Does your baby eat the same dinner as you? How do you make it work time-wise?

[Fagin99]

Sorry if this is a daft question!
My health visitor keeps saying that I can just feed my eight-month-old baby smaller versions of what I eat. This is fine for breakfast and lunch, but how does it work for dinner? My baby eats tea by 4.30pm which is far too early for me, and dh doesn't finish work until 7 pm. If, say, you were eating salmon or a mild curry that night, would you cook it all up in the afternoon and then reheat your portion in the evening? Or do you tend to cook it from scratch twice? (Once for baby, then again later for you?)

Curious to know how others make it work. Thank you!

[FatAgainItsLettuceTime]

I always gave DD what I was having if we were eating together. If we weren't then I made something quick and simple for DD like scrambled egg and toast, then cooked and ate our meal at adult dinner time.

If what we were having for dinner would be suitable for DD and not too spicy or whatever then I'd put a portion aside to reheat for DD the next day when she had her early dinner.

[ttcchapter1]

Health visitors have a weird sense of reality lol i make my little one something separate for dinner or make dinner early and reheat for myself late but while my little one is eating I do have a snack so he feels im eating with him :)

[FusionChefGeoff]

Mine would often have our leftovers from the night before. Cook your curry and eat, put small portion in bowl, cover and fridge. Reheat for his tea the next day. Or take out a portion before you add final salt / chilli

[HumanDummy2022]

Agree that doesn’t work for dinner! Or even lunch sometimes. Depending on when he starts the day and has his first nap, DS will often be ready for lunch before me, around 11.30.

He will have for either lunch or dinner whatever DH and I had for dinner the night before. Our routine is that one of us does bath and bed with him, giving the other at least half an hour to cook a half decent dinner, which we make without salt and then portion off some for DS before serving up. We usually make enough to put one portion in the fridge for him for the following day and another one or two in the freezer, so we’re starting to build up a bit of a stash. Then it’s just a case of sometimes remembering to get something out of the freezer for the following day.

When he’s having lunch and dinner I tend to eat something small myself like toast and peanut butter or tea and biscuits alongside him, so we’re still eating together and to make it feel like a bit of a break for me too!

[TheBirdintheCave]

At eight months my son was still on baby jars and some soft solids like boiled carrot or potato.

Once we moved on from that stage I made him recipes from the NHS weaning site and froze them in batches which he ate at 6pm then we cooked and ate at 7.30 after bedtime was done.

It's only now at 23 months that we've started all eating exactly the same meals at the same time.

We use a lot of spices and sauces in our cooking (lots of curries, rice dishes and noodles) so found it too hard to make those salt free for him at a younger age.

Eating together in the evening is hard work as all the cooking now falls to me. I work from home, collect my son from his childminder at 4.30 and then have to cook with him often hanging onto my leg and have tea ready for when my husband comes home at 6.

We compromise a bit in that we've given ourselves the weekend 'off'. On those days our son has one of his pre prepared frozen meals at 6 and we eat after he goes to bed.

[SkankingWombat]

@FusionChefGeoff

Mine would often have our leftovers from the night before. Cook your curry and eat, put small portion in bowl, cover and fridge. Reheat for his tea the next day. Or take out a portion before you add final salt / chilli

This! They get last night's dinner reheated until they eat late enough so you can all sit down together.
Mine would get the same breakfast and dinner as us, just without the salt and with very toned-down chilli. Lunch was always the tricky one for us as I tended to have sandwiches or tinned soup etc (so the salt was too high). I used to do a lot of little bits as a picnic platter sort of thing.
The other option is to have your main meal at lunchtime so you can eat together, then both have a lighter tea in the evening.

[Fagin99]

Thanks so much everyone for your replies. Really good ideas to make things easier! Thanks to the advice here I actually sat down and had a cuppa tea and a snack whilst I fed the baby today, and I have to say it was very nice, so thank you!

Great idea also to leave leftovers for the next day, and to build up a stash.

[OnABreeze]

Mine has a variation of what we have for dinner. I'll put a bit of the meat and a bit of the veg in a blender whilst I'm cooking and then any other sauces and herbs from the meal, minus any salt or sugar and then blend. It's actually a lot easier than it sounds just moving the ingredients across during the cooking. Sometimes I'll add extra bits to it too like cheese, cream or milk.

[BryceQuinlanTheFirst]

I used to make him something seperate as we had similar timings to you. I ate lunch with him. I gave him our dinner from night before

[trilbydoll]

I used to eat with dc and keep a portion for dh to eat later. Frankly by 5pm I'm ready to eat my own arm, if there is food around I can't resist it so eating with dc means I didn't end up eating two dinners!

Also I hate cooking, I am not about to do it twice of an evening unnecessarily.