Feeding my baby solids is completely overwhelming me me. Any tips to make life easier for myself?

[AmberPoet]

Hi all,
I'm on week 4 of feeding my baby solids (7 months old). It's going well, babes seems to happily try everything I give to her. I'm now giving her 2 meals a day (breaky and lunch). But it's just overwhelming; its the coming up with ideas, the shopping, the preparation, the trying to get babes in a good mood (well slept and not too hungry but hungry enough), the fear of her choking, trying to eat when she is eating, then the cleaning up... my word, the cleaning up is a joke seen as though she likes to throw everything on the floor. We're not yet ready for a tea time meal because bubs has fallen out of a routine due to 6 month sleep regression. But any tips on how to make life easier for myself? I want to make her meals as varied but as straight forward as possible.
And I have no idea how it's going to be when I return to work full time.

Just make family meals with no salt stock cubes and feed baby what you have.
e.g they have some of what you had for dinner last night as todays lunch, you all have the same dinner, they have left overs for lunch tomorrow.
Or batch cook little meals and portion them in the freezer, that way there is always a meal to hand and you don’t have to cook them a special meal from scratch each day.

Here, some ideas

https://www.togethertoeat.com/family-cooking/baby-friendly-family-meals/

Yeah I would just give her what you are having minus sugar/salt.
I feel like that's what I did with my first. I'm just about to wean my second so maybe I'll be back in a couple of weeks stressing about this too!
I also seem to remember that I used to prep small amounts of cooked broccoli/carrot etc in the fridge. That and bit of potato and cheese. Lovely meal, they can pretty much eat the same few things on rotation at that stage (if you find it difficult to adapt your food to them) Milk is far more important nutrionally.
I'm a fairly old mother so I say this with the wisdom of age. Stay off social media. No one in the real world is making these mad BLW food. Most of us are shoving a cracker and some avocado on a plate and feeling chuffed that it's a vegetable. Baby Led Weaning is great and I'm all for it, but IG and FB etc are toxic with these ridiculous over achieving reels of unrealistic baby things. No one is doing any of that.

It’s easy to think too hard about it and make it an ordeal but it really doesn’t need to be.

DD used to love stuff that honestly I would never eat, but she thought it was great. Stuff like a tub of cold cooked broccoli. I’d make more than we needed for dinner, stick some in a Tupperware and it would be good in the fridge for a few days, could be taken out as a snack or added to a plate with a bit of bread and butter and some chunks of cheese. Cold corn on the cob and cauliflower were also big hits.

I’d make a batch of egg muffins, just mix up some eggs with a bit of cheese, some chopped up veg and pour it into cupcake cases in a muffin tin. Bake until set and then they could be eaten straight away, put in the fridge or frozen. Defrosted really quickly and could be eaten cold or warmed up in the microwave.

Toast soldiers with butter or cheese spread.

Hot or cold pasta bows or twists, something they can grab in their little chubby hands and shovel in.

They have no expectations so you can put a mix of anything and everything on a plate/in a bowl for them and just let them try it all and see what they like.

Most times DD would just have little bits of anything on my plate, with the exception of particularly salty or spicy foods.

I think you need to chill out a little bit! It shouldn't be this hard (apart from the cleaning up, that's always a nightmare!).

Give her baby versions of whatever you're having (not spicy, not salty, soft so she can chew).

For stuff that is just for her make a list of what protein she can eat, veg, fruit, dairy, carb etc. and choose one from each column for each meal. That's really all there is to it. It doesn't need to be an elaborate meal.

If you want to make stuff like mini muffins etc, batch cook and freeze.

I did spoon feeding - didn’t want the mess of blw.

Just offer what you eat minus the salt sugar and choking risks.

Throw a mat underneath the high chair.

If warm enough feed baby in just a nappy. If not just change the baby grow.

I used to make salt and gravy free versions of our dinner's then freeze in ice cube size portions. Or make a load of dinners (fish pie, vegetable quiche) and freeze in portions. Would your little one be okay with baby led weaning??

You want to aim for 3 meals a day after 9 months and add snacks after 12 months.

Not every meal needs be balanced as long as they’re having balance diet over the week. You don’t need to give ‘breakfast food’ at breakfast time.

What do you like to eat?

