Are DH and I too relaxed?

[BlingLoving]

DS is 9 months. He's been a good eater from the moment we started him on solids at 22 weeks. We started very slowly as a) we were doing it ahead of the recommended 6 months and b) DH has various allergies and asthma so DS is considered at risk of developing allergies himself. However, so far we've had no reactions to anything, although we haven't given him nuts yet.

However, I worry that DH and I are a bit too relaxed. DS eats well and mostly quite varied and is fed a combination of mashed/pureed and finger foods. He also eats a combination of home cooked and prepared (pouch) foods and his finger foods vary from sticks of fruit and veg and toast to baby chips and biscuits. But DH and I both think he should try a variety of things and that we shouldn't be teaching him that what we eat is different to him so he gets the odd small piece of digestive biscuit if we're eating one or a spoon of icecream or dessert. Last week he had a tiny piece of dark chocolate.

Instinctively, I think this is better - he's learning about a variety of foods and isn't seeing anything as forbidden. But he's still little - should he only be having super organic/made-specially-for-babies treats?

He is very small and he isn't yet too worried that his own food doesn't include everything that you eat.
It sounds like, in general, your weaning habits are great, but I personally wouldn't be giving him sweets and biscuits too often yet.
His tastes are just developing and it is best to let him develop a liking for fruits, vegetables etc first.
There will be plenty of time for him to develop a love of sweets and chocolate later.
My DCs are 3 and 5 and I try to minimise the chocolate etc that I give them even now.

I think what you are doing sounds fine, I think "baby" snacks are overpriced. If you are concerned about the sugar and salt in adult snacks but want him to have the same as you why don't you bake some cookies and cakes that you can all eat together?

There's no reaso to give him Organic or made specially for baby stuff. Just feed him what you eat, unless you have a bad diet. However don't fill him up excessively on what is thought of as healthy for you as an adult, as it's probably not as healthy for him.

He needs more fat than you, he needs less fibre than you, sugar isn't actually that evil and salt, if you eat the same food as the baby, you breach your recommended daily limits of salt before they do (mind you, you probably do.)

You don't really sound relaxed enough to me - the more relaxed you are about food, and the less you demonise or glamourise food, or show food as rewards, or "naughty" the less likely I think the baby will learn to treat it as anything but fuel that can be enjoyed. Chocolate or digestives are not bad foods, they're only bad if you eat excessive amounts of them.

Thanks all!

He loves fruit and vegetables - particularly green ones. He'll stuff broccoli, courgettes etc into his mouth as fast as possible and his apple/pear pouches which we give him for dessert sometimes are green and his whole little face lights up when he sees them coming. And let's not even talk about his love of avocado...! So I'm not really worried about his tastes being negatively impacted from a small piece of chocolate once a week. It's more just am I doing him harm, which sounds like the consensus is that I'm not.

Sadly, so far the only thing he doesn't seem to like is the home made muffins etc I've made him. He loves my regular cooking, but turns his nose up at my baking efforts! I'm going to try banana muffins this weekend.

My lo loves bananas and custard , rice pudding and even a bit of sponge with custard. He very occasionally gets a couple of buttons, but it's not weekly. But probably as we don't really buy chocolate often so it's not in for us to eat.

If my mum wants to give him a bit if chic that's fine by me. He's nearly 8 months

My DS is almost 1 now and from about 7-8m, he's been eating our dinner, except I do not add salt to the food. He'll eat couscous, olives, falafel, Indian dal, Chinese stir fry, pasta etc. definitely a good idea to introduce a range of foods- its less work for you to prepare separate meals! Nothing wrong with dark chocolate either. It's really good for you. I'll let my DS have dark chocolate whenever he fancies. It's the mainstream milk chocolates e.g cadburys that is full of bad fats and sugar and is really bad for you. Good quality dark chocolate should have cocoa butter as the main fat which is good stuff!

Your approach is similar to ours: DS eats what we eat and now at 2 surprises some people by being very fond of olive bread, bread dipped in oil and very dark chocolate. Like me, he does not eat milk chocolate, white chocolate and sausages, but we do not see it as a great loss!

Strangely, like your DC, he refuses my muffins, but happily eats the same batter if baked with apples in apple cake form. Today am trying apple muffins...