BLW - salt and apples!

[newtothenet]

Hi all, I'm on day three of weaning and have a couple of questions!

1. I know you're only supposed to give your baby foods with zero or trace salt. This is obviously fine for fruits and veggies, but everything else listed as suitable for BLW seems to contain salt - Shreddies, bread, pitta bread, yogurt, cheese etc. So are these foods ok? And how much salt is too much salt?

1. I understand that apple is dangerous due to the possibility of a bit snapping off and choking the baby. Is this also true for other hard fruits and vegetables e.g. peppers, raw carrot, celery, babycorn etc?

Any advice for a newbie greatly received!

It's ok to give food that contains salt, just make sure that on average they have no more than 1g of salt a day.

Things like apple, raw carrot, etc can be too hard for babies, so I would either steam till soft or grate. When they have got the hang of biting, chewing and swallowing (and have a few teeth!) I would be more confident of giving raw hard foods like this.

How old is your baby - as long as they're over 6 months they can have 1g of salt per day. Don't stress about it too much - just be mindful. I have seen such craziness on here as using unsalted butter in mash for babies. This level of care is not necessary as obviously they are not eating huge quantities of things.

I use unsalted butter in everything, nothing to do with the kids, it just tastes better.

Anyway, 1g salt/day is fine for under ones. As long as you are watching out for salt you'll be fine, if you were not caring and giving a lot of adult ready meals that would be a problem but if you are cooking your own and don't add salt to your food when cooking you'll be fine.

Yes to the hard fruit and veg. Cook it so that it's soft enough to not cause a problem. Apple slices fried in butter with some cinnamon on top is very popular, carrot sticks cooked in a casserole get nicely soft and tasty, roasted red peppers are lovely, etc, etc. Sweetcorn will be too small for them to pick up until they have their pincer grip (about 9 months IIRC) so not really an issue.

Thanks everyone, that's really helpful. DD is six months and I'm having great fun with the BLW, it's just all a bit new and confusing! All our meals are home made (by DH) and very healthy, with no salt or sugar added, and fruit and veg we're ok with. It's just the sort of foods that I would normally eat for lunch that are causing the confusion!