To think that weaning with baby food from jars is fine?

[joannita]

It's specially developed for babies right? So how come everyone is dead against it? I don't think 50p a jar is that expensive either. Baby led weaning ain't going to work for my twins. They choke alarmingly as soon as they bite a piece off anything. Pureeing stuff is a pain. So I'm doing jars.

3 y O a terrible eater. There is nothing I can guarantee he will eat. But he doesn't eat her cooking apart from occasionally dipping bread in sauces. Thats not because i dont let him but because he turns his noseup. He likes sausages, broccoli, pasta, ( but won't eat the meat in spaghetti Bol ), tomato soup, cheese on toast, salad stuff, chicken. Before you suggest that it's my fault for making him fussy because I fed him jars when he was a baby, ( i did quite a bit of blw with him because he could handle it more and i didn't have mil breathing down my neck) ithink its got a lot more to do with attention seeking. He eats all kinds at nursery including fish soup and bulgar wheat. Right now he's away for the weekend with my husband and is eating like a horse'! It's hard for him to get his nose pushed out by two babies. And it's hard for us to give him attention. I can't force him to eat so I try to reward him with a dessert I know he will like as long as he eats main course etc. to be honest this is a whole new post! It's been doing my head in! Mil is convinced his growth is stunted by 6 cm because that's what they told her when she took him
To be measured in Spain! I don't agree. I sound like I'm
Moaning about her but she is great these are a couple of foibles but she's a wonderful person and is helping my kids and us so much!

I wouldnt give my dd jars, especially anything made with meat. And I always wondered who buys pureed bananas, seriously, it is that much more effort to buy a banana and mash it, than it is to buy a jar of banana with persevatives.
I fed dd1 homemade purees, dd2 we are doing BLW - so much easier.

Bananas go yuk if you're out and about. So a jar of something banana-y can make sense, if banana's a taste your DC likes. (Isn't that obvious?)

Lots of judging here. OP, do what works best for you and your family. I was mostly of the cook-and-puree persuasion when I started weaning DC1, but I enjoy cooking and messing about in the kitchen. I used jars from time to time with no hesitation, and DD is healthy and eats everything now.

I read comments about spoon-feeding being a PITA and all children learning to chew lumps etc, and I wince. My DC2 is 6 and severely disabled - we will be spoon-feeding her for ever. And she can't manage anything lumpy, so I will be pureeing forever too. Just as well none of you 'spoon-feeding is a pain' types have a child like mine, then.

I did mostly the mashing up of whatever we were eating, or just boiled a pan of random veg if what we had wasn't suitable. There was one jar of stuff I did use though. Can't remember the bloody name of it now, I only ever saw it in one chemist and used to bulk buy it.

It was a malted creamy jar of what looked like creme brûlée - I think Hipp or Nuk? I only ever saw it in Germany. You have it as a 'supper' meal before bedtime and it was supposed to help sleep. There was a picture of a moon and stars on the jar. It tasted like Horlicks but set yoghurt style.

It used to knock DD out within about 40 mins of her having it, for about 5 hours. I don't know if it was a 'mummy placebo' - probably. But I was gutted when we moved back to UK and I couldn't find it here. I think I would have sold my soul to the devil sometimes just to get a jar of it!

I'm feeding my baby what me and DH eat and I don't feel smug about it, i wouldn't eat those jars and if anything BLW is the lazy approach

On a serious note, that link was scary stuff. It's alarming how consumers can be treated so poorly.

I'm not so bothered about what goes in to jars.

I have reservations about the fact that the texture of processed baby food can sometimes make the transition to home cooked food difficult if babies are completely weaned on jars. Manufacturers make baby food bizarrely smooth, and when lumps are introduced they are oddly smooth and uniform. This is to reduce the risk of the manufacturers getting sued for babies choking on lumps.

Gizza, I'm laughing at the "BLW babies don't seem to eat a lot".

DD is 13 months and consistently on the 95 percentile both for weight and height. She loves eating and these days very little food gets tossed (shed be horrified at the waste )

she will use a preloaded spoon, in fact most BLW babies seem to have no problem manipulating things. Must be all the practice with scoffing food!