Scrambled eggs and toast is easy.
Cream cheese on toast with cucumber sticks
Have left overs for lunch or cook double and have the rest another day.

I think you’re over complicating it. As others say, just do a version of what you’d be eating anyway. Simple whole foods are best, in a variety of textures/styles. It is a bit of a faff but not the amount of work you’re describing. And once you’re back at work presumably they’ll be in childcare so that will cover several meals?

I found anything that involved bread or toast was a winner - bread and butter, toast and butter, bread and hummus (can’t remember if this was more towards 9 months though), toast with cream cheese, eggy bread, scrambled eggs with toast etc. Very quick to prepare and not too messy. Also yogurts!

As PP have said I also batch-cooked meals and froze in small portions for them. When my eldest was weaning 15 years ago BLW still wasn’t really a thing so I spent hours every day puréeing fruit and veg and it was just exhausting!

Also, when you go back to work, DC will presumably be in nursery/at à childminder’s so you won’t have to cook for them every day as quite often they eat enough there in the late afternoon for you to just give a snack - this used to consist of a lot of toast if I remember rightly!

Get a bibado if they are still going. We had 3 on rotation,slung them in the wash after every meal. That reduces mess. Batch cook pureed veg in ice cubes. So then you can pop one or two out each meal. Microwave in a bowl and serve with some finger foods. Toast soldiers are your friend amd scrambled egg soldiers

Oh and with regard mess on the floor, generally DD ate in the dining room or kitchen which has laminate / tiles so just a quick sweep, scoop and wipe down. If for some reason she needed to eat where there was carpet I just stuck a towel under her chair, so it could be gathered up and tipped into a bin then shoved in the washing machine.

Big wipe down mat under the high chair and a bib with a scoop style tray. Then food which is launched can mostly just be put back on the tray. Dustpan and brush then antibac the mat at the end.

But yes this bit is TEDIOUS beyond measure

Batch cooking: I did huge trays of roasted veg sticks (parsnip, carrots, butternut squash, sweet potato) which I froze very easy to the pull out a few.

Not much advice but total solidarity. I find the weaning phase stressful and tedious and never enjoyed it with mine. I found the whole day was taken up with making, feeding, cleaning and then still fitting in bottles and naps... felt tied to the house! Agree with ignoring social media it only causes pressure and guilt. Silicone bib that you can rinse is a game changer. On my 2nd I realised / decided to worry less about getting X amount into them, and more about getting them comfortable and familiar with food, even if it was mostly them squashing broccoli against their face. I reminded myself they weren't depending on these meals for nutrition as they were still meeting their needs on milk so these were mostly "tastes". It really took some of the pressure off and he's a great eater now at 2 so no adverse effects. Good luck

I’m so sorry that you’re finding overwhelming.

At 7 months it’s ok to offer food once a day or even skip a day.

As a PP said, you’re aiming to introduce the 3 time between 8 and 9 months, taking baby’s lead.

For breakfast, there are some really easy things you can give her:

Make a batch of blueberry pancakes. It’s a lovely weekend breakfast for you both and you can freeze the left overs to give her on other days.

Eggy Bread cut into soldiers

Ready Brek

A banana. You can split bananas naturally lengthways into 3 making them easier to hold

Leftovers from the night before, it doesn’t have to be what we view as breakfast food. She has no conceit that you don’t normally eat chicken korma for breakfast.

One egg omelette cut into strips.

For the other meal, I’d recommend giving what you’re having. So if it’s lunch, do you usually eat lunch? Is it suitable for her?

If you’re going to offer at tea, can she have sone of the family meal? My DD loved a roast dinner at that age.

I’d recommend getting the Gill Ripley cookbook. It’s so much easier feeding baby if you’re all eating more or less the same thing, afterall, you’re already planning and shopping for your own meals

With the anxiety over choking, is there a particular reason that you’re worried? Have you done a Paediatric First Aid course? Choking on solid food is quite rare, I’ve only known a child do it once and they were 3 at the time.

Because of allergies, the whole "give them what you're having" didn't work for us, at all.

It got better in time, we have a few meals on rotation that i can batch cook with my eyes closed.

Feeding got less messy and stressful too.

Basically, give it time. Once they go to nursery, hopefully nursery will feed them at lunch so that's one less meal you need to think about.

How are you getting on now @AmberPoet?

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