Help with weaning 8month old - finger food meal ideas please

[nello]

Needing a little bit of help.

All was going really well with weaning DS (nearly 8 months). We started at 5 months with little baby rice and by 6 months basic veg and fruit purees and he has moved on with new food introductions very happily. I pureed a whole lot of lovely casserole type meals for him...just in time for him to decide that he doesn't want puree or a spoon in his mouth :)

At the same time we have rubbish sleep and he is feeding lots more in the night (3-4 times). I really want him happy with his food again but I am at a bit of a loss of what to give him for each meal, that he can actually get into his mouth. He loves pitta with cream cheese, but obviously he can't have this for every meal! He just refused my lovely banana pancakes, but will try again tomorrow. Last night I gave him big pasta with bolognaise and he did well with that.

I am so sleep deprived that I can't bare to start looking up how to make lots of difficult food right now - can you share easy healthy meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner please? I am thinking of trying scrambled egg for lunch.

Thanks for your ideas :)

Also everything i think of is pretty carbohydrate heavy and worried I am not going to get enough food groups into him.

And also (!) how much should he be eating? It was so easy to see with purees that he was eating well. Now it seems that most of the food ends up on the floor :(

Also…can anyone recommend a website with good baby finger food recipes?

Thanks again :)

My lb at ten months eats what we do!

Breakfast porridge / weetabix
Lunch scramble egg, French toast. Cucumber/carrot/hummus/xcheese/pitta/ sandwiches/soup

Dinner whatever we eat. Last night was sweet sour chicken with wholemeal rice
Night before was salmon and veg
Night beforehand beef casserole cooked in slow cooker.

Idea is to offer them what you eat

Blw is messy.

But remember food before one is meant to be fun

Eggy bread, sticks of pear, melon, banana, pineapple, avocado, mango, cucumber. Sticks of cheese. Try putting pre-loaded spoons of yogurt or the savoury food you're making if it's too funny to eat with hands on the tray.There is a BLW forum with good ideas and the BLW book will give you ideas and confidence. Weaning should be pleasurable for you both!

Strips of chicken, peppers, sweet potato or carrot. Toast or rice cakes with cheese or butter. Yoghurt mango strawberries. Bolognaise. Those casseroles or stews you mentioned just not puréed. Just bung it on the tray! As someone else said food should be fun!

Mine is also on whatever we have, so its cereal in the morning (own brand cheerios) or toast with butter, a little peanut butter, or similar. I might also offer raisins to keep her happy in the high chair while i make breakfast for the clan. At weekends she will have a go at a croissant or some scrambled eggs.

Lunches are soup with toast fingers, slices of apple, pear, satsuma, whatever fruit we have in finger food sizes. Sometimes we have a sandwich (cut into fingers for her) or malt loaf slices. I like a jacket potato with beans and cheese, she is happy to have some of that too.

Dinner is dinner with the rest of us, so tonight it will be pasta bake, tomorrow paella, then a mild curry later in the week. Cut veg into hand held sizes and meat in strips or bite sized bits and they are grand.

Today we had half a waffle half a sausage some egg and beans

Tea is pork casserole with steamed broccoli and carrot/swede mash!

My DD likes egg fried rice - I just cook rice and some veg, maybe a bit of chicken, then put it all in a pan and stir a beaten egg through until it is cooked, it makes the rice and veg stick together in clumps (doesn't sound very appetising when I put it like that!).

It is still quite messy though....

Avocado sandwiches cut into fingers
Bread sticks
Salmon (cooked in the oven and flaked to check for bones)
Sweet potato wedges
Roasted parsnips
French toast fingers
There are lots of good ideas in the baby led weaning cookbook

So, if letting my 8MO eat our food, should I leave out salt/stock cubes/sugar from all our food? Do you let your LO eat salty food like bacon and tinned tuna and cheese, soy sauce etc, and rich foods like carbonara? And what about things like baked beans that have a lot of sugar in them? I don't eat a lot of baked beans (!) I am just interested :)

A couple of people have mentioned 'The baby led weaning cookbook' - is this on Mumsnet?

Thanks

Absolutely Nello. You should leave out salt, stock and sugar. I have avoided bacon and anything tinned in brine. Some cheese is ok and low salt low sugar beans also probably ok in moderation.
The BLW cookbook is on Amazon,I found it very helpful

We avoided adding salt to food and generally avoided stock unless the amount DS would actually have in his portion was miniscule. Beyond that, it was just a case of being mindful of what was salty and giving it in moderation. So I didn't completely avoid things like cheese or bacon but I didn't give them very often. Bread is another food that's surprisingly salty. With tinned foods, I went for tuna tinned in spring water rather than brine and low salt and sugar baked beans and again, gave in moderation.

Fat is good for babies - they need a higher proportion of it in their diets than adults. So things like cream, butter and oil are all fine.

And would you consider 1 small piece of toast and jam a decent amount of breakfast? And 5 pieces of penne pasta plus one meatball a decent sized dinner? Trying to work out how much he needs to be eating (I know, he will eat if he is hungry etc, but just trying to visualize portion size). At the moment he is more or less skipping lunch - he just doesn't seem interested (even though he would eat loads when he was taking puree), despite more or less dropping his midmorning milk feed.

Thanks for all your help - I am really appreciative :)

Boots sell baby stock cubes which I've found to be good.

It's impossible to say on the portion size as it varies so much for different babies. All you can do is offer a bit and see how it goes. If it's all eaten, offer more. But I would initially offer a small amount as too much can be overwhelming and there's more to throw about if they're in that sort of mood! We generally ate with DS so if he finished what we'd set aside for him, we just took a bit more from our plates.

Some good advice there I do the same. I was advised portions sizes are the size of their closed fist or an ice cube. So that's one fist size portion of pasta one of meatballs but I'd try some veg with it aswell, carrot sticks and broccoli maybe? That's what my HV told me and my friends (all first time mums) as a guide. But try to balance it with food types. But obviously each baby is different so I always followed his lead.

Porridge fingers are a great success for dd. Pour some oats on plate. Pour on a little milk so soaked but not sloppy, bing in microwave for 2 mins. Bung in fridge. Peel bits of porridge off. Like a plain flapjack. I just use full fat milk our semi if that's all we have.

Offer fruit and veg with every meal. Dd fave was carrot batons cut with crinckle cutter, and soft broccoli.