General chat thread for puree lovers!

[Neenztwinz]

Before I started weaning my twins, I read about BLW and thought it looked like an amazing idea.

When I tried it I found my darling LOs didn't pick up a single thing never mind get it into the mouths.

So now I puree food and spoonfeed them and they are eating massive amounts and loving it - and sleeping all night!

So I thought I'd start a thread for others who are doing the same as me - we can swap ideas for meals and say what works for us (ie what makes them sleep ).

I gave my twins four plums plus ebm and baby rice for breakfast and they have had a big bowl of sweet potato, haricot beans and brocolli for lunch. More of the same for tea (plus maybe some swede and parsnip). They are 6.5mths old.

What did yours eat today?

Thanks for the advice all. I'm going to try and make it through to at least next weekend if I can, when he'll be 22 weeks, albeit he looks about 8 months

Giant - I'm sorry if it seemed as though I was jumping down your throat. It wasn't my intention, just frustration spilling over and feeling picked on over on the other thread I started.

I know that weaning isn't necessarily going to be the answer but feel it must be worth a try. And the worst that can happen is it doesn't work and we have a day/night of disruption before abandoning the idea.

With regards his sleep issue I should explain that he wakes, feeds in about 10 mins and goes straight back down, so it seems the only thing he is waking for is food. He spends very little time actually awake.

He does also feed about every 2-2.5 hours through the day so I don't think he's got into a 'feeding at night and not in the day habit'.

Pleased to have found this thread though as it's definitely the puree way for me.

Has anyone tried carrots or Sweet Potatoe pureed with milk as a very first food ?

Hi beaufies, I like you wanted to wait till 26 weeks but after a week or so of exhausting evening cluster feeding from the DTs I thought 'I've got to do something' and introduced fruit, veg and baby rice at 11am. Within a week or so I was also giving them baby rice at 6pm. Lay off wheat, dairy, gluten, meat and fish until he is 26 weeks.

My two did become more settled after starting on solids and I felt that by starting then, when they got to 26 weeks they were ready then to have three meals a day, rather than having to rush through the first foods when maybe they needed more IYSWIM. The first food I tried was apple, also carrot, sweet potato, brocolli, swede, parsnip, butternut squash, mango, pear, papaya, peach etc. The fruit and veg purees always went down well when mixed with baby rice and milk. I mixed everything with milk and baby rice at first! Just offer him a few spoons and see how he does, don't force it, just let him decide how much he wants. He might just spit it all back out at first.

Make sure you continue to offer him just as mny BFs and FFs as before. Good luck!

Well, all was going well here but now DS has a rash so I'm a bit worried. I think it's a heat rash (little red spots on tummy and back, esp around nappy area) but am holding back the dairy for a couple of days before giving it again. That's the only potentially dodgy thing I've introduced recently (other new things were lentils, onion and celery). I suspect that he's just inherited my senstive skin, which flares up from time to time. Has anyone else's DC had a reaction to a food - how did it manifest itself? His tummy and everything else seems to be fine.

Arthy - We had the infamous egg reaction - a couple of hours after eating it dd woke up and was really windy and farty and back arching and obviously in a great deal of discomfort - so we held her for a couple of hours and it passed in the end.

With my ds and the strawberries it was completely different - he almost immediately developed red patches on his face which spread very quickly and he was violently sick.

So I guess one is just mild intolerance and the other was an allergic reaction - ds remained allergic to strawbs until he was about 1.5 and then it just disappeared.

beaufies - dont worry about it

GKS- isn't egg given after 1 year ? that was my impression... at least that's what my HV said to me (repeatedly & insistently). Am confused now...

Interesting about strawberries. I've (carefully) tried both strawberries & raspberries with DS, & they were a success. Scary to think of these intolerances / allergic reactions (GKS- do you have lots of food allergies in your family? We're generally an allergic family- on my side, not DP's- but not food allergies, just other allergies).

Well theres conflicting advice about egg - supposedly the egg yolk is ok from 6 months and certainly my ds was fine with all egg from 6 months.

And no we dont have any allergies in our family - not even hayfever so I was quite suprised by the strawberries but it was just something he grew out of.

I think thats why I like doing one thing at a time at the beginning though - and even now to some extent so that I know what it is that may have caused any reaction.

Fishcakes all round here for dinner - dd hoovered them up.

Arthymum hope DS's rash goes soon, must be worrying, if my DS was allergic to dairy he'd have to give up his favourite fromage frais and would NOT be happy!!

