Is Packet Food bad?

[Sadeyedladyofthelowlands]

That's it really! My dd likes most packet food and often refuses my homemade stuff, been giving her packet stuff recently as I find it soul destroying throwing my own food in the bin untouched!!!
Is packet food not good for her?

get organic jars

the less ingredients the better

It's no bad as such, just less good. Same as for adult food - as Twig says, jars are better than packets and fresh is better than jars.

How old is your dd? Any chance of finding things the family eats, that you can share with her? That way, you haven't gone to all the faff of making something specially for her, that she then ignores.

I do suspect packets are less good than jars, which are less good than fresh. Personally, I tend not to eat things from packets.

I think one of the potential disadvantages of packet food is that your baby then gets used to food being very processed and won't be so keen on fresher (and almost invariably more nutritous) food.

Why don't you mix packet food with homemade food and then reduce the packet contribution IYSWIM. Then (hopefully) they will be having homemade food without making a fuss.

Tbh - it often takes a few attempts for them to try something new - so persevere e.g. my dd (nearly 16 months) wouldn't eat cheese and just kept lobbing it - but now will eat - this happens everytime I introduce something new.

I use packet cereals but that is about it. I know it is disheartening to lovingly prepare homemade foods and then they don't eat it - but they won't starve so don't worry - just keep on trying.

If your lo won't eat homemade food I would veer towards organic jars as at least they don't have so much 'rubbish' in them.

She's 8 months. I weaned her on homemade and was really anti packets and jars (still am really) but she would only eat sweet potato and butternut squash without a massive fuss so I made a few annabel carmel recipies which included lots of these ingredients and she's refusing them all. It's just a shame, don't want to deprive her of natural food but don't want to not feed her either!

At 8 months, she's still getting most of her nutrition from milk, anyway. Food is a nice add-on, not a necessity.

How does she feel about finger food, or bits of your food?

As hotmama says, it often takes a few tries before they'll take to something new. It's better to just let them try a range of things, if you can, without stress, rather than worrying about what goes in, and all the wasted effort.

At 8 months, if you don't have allergy concerns, you should be able to give her some family food, mashed up or not. This would be more messy, but less stressful, I think.

Oh, and as beansprout points out, packet food gets her used to processed industrial food, rather than homemade. And as they get older, it gets harder and harder to get them off processed stuff onto homemade. Better to do it now.

Oh, and cute name. You're a Leonard Cohen fan?

Trouble with giving her family food is I do a lot of chinese / indian style cooking, don't generally eat much food that would be bland enough to puree or mash up for dd which is why I was cooking in bulk and freezing.
I will phase out the packet food tho with my home cooked stuff, don't want to get into jars, too expensive if I have to chuck them in the bin too!!!

It's acctually a Bob Dylan song, last track on Blonde on Blonde... highly recommended...

If we are having something quite "flavoured" we sometimes set some aside before too many herbs and spices go in.

What do you give your child for lunch? I always have ham sandwiches or a salad. I sometimes give dd a banana but can't do that every day!! She likes pots of Organix but won't eat any other fruit.

It's O.K. to give 'flavoured' food - just be careful on the salt. Garlic and herbs etc are fine by the way.

hotmama is right about the flavourings. Moderately spicy food is fine at this age, too. (coriander/cumin etc)

I tend to give my kids toast, sandwiches, eggs, whatever. DS2 only really got into solids at 7 months, but was pretty much immediately on family food.

I gave dd eggs last wkend. She HATED it! Wish I'd videoed her, her face was priceless. I guess it will come with time but at the mo if I give toast she only eats a tiny ammount and the rest goes on the floor. I'm a bit clueless about lunch really.

My dd still doesn't eat scrambled eggs - but I am persevering - though she ate a boiled egg that I chopped up - they are funny little bug*ers aren't they?

I give my dd her main meal at lunchtime - something like pasta and sauce + a yogurt. Though I occasionally give a Hipp Organic toddler meal if I have forgotten to defrost something. She goes to nursery 3 days a week and has her main meal there so I carry this on at home.

For tea, I give a slice of toast with dairylea/peanut butter/marmite or a chunk of cheese, some raisins, some banana, bit of satsuma etc and some water.

I know my dd is older - but she can sometimes be a bit fussy - just try to remain calm and remember they will eat if they are hungry.