Can my baby eat what I eat?

[AgathaPinchBottom]

hi everyone, just a quick naive question for you... My Ds is 7 months and has an incredible appetite... He eats three meals a day plus finger foods and three bottles of milk. He doesn't seem to be satisfied by purree and jars alone, so I wondered if it was ok to give him a small portion of our dinner mashed up. If so, does this mean I can't use any stock cubes when making casserole, cottage pie etc? I'm a working mum so don't have time to make two versions. When can they actually eat what you eat... Eg punch of salt, garlic, other stuff? (I've been using jars as have been scared I'll give him the wrong thing...But this does seem a rather silly way to continue.) Many thanks.

Yes, he can have what you eat. Both my dds have always had the same food as us right from the beginning. You just need to be careful about the salt content. Babies under 1 are only allowed 1g salt per day but this isn't too difficult if you are cooking you own food, you can always add salt at the table to your own portion. I used boots baby stock cubes in all our foods and they were fine or you can get kallo low salt ones. Other seasonings like garlic will be fine for the baby.

Thank you green snail! many thanks!

oh and i leave the chilli out of our dishes.
we had chilli con carne last night made with no chilli! ( added it at the table!)

You can buy baby stock cubes at Boots (near the baby food) which have no salt.

Those Boots baby stock cubes sound great - I'll be buying some!

Currently, I either spoon DS' portion out before adding salt, or just add salt at the table. It's been good as it's forced us to think about how much salt we eat - and we're cutting down.

Re other things: DS has all the herbs and spices we have. I will use less chili in his portions but he's fine with little bits and if we have something like jerk chicken, can eat that. So don't think that strong dlavours are always an issue for babies! :)

My DD loved chilli and curry from when she started solids - we just toned it down a bit from our usual heat level.

DS loves humous which is very garlicky and he had bolognaise with garlic and red wine in it last night! We also now add salt at the table but apart from that DS (6months) eats everything we eat. One exception: beetroot. I just can't face the staining and mess afterwards.

Hi, you can get low-salt stock cubes in Sainsburys too, so probably other supermarkets also. We've been giving my 8 month old a lot of what we eat (cooked from scratch to be fair) and adding our own salt at the table if needed. I'm with you on not wanting to make two lots of food...

thanks guys! Quick update - DS is loving pasta with ham and cheese and cauliflower cheese and bean, tomato casseroles now. Thanks for all the advice.