Healthy, cheap, baby food recipes

[Elsiejean23]

Hi everyone, this is my first MN post, I have no idea what any of the shortened down words are yet sorry! My little girl is almost 12 weeks, I'm starting to look for recipes that I can make her and blend down to puree and was wondering if you had any tips, suggestions or advice to help me when I start weaning, which I think is going to be at 4 months as I can't seem to fill her up! Advice is greatly received as this is my first baby and we're on a steep learning curve!!
Thanks in advance! x

Ok. So, I wouldn't wean at 4 months myself - I can't see any advantages to it, and lots of disadvantages and extra risks. Breast milk (or formula) is going to be the most calorific and nutritionally balanced food that you can give her. All you could offer before 6 months is plain fruit/veg purée and baby rice. None of which is going to have more calories or nutritional content than breastmilk. If your baby is hungry, give more milk feeds.

Having said that, lots of people seem to want to wean at 4 months, so there are loads of cook books and websites that will have "recipes" for purée. I believe that Annabel Karmel is very popular for this.

Have a read of the Mumsnet weaning info for extra info, plus reasons for waiting till nearer 6 months.

Congratulations on your Lo and welcome to MN . You can find a list of MN abbreviations here

Agree with everything brighton says. I've weaned 2. One in the bad old days when we weaned early on purees and one at 23 weeks when she picked up a sandwich and ate it.

Having done both, I'd really, really recommend you wait. Feeding purees, whether you buy or make them is just a huge faff. It's extremely time consuming, much more than just giving an extra bf or bottle, so you will be making things harder for yourself, not easier.

When babies start on solids they often get gas and constipation too which can lead to extra night wakings.

The Mn weaning info that brighton linked to is very good. Have you read the NHS Starting Solids info? That's very good too. According to the nhs guidelines you should feed either BM or formula for the first 6 months then should build upto 3 meals a day between 8 and 9 months

Have a read too of will giving my baby solids or formula help sleep?

As for your original question, MN has some good weaning recipes here and the babyled weaning website is good too, my 2 particularly enjoyed cheese straws but that was from 6 months