I did mix of home purée, pouches and blw or more commonly known as food (so flaming pretentious that term isn't it?!). Dunno what's hard really. U have to feed elder child don't u? How hards it to whizz left over up or mash it with fork?

Jars are just rank. Have u sniffed one? Cat vomit in pot.

I didn't use jars of smooth, gloppy, brownish slop because the very thought of them makes the gag.

It was all about me - my disgust isn't about how healthy, or otherwise, they might be. I'm basically just disgusted by them.

In fact I find puréed food pretty vile, so I seized on BLW to give myself an excuse to avoid it.

In reality I found it of mixed use and did use some purées with my babies in the early days.

But jars was a step too far. I don't know why.

If your MIL's cooking is so salty as to be inedible by your younger DC, it's unsurprising that your 3yo won't eat it yet eats well elsewhere!

Puréed salad? Puréed sausage? Stir fry? A lot of things would be rank when puréed.

Blw is all very well if your child can handle it. I heard all about how they are gagging not choking from health visitors but 2 babies gagging quite severely at the same time on a regular basis is scary for us and unpleasant for them. I don't like it and I'm not exaggerating about the frequency or severity. I give them a piece of bread or a risk to hold sometimes or let them try what having. But they can't cope with more for now.

Risk not risk!

You do what's right for you . Nothing wrong with Using jars. I mostly pureed mashed and used jars also esp when out . Never thought there was anything disgusting about jars.

I don't think jar food is vile - it depends which ones you choose. I tried a Cow and Gate one and it was pretty awful, but the Hipp ones were perfectly fine. I used them, and did home made and did BLW (by which I mean I gave them toast and bits and pieces) - with DD (DC2) I don't remember really weaning her as such, just gradually gave her bits and pieces of things and gradually they replaced milk. I didn't have a plan or a strategy of introducing x food at x point and so many new things per week or whatever.

Do what you want; they're your children BUT 50p per jar for twins?! How many jars are they eating a day? That is so expensive! Do you even feed them fresh fruit for pudding?

I'd assume blw would work better for twins as it would mean less work for you. Do you cook from scratch normally? Also gagging is a completely normal thing in weaning babies. You're supposed to let them do it so they learn how to swallow properly. I don't understand what you're saying, that baby jars prevent gagging? . You should be handing them a bit of apple or pear so they use their gagging reflex. I've seen children live on puréed jar foods and feeding them becomes harder as they get older to toddler age.

I also don't get the "I wouldn't eat so why would my baby?" comments. They wouldn't drink wine, or do a crossword, or want to watch Question Time but that doesn't mean we can't. Many tastes are commonly developed later in life, coffee, blue cheese etc and we lose the taste of stuff like jam or peanut butter or haribo (am generalising here obviously),

I am not against jars at all. I know that many of us were weaned on them so they can't be too bad.

I would ignore the judgy posts from parents of babies who are easy to feed. Not all babies are the same. I struggled to get DD to eat anything at all some days and, as she was so little and skinny, I was desperate to get some nutrition into her so sometimes I took the "easy" route.

At 12 she now likes a wide range of foods and isn't little and skinny any more.

Just feeding dd Heinz oat and breakfast cereal. It's really nice. I would eat it. Powdered not jar.

I also don't get the "I wouldn't eat so why would my baby?" comments.

Would you eat ready made meals everyday? Would you eat them puréed? I wouldn't. Neither should your baby.

The comment about "it's cooking the food that takes the time" sounds odd - you do realise that you will have to cook food for the family at some point, right?

My son's first food was a finger of buttered toast when he was 7 months old. Screamed at the sight of a spoon with gloop on it. It wasn't my preference it was his.

The only critique I'd have is any preservatives (that I genuinely don't eat myself, that's not me being pfb) and the cost. 50p a jar may not seem a lot in isolation, but when I saw how many vegetables I could buy for an entire day's worth of jarred food, it just made no sense.

Cooking food and pureeing it each time is a pain, yes. But it really doesn't take long per meal to cook a huge batch of food, puree & freeze. You could have a fortnight's worth of meals in the freezer and it's the work of seconds to defrost and heat up in a microwave...