vegetarian baby

[ch1134]

My husband and I are vegetarian and intended to bring up our son as such. He is 6.5 months, happy, healthy and very active. He's always been sicky though, and is only just now able to eat solids without gagging and losing all his milk. The problem is that he is losing weight and the hv advised he eat chicken! I think he's only losing it as he was crawling before weaning, and suspect that now he is able to eat he will gain some. However, any ideas of non meat protein rich foods would be good, or general advice on babies and vegetarianvegetarianism. Thanks

we are veggie too. what about daal and rice? my dd2 loved that! protein and starch combined plus we all like it too.

and yoghurt obviously, scrambled eggs, etc.

hope that helps. typing with dc3 in one arm which is why no caps.

Egg based food was always good here: quiche, omelette, frittata, scrambled eggs etc.

I found a great lentil slice recipe on one of the baby led weaning websites too that's high in protein.

I think the method was: lightly fry an onion and a little cumin, grate carrot or root veg into a pan with some stock and the onion, add lentils and cook til soft and liquid reduced, add herbs, grated cheese and stir. Then turn it out into a baking sheet or run and press down to 2cm depth. Oven bake for 20 mins to crisp.

It was a good snack and meal.

Avocado. Not protein rich but full of lovely fat. Cheese. Eggs.
We're not vegetarian though do eat a lot of veggie food. DD2 really struggled to gain weight. Avocado was a favourite of hers (and mine) and scrambled egg made with butter. Anything sprinkled in cheese or in a cheese sauce is good.

I would second the lentil dhal and rice combo. You could add in some fried paneer as well if you like. Always a favourite with my DS.

I tend to chuck red lentils in with lots of things to bulk up the protein. You could do a bean and lentil chilli, spag Bol with green lentils instead of mince. You can add lentils to a vegetable soup and serve with grated cheese.

I give full fat Greek yoghurt for pudding, or for breakfast. It's got higher protein than other yoghurts and is also very tasty!

We're not vegetarian, but my baby (9m) rarely eats meat, perhaps once a week. Chicken is one of the last things I'd give him because it's so hard to eat for a baby (I'm not blending it). He eats lots of dhal, rice, pasta in cheese sauce, mashed potato and cheese sauce (you see where this is heading...), eggy bread and porridge pancakes. Do you eat fish?

Thanks everyone. Sorry I should have mentioned that. Yes, we do eat fish (but ideally sustainably sourced). Great ideas and no-one said 'but he must eat meat' or made me feel stupid. I knew that lentils, egg and cheese would be good but now have more ideas about how to serve them. Looking forward to it!

My baby loves chickpeas and they're very easy to mash. He especially likes curry with chickpeas, potato and coconut milk .

Given you said you eat fish, you can make a really tasty sandwich/potato filling with oily fish and soft cheese. Mash the 2 together and add a bit of pepper and lemon juice to season. My DD loves it. Scrambled eggs are also good.

Would far not be the thing to boost weight most? Butter, coconut oil , olive oil etc

All great ideas thanks. So far so good. Also, for anyone in a similar position, we're doing peanut butter (very messy) and leafy greens.

You can get a variety of different nut butters which can make a change from peanut butter. I like cashew nut butter particularly.

Seeing as you're pescetarian, would oily fish not be a good source of protein and fats? So you could do sardines, pilchards, salmon etc in sandwiches or whatever.

We are similar no meat. Paneer is great and dhals, there are some wonderful indian inspired weaning blogs online I would check these out, we also did porridge out soaked in yoghurt over night it cooks as such my son loved this we used to different fruit varieties dried apricot, banana etc. toast with peas pudding or falafels and there's a hugh fearnly recipe for courgette polpettes I think that's right my son also loved those and as a treat he had white bite or homemade fish pie with eggs in the sauce.
I'm sure your lo will be fine.

Porridge oats not out (spell check fail)

Protein isn't the main concern at this point - breastmilk or formula is relatively low in protein but is still at perfectly adequate levels for a 6.5 month old. If he's actually losing weight (or just dropping centiles, not sure which from op) then fat is the best way to increase weight gain, as a pp said. That, and making sure that weaning foods are at least as high in calories as bm/formula (if you're a calorie counter, aim for more than 75 cal per 100g... but there's no need to count calories if you don't want to).

Lots of good suggestions already. Other ideas might be to add a dollop of double cream to porridge, unsalted butter or olive oil in potatoes, aubergines cooked with lots of olive oil (it soaks it up like a sponge), avocado mixed into almost anything (it's quite good with tuna in sandwiches), and try mascarpone instead of Greek yoghurt (twice the calories).

Thanks. He is dropping weight but he's so active it's hardly surprising. He only lost an ounce or so in a fortnight but I haven't met any other babies yet who crawled before weaning (I'm sure there are some out there!)