Some advise on weaning while travelling with a 6 months old

[isitcrazyzzz]

DS just started weaning 3 weeks ago. He likes home made veggie/fruit meals. We are currently only doing lunch.

We will be travelling abroad for 3 weeks for the Christmas break. I can't decide what's the best way to handle these 3 weeks when we'd be out and about most of the time and the hygiene isn't brilliant at the destination country.

So I hesitate between:

1. Try to take all my blender/steam cooker with me to make purees locally to keep things going.

1. Or I bring lots of readily made commercial pouches to feed him.

1. I hold back feeding him dinner and only add fruit/porridge for breakfast as the next stage before we come back.

1. I hold back cooking meat as it's trickier to handle the hygiene dealing with poultry and etc.

I'm not doing baby-led-feeding. And I also have concern on feeding him with too much commercially made food - fearing he got used to that type of taste/texture/consistency and would be refusing homemade food once we come back.

Advise please! Thank you!

That's tricky. If I could take my equipment then yes I would do that. I'd also try to avoid the prepared stuff you mention, for similar reasons which you state. You can avoid meat just as you said, lentils are a great alternative for this early stage. Do you use baby rice, or baby porridge? Those sachet/boxes would be handy to have.

Mmm that is tricky.

If you can take your equipment and make some purées there that would be ideal. Maybe mix that in with some ready made too.

Adding breakfast should presumably be ok while away, especially if you can take porridge etc with you.

3 weeks of pouches and porridge with some finger foods as well will by far be the easiest

Travelling with a blender/steam cooker would be crazy imo. Bring a couple of pouches of commercial baby food. Choose the lumpier ones if you are worried about him getting hooked on the smooth texture ones. And you won't even need that many - it's one meal and they barely eat anything at that stage.

Hi OP,

We're just moving this thread over to our weaning topic for you.

I know you say your not doing “baby led” but that doesn’t mean you can’t do a bit of finger foods.
Bread for example, and peeled naturally soft fruit, mash, pasteurised sealed dairy like yoghurt if available, definitely porridge (we used adult instant sachets, they’re smoother than whole oats but not as artificial as baby porridge).

We are about the same stage as you with weaning. Can I ask what it is that worries you about sanitation where you are headed? Also if you are doing purees and not baby led then I would think the sanitation issue isn't really something you need to consider anyway. If you want to continue to offer purees then I think you would need to go commercial or take your kit or borrow someone's when you're there? My boy eats the same porridge as I do every morning with mashed fruit. Porridge is done in a microwave. Will you have access to a microwave while you're away?

By talking through my own question, in the end, I decided to go for bringing commercial pouch food with my mini grinder and silicon microwave cooker just as a backup plan if the situation allows.

What concerns me the most is that the tap water is not clean there. That would bring more complication which I'm not familiar to deal with. Hence, by default, we'd skip the cooking unless I'm confident with keeping things clean.

Only add breakfast too and holding back adding meat. This would allow progress on weaning without the part that involves the biggest concern on hygienic control.

the pouches turn out to be quite pricy to stock though...

You are taking a microwave?!

A fork is a very effective blender if something is cooked soft.

Take pouches (if you read the ingredients most of the stage 1 pouches are 100% of the fruit or vegetable and nothing else added). I just put them in a bag in my suitcase. Take a box or two of porridge as well. You should be able to buy little pots of fromage frais in a supermarket where you're going too.

You can just cook everything in the microwave if you have access. Use bottled water to prepare food and rinse kitchen utensils etc in water with iodide or whatever tablets in if you are really worried. I agree with the fork comment. You could introduce eggs if you've not done so already and if that is an option. But intro now in case of allergies.