Weaning help - nearly 8 months

[JB2021]

My LO is 8 months at the end of November.

Weaning wise she's happy being spoon fed and picking food up with her hands herself.

We tend to give porridge for breakfast then evening meal varies but often veg sticks then yogurt or fruit.

Wanting to save pouches for when out and about but wanting to give a variety of food and get her to eat most things rather than just same old things all the time.

Ideally don't want to be cooking separate meals all the time.

Looking for easy ideas to give her. Hear of babies eating all sorts but finding it a bit of a mine field. Know we have to.avoid honey buy I'd there anything else we should avoid.

Looking at food we eat, unsure on salt content.

Still need to do some allergens. Can she have while milk with weatabix for example?

Feeling a bit lost!

Sounds like you're doing great. It's only really honey you need to avoid until 12 months and be careful with salt. Do you eat a lot of homemade meals for dinner? If so just give her whatever you're having. Yes whole cows milk is absolutely fine to mix with other food as part of a meal, you're just not supposed to offer it as a drink as a breast milk/formula replacement.

Foods to try if you haven't already: Toast fingers, avocado, soft chicken or salmon, pieces of jacket potato, scrambled eggs, hummus, savoury muffins, pasta twirls.

@WhiteHorse92 thank you!

We do cook lots of homemade but tend to eat later. Guess I could portion say Monday night's up for LO on Tuesday. I just wasn't sure things would be suitable- bacon ans pea risotto, chicken curry, chicken fajitas, meat bolognese, veggie bolognese. Would these all be OK?

Absolutely. Just don't add salt and be careful with the salt in stock cubes etc. Another idea is to make those sorts of dinners in a slow cooker, portion some out for baby and leave the rest in there until you want to eat.

Amazing! Thank you. We use the slow cooker a lot.

We never add extra salt but just looking at stock cubes and might have to buy pricey no salt ones. Have you found any? Can't imagine without stock

I used the Oxo reduced salt ones. A small portion of whatever made with 1 stock cube isn't going to be massively salty overall tbf.

Starting to think of weaning for our LO too. The health visitors recommended
https://www.firststepsnutrition.org/eating-well-resources-2

My baby is a similar age and we are doing a mixture of spoon fed and baby led weaning, I would recommend downloading the Solid Starts app as you just search for specific foods on there and it tells you how to prepare and serve depending on their age, its really helpful. It is free to search the foods but also a paid option to track what they eat, I just use free. Also Piccolo do reduced salt stock cubes for cooking, you get them from the same section as the baby food in supermarkets

@Proudmomma0 can you see recipes on the free version?

I started using the kallo low salt stock cubes and still do even though DS is a toddler. We just add salt at table if needed. All the foods you’ve mentioned sound great. We tend to eat earlier than pre-kids now as eating together works well for our family. But if we wanted to eat later for whatever reason I used to give portion to DS then have our portion later - felt
easier that way rather than working a day behind.

@JB2021

No unfortunately not, I just use it for guidance on how to prepare and serve and then just either cook my normal meals or I follow a few baby led weaning pages on Instagram where I get recipes from too. Just checked and a subscription is £1.69 a month or £8.49 a year but you can get a 7 day free trial as well

Thanks all. I think we jumped from purees to lumpy puree too quickly so then had a step backwards and it knocked my confidence. Just don't want to give the wrong thing.

Am I right in thinking ready brek and wheatabix OK with full fat milk

Did banana pancakes today - little unsure but LO was tired.

Going to do some stuff i can easily take out but don't want to be cooking separately all the time.

Any easy fool proof muffins or similar I can make to take our?

And I mean fool proof, I don't bake!

@JB2021

I use plain porridge sachets and weetabix made with whole milk so think those are fine to do.

If you have Instagram follow a page called foodiefunwithus, hopefully I've copied the link to their profile below. Lots of easy recipes which are baby led weaning friendly.

https://instagram.com/foodiefunwithus?igshid=MTI4cXVtcW1xZHU5OA==

In terms of allergens as just noticed you mentioned those initially yes try cow's milk with porridge or weetabix, that's what I did. We tried a new allergen around every 3 days and on it's own if you can.