable for weaning???

[Emandwilliam]

Friend of mine recommended it, I've brought some but now not so sure.....I tried one and it tastes quite sweet. Ds is 6 months next week.

[RitaMorgan]

You don't have to give biscuits or cakes either, but I still do. Some sugar is fine as part of a balanced diet.

[cakeoholic]

Yes, but you cannot compare the way an adult eats to a baby. Adults also enjoy cakes and biscuits but a baby doesn't want those things when they have never had them. You and I will also have tea, coffee and juice but would you give those to a baby? It's about giving them the best possible start and giving them good eating habits for life. Their bodies are so small and we do so much to protect them and want the best for them and then give them sugar filled products when there's no need? Sugar may be fine as part of a balanced diet but really why would you choose to give to your baby on a regular basis?

[renlo]

I was actually told by my HV ( who also happens to be my lovely neighbour ) to give my 8 month old some petit filous. I told her I would rather not as they contain a bit too much sugar for my liking. However, both mine have had muller little stars which has a little less sugar. I think the advice to not add sugar or salt to babies diet is necessary but we need to be careful of taking it too far. Pureed fruit and some veg contain natural sugars which get treated in the same way by the body anyway. Breast milk and formula milk is sweet for a good reason! Everything in moderation I think. I am one of those people with a terrible sweet tooth as an adult because as a child, my well meaning mother, who was a nurse made sure we never got any sweets, even grapes were off limit due to sugar content! The result is that from age 11 when I was allowed to walk to school on my own and got some pocket money, I would routinely finish two bags of cola cubes/pear drops/ rhubarb and custards, several curly wurlies etc before I reached the school gates! I don't want that for my kids.

[RitaMorgan]

My baby enjoys cakes and biscuits, and if I have them he wants some too. Good eating habits are important, and for me that means eating together and having sweet foods as normal, occasional food rather than seeing them as bad or forbidden.

[thisisyesterday]

for the record ready brek does not contain any added salt, so the poster warning about it earlier is wrong I'm afraid

in fact, ready brek is great because it's also fortified with calcium, iron and b vitamins

i am generally a cook-from-scratch, foods as little processed as possible kind of a person, but having 3 vegetarian children (2 of whom can have neither milk nor eggs) even I have moved over to ready brek from regular porridge oats! it totally rocks

[cakeoholic]

I feel that using them for weaning or giving them regularly is unnecessary. The body has no need for processed sugar so why give something so high in it to a baby?

Fruit sugars and processed sugars are processed differently by the body.

Having the sweet taste from milk and fruit etc is how it should be and then after the age of about 2 when they are aware of these other things they can learn to have sweet them in moderation but I still don't see why someone would choose to give it to their baby over something without sugar if that option is there?

[thisisyesterday]

sorry, just re-read and seen that i was beaten to it in my defence of ready brek lol

i don't use petit filous myself, stuck with natural yoghurt, or sainsburys own brand which have no added sugar

i am not anti-sugar at all. but I do limit it, natural fruit sugars are a bit different than processed sugars

[sprinkles77]

I just don't see the point in paying over the odds for sugar - filled crap. DS 16 months has always just had own brand greek yoghurt. My mother got him petit filous recently and he wasn't that keen.

[WhatGoodIsThis]

RitaMorgan, but Petit Filous don't contain large amounts of sugar. I mean those pots are teeny! What's so bad about them compared with biscuits (which I certainly didn't give to my DC before they hit age 2 or 3)

[RitaMorgan]

One a day is quite a lot of sugar - most people wouldn't give their children cakes or biscuits every day.

[Emandwilliam]

Wow never thought my question would spark so much discussion.... I personally won't be giving ds anything with added sugar until he's older and even then it will be in moderation. I just grabbed the PF and didn't read the ingredience until I was home, I won't be doing that again.

Please don't pounce on RitaMorgan she actually has some valid points and on many threads speaks a lot of sense.

[SootySweepandSue]

I have worked with Petits Filous in a professional capacity. All I can say is:

It's the market leader in kids yogurts- I think it's worth about £40m. A hell of a lot of children are eating it rightly or wrongly.

It has grown massively over the years.

The low sugar versions hardly sell at all - there is very little demand from consumers for these as DC don't like them as much so they are not repurchased and end up being taken out of stock by the supermarkets.

It is mainly bought by middle-class mums. In Waitrose it has over 50% of the sales in kids yogurts. In Asda it is more like 20%.

I'm beginning to think it's being purchased and consumed out of a brown paper bag!

Per gram it is the same sugar level as Banaba albeit a refined sugar.

There seems to be such a big trend towards no sugar diets in toddlers but yet obesity is a huge problem. Do these diets go off the rails at some point or are the majority of mums feeding less wholesome foods and if so, why do the ones that go ultra healthy get so much air-time?

[naturalbaby]

eeek with readibrek! ds1 and ds2 had it every other day for brekkie from 6months. was going to start ds3 on it in a couple of weeks, will swap it for my plain porridge oats then. Thanks MN

[cinnamongreyhound]

I give them to ds2 occasionally buy generally stick to Greek yoghurt with fruit purée/small pieces or the plum yoghurts. Have also used the petit filous natural ones with fruit purée. My feeling is that I am trying not to give ds2 a sweet tooth too early, did same with ds1 and he would eat sweets for 3 meals and day if I let him!!! He doesn't have cakes or biscuits yet (the odd bit of mine as he seems to know when
I have something yummy!) as he's only 10months but I intend to include treats as he gets older as I tend to think totally removing treats leads to binging at every opportunity as they get older.

I never bothered with ready brek and just gave him Porridge straight away with cows milk at 6 months and he loves it, most popular meal of the day!

[RitaMorgan]

There's nothing wrong with readybrek!

[SinicalSal]

readybrek is just fine milled porridge with extra vitamins etc added. Says it on the box. It's totally fine.

[naturalbaby]

phew! i thought so, but thrown away the box and poured it into one of those fancy plastic cereal containers so couldn't check.

[nowwearefour]

apols for overstating amount of sugar in pf. i was remembering totally wrong. there is a lot but apols for getting it so wrong- i stand corrected....

[naturalbaby]

interesting post sootysweepandsue i'm wondering that too with my 3yr old and 2yr old and trying to work out when they stopped eating such healthy no added salt/sugar foods and turned into biscuit monsters! i avoid pf cause the pots are too small so ds1 asks for 2 so i the yeo valley ones.

i'm one of those sugar starved kids that turned into a sugar addict adult (sweets, chocolate, cakes, biscuits every single day but in my defence i am bfeeding), and wondering if i can stop my kids turning out the same way. i nearly bought them some chocolate buttons earlier but then stopped and thought 'they don't need them' while adding a couple of bars to the trolley for myself

[EPPP]

The difference with my dc and me eating biscuits and sweets is that i eat them in addition to my reasonably healthy diet whereas if my dc eat them they are eating less of their dinner. Sweets and cakes really fill them up and so I don't give them to them as I want hem to eat their dinner. As for PF I'd rather they ate a bigger pot of plain yog than a little one with sugar in.

[Pussinglads]

HV said no to petit filous. I didn't ask; she just told me not to use them during my 4 mth check. A HV at the same clinic told my friend to use them. [yawn]

Thanks for readybrek tip, though. Will stock up. Just wish I liked it too - breakfast would be much easier. Guess I can't start DD off on my standard breakfast of 2 coffees and a crunchie.