Ideas/assistance needed please

[Taler]

My 7.5 month old DD has been weaning since 6 months old. Breakfast, I feel, is pretty established. We give her porridge mostly with banana. Sometimes Weetabix (half of one), sometimes fruit.

She has 2 solid meals a day, the second being dinner as opposed to lunch. At dinner she mostly has homemade vegetable purees, medley of vegetables and sometimes scrambled egg.

We have just returned from a week away where I had planned to introduce a lunchtime meal which would be BLW based (it seemed the perfect opportunity to do that as we would all be together eating out).

She has done a bit of BLW but had hoped to build on that.

Unfortunately she wasn't too well while we were away so had to ditch that idea.

Now we are home I want to start introducing a lunchtime meal but a) I find it hard to fit everything in (milk feeds, naps, play time, play groups etc) and b) I get sooooo stuck on what to make her.

Would be grateful for some help/ideas please

I would recommend the River Cottage Baby & Toddler cookbook. It has loads of easy recipes with ideas for either BLW or spoonfeeding.

Lunch could just be a "picnic" on a plate eg mix and match things like grated cheese, grated carrot, little sandwiches, a sliced hard boiled egg, olives, sultanas, grated apple, sliced raw mushrooms, roasted veg, hummus, bread sticks, rice cakes, whatever cold meat/fish you like, etc.

Or you could do hot food like pasta and pesto, a mild chilli and rice, vegetable and egg rice, spaghetti bolognaise, pasta carbonara, mini "pizzas" on half a muffin, cheese on toast, beans on toast, etc.

Thank you.

Quick query though - re Pesto I thought this wasn't allowed until (I think) 1 years old as has pine nuts? Plus it also had salt. What's the official rule with salt - if I'm cooking then I obviously wouldn't add salt but occasionally I may want to use a hat of say pasta sauce???

You could make your own pesto if you're worried about salt levels. Pine nuts are fine from 6 months (just not left whole for choking issues). Just whizz basil, pine nuts, pecorino or similar hard cheese, olive oil in a blender until smooth. The sodium levels come from the hard cheese, but the quantity consumed will be titchy so no worries there.

The guidance on salt is for babies under 12 months no more than 1g of salt a day (equivalent of 0.4g of sodium).

Just check the salt levels of bought food and then work out how much would be in a portion for your DD, and then work it out for the day from there. Once you are familiar with typical salt levels in your usual foods you can do this a lot quicker and on a rough estimate basis.