Stupid q but what is baby rice?

[noolia]

Planning to start weaning at 6 months and tootled off to Tescos to get some baby rice - when I realised that I don't really know what it is (ground rice?) or what form it comes in. Anyway I didn't find any because I didn't really know what to look for.

afaik it is literally rice that has been ground up. Look in the baby food aisle. It is
tasteless btw, no need to get it for a 6 mth old unles you really want to.

yes, ground up rice. rice flour basically.

ps. you don't need baby rice, especially not when you wean from 6 months. you just go straight to normal food.

It is a fortified powder found in babay aisle with the flavoured cereals, which you mix with ebm or formula to form a gloop. tbh at 6 months I would n't bother except perhaps as a thickener for purees and "stews", especially if you freeze a batch as they can be quite watery on defrosting.

Thank you. So if I don't use baby rice what would she have to start with (not keen on the idea of blw)?

It's a bit like porridge but really smooth. I used it to start weaning my DS but added things such as fruit to give it a subtle flavour and as a thickener for broccolli and cauliflour cheese which he loved.

You can start with fruit purees - apple, mashed banana, pear, etc.

noolia my dd2 didn't take to "pure" blw but we did a mix of purees and finger foods. Very handy to be able to give her a piece of bread and butter (for example) when out and about rather than faff about trying to warm up pureed casserole or whatever.

Also I tended to use food that if she didn't manage it as finger food, I could just grab a fork and smush it all up. (e.g. slices of cooked potato, chunks of banana, anything really). We found that if she was tired or teething she sometimes preferred mash (rather than puree). At other times she looked at what we were all having and banged her hands hard on her high chair tray to ]demand the "grown up" version. [grin

Of course if you don't do full blw, imo you have a bigger range of cereals and desserts that you can use. e.g. hot oat type cereal (ready brek), yogurts, custard, rice pudding etc.

sorry for hijacking, but one thing that i have been wondering: is there any reason why you can't just use normal rice and whizz up in purees or mash it? or is there something specific that they've done to baby rice to make it suitable?

i think baby rice is already cooked and then ground so you can mix it cold and it is fine to use. if you use ground rice, first it is less finely ground and second you have to cook it.

this is what my GP said, but I could be comepletely wrong!

they snatch the baby rice forcefully from mummy rices arms...they are then shoved into bags and hurried across the boarder ...for and unspeakable fate.

Please boycot this practice

Thanks BellaBear, but I think Custardo's explanation is better

HolidaysQueen I am sure you could just use normal rice...personally with a 6 mth old I don't think it it necessary to puree/mash it. Ime even a 6 mth old with no teeth can easily manage foods such as rice pudding/risotto as long as the rice is cooked and not raw of course!