How do you....

[VeryHungryKatypillar]

heat up your baby's food when you're out?

All the info I have says that when heating, food should be heated until piping hot throughout, then left to cool. But how can I do that when we're out?? Are there any gizmos on the market to sell to gullible mothers like me??

Or do you just feed them it cold?

Just started to wean DD 6mo (today!) and haven't a clue!

I just gave thngis like cold pasta, sandwiches, rice cakes, crackers and cheese, breadsticks, fruit, sticks of cucumber and carrot, little cherry toms etc

taking food with you is sooo much easier with BLW - I just take little sandwiches with philly, plus cucumber, apricots, banana, tomato, lump of cheese etc. no heating up needed.

Most places will heat it up for you or provide a microwave to do it yourself.

If not, then give it cold. Jars of baby food all taste the same anyway so the LO wont notice.

Yet again I am scummy mummy - we did BLW, and I never took food with us - just fed DS whatever was on offer. So new pots/roasties, side order of veggies, or just random stuff off our plates. Until DS ate so much that just sharing with him wasn't a great idea if you actually wanted a portion yourself..

Firstly, thanks all for your responses.

Am def keen on the whole finger food thing, but am fairly sure DD would just suck on it and I'd really like to get lots of different tastes into her to start off with. Can see that finger food is the way forward when out and about though.

Am sure that commercial baby food does all taste the same, however VeryHungryKatypillar brand baby food, made with love and organic veg is oh so tasty.

it's a great excuse to order a roast dinner as there's always stuff for DS to have - it's oh-so-difficult giving away your yorkshire pud or roast potatoes though

Ds refuses to be fobbed off with cucumber sticks in M&S now - he demands the snack sushi as soon as he sees an M&S foodhall. He really is poncetastic, as his food order on Sunday was 'squid an noodles'

They do get the taste of things when they suck it, and what you want to encourage is the connection between 'oh, its that green tree stuff again' and eating it, rather than 'gloop' (however lovingly prepared, anything pureed has no relationship in appearance to the real thing). I think it really helps that they are eating exactly what you do as you go forward as they will innately go for whatever is on your plate

dd1 had a mild tantrum for olives and 'some lami' (salami) in m&s yestreday...

by the way imo being introduced to lots of tastes in goop form pretty pointless unkess child can see whst they're getting.

ds was never great at BLW so I would take whatever I was going to give him in a small thermos. Heat it up til it's piping hot, and while you're doing that, fill the thermos up with boiling water to prime it. Empty hot water out and pop food/mush in and Bob's your uncle. I used to do shepherds pie, fish pie, pasta, cheesy mash, everything like that. It stays pretty warm for ages, after a couple of hours or so it's cooled enough to feed to your dd. I'm almost ashamed to admit this but when we went to France in the summer I took some shepherds pie in a thermos for ds' lunch and fed it to him in the car driving from the airport to my mum and dad's. It was about 25 degrees outside, but at least I was satisfied ds had had at least one proper meal that day

aaaaaah, your ds never being good at blw is revealed by your last sentence... you have to let all that stuff gooooooooooooooo.

which one aitch, the bit about feeding him shepherds pie in the middle of a hot summers day? I'm a bit ashamed about how precious I was. He's much better now, to the extent he won't eat anything he can't shove in to his mouth with his bare hands! Thankfully he has finally embraced the idea of sandwiches

nah, being satisfied he'd had at least one proper meal that day... better ime to count it up over the week. or month, if you're feeling particularly bummed out.

Oh I see. Yeah, I was obssessed about one decent meal. Now he's at the childminders I leave all the sensible nutrition to her four days a week and he has bits off my plate when he's with me (only slightly kidding - he always prefers what I'm eating, even if it's the same!)

I'm quite happy to go along with the 'goop' thanks very much. DD can have bits from my plate by all means, and I am keen to give her bits and pieces of more solid stuff, but finger food is not all its cracked up to be . My friends DD will simply NOT eat anything with a sauce because her mum was very keen to give her finger foods and ended up doing it pretty much exclusively. She is now 5 and mealtimes are v difficult.

I understand what you say about pureed food bearing no resemblance to the real thing, but very often proper grown up food doesn't either.

I am very happy to go with my inbetween method. Thanks so much for helpful opinions.

Head Fairy, thanks for helpful practical instructions!

You're very welcome

dd had things with sauce... what do you think finger food is? it's not just bits of toast, it's anything that can be picked up. which would imo incude shepherds' pie. glad that you're happy with the goop, but i was just pointing out that unless a child has a visual to tie the flavour to i can't imagine it's of much help.

btw not liking sauces/preferring food served in separate pieces is a perfectly normal stage that A LOT of kids go through, doesn't matter how they were weaned. it might be hard-wired, to do with increased independence and a fear of accidental poisoning.

I always thought ds would struggle to pick up shepherds pie with his hands. I guess he would just pick up a bunch, even if most of it squeezes out of his hands... I'm really only now understanding how the whole learning to eat thing works. I used to get so frustrated that he would play with his food more than eat it, but that's all part of learning to eat and discovering tastes and textures isn't it?