Just wondered when did everyone's DCs start to drink more water and less milk? DS has cut out quite a bit of milk (down to maybe 27oz per day from 35oz) and tries valiantly to aim his beaker of water into his mouth occasionally but he doesn't get very much even if I help him. Seems ok but just wondered what your experiences were?

Oh, and in case anyone's interested Tesco have a special offer on frozen mango chunks, 99p for a box, no sugar or anything added, v handy for the freezer!

Hello everyone! Back from the last holiday before going back to work Took the opportunity to move dd to her own room yesterday, though I slept next to her. So far so good, though tonight she's got a bit of a temperature and was irritable all afternoon. Hope it isn't another cold. That last one was seriously annoying. Hope all your dcs are feeling better now.

I'm so pleased about dd and her food intake. At the hotel, she ate all sorts of new things. Loved fishcakes! I was quite careful in the early days with one new food at a time, but if I'm not cooking it's hard to control. Also, she was eating protein at tea instead of lunch, and now we're home I've gone back to protein at lunch and veg tea. Anyone notice a difference??

Potatoes, have you tried a doidy cup? dd will drink anything out of hers and has become very good at drinking water. I have to help her though. Hard to tell if she has cut down milk, as I'm still bf. Over the next few weeks I will have to replace the day feeds with formula, so I'll have a better idea.

mookickkick - good luck for work - I'm going back next month as well and am wondering what to do about he bf during the day...whether to cut down to 2 now or just leave it and see how it goes (dd will only be in the nursery 2 days).

Oh and often we have protein for lunch and tea and it doesnt seem to make any difference for us - though lunchtime will be lentils or cheese and then tea will be meatbased.

potatoes - I dont think my dd drinks significant amounts of water now though she does tip it all over herself with the sippy cup - if anything the milk gets cut down because of the food and lots of that is either watery (veggies/fruit) or milk based.

kate - i have to work 4 days so i don't think i can keep bfing during my days off, but if you only have 2 days it might work; at least that is what i read on the bf thread. i can't be asked to pump at work - it would have to be in the toilet. think i will drop one bf next week, just not sure which one...

i agree that meat once a day is more than enough. will make up some lentils as i've run out.

mookickkick - i'm not sure tbh that it will work just 2 days either and am quite keen to drop a daytime feed anyway - but know as well that with my ds that it when I went down to 2 feeds that it started going completely - I might have done it too fast though. Am just not sure.

Am also not keen to express at work - the room would be fine as theres a first aid room but then it would have to go in the communal fridge and would it even survive the journey home anyway. gah.

Thanks for advice re water, will look for a doidy cup, i guess it's easier to go from doidy cup to normal cup eventually so definitely worth a try.

I know this is childish, but I intended to breastfeed and was going to express at work for the sole purpose of making my male chauvinist pig of a boss have to find me a room and somewhere to store the milk, he would have been mortified!! Seriously mookickkick i hope it's OK going back to work and you don't miss your DD too much

hi, i've not posted on this thread before and have to confess i haven't read the whole thing!! how long??!! so apologies if i go over old ground!! Ds is almost 7 months & i'm having a real problem getting him to eat any of my homemade purees!! the only thing he will eat is potato but if i pop open a jar, the whole thing goes before i can blink!! what am i doing wrong?? are jars really that bad?? Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated, i'm tired of cooking food just to throw it away!

mortifying a male chauvinist pig boss is good enough reason for me, potatoes! my (top) boss is female and came back to work after the legal min of 2 weeks, so i don't expect much sympathy.

kate - that's a bit worrying about supply running dry. i'll wait a week to drop a feed. would it make sense to drop the 2:30 feed first, as it might mean more milk supply before bed? or does it work the other way? hm...

welcome yarrow! we've just had a week of lunchtime jars as we were on holiday, and i've noticed they are a lot runnier and smoother than my food. also, the protein content is less than 10%. so could you perhaps add more liquid to your food and really puree the hell out of it?

thanks! i had wondered if it was a consistency thing so have had it from thick gloopy gunge type stuff to sloppy run off your spoon stuff! doesn't seem to make any difference!! what kind of foods do you puree experts offer?! what purees well?

hi, quick question about water - 27 week dd is at end of the 3rd week of weaning and we are doing really well. she is drinking water from her doidy cup (monitored by me until there is just a little bit left in the bottom) which she loves... I wondered vaguely how much water she should be drinking - she has 5oz milk before her lunch and 6oz of milk before her tea. Or is it just a dribble?! thank you!

Hi Katherine, my DTs are 10mo and have only just started drinking decent amounts of water ie half to one full cup a day (I use the tommee tippee first cup) so at 27w I'd say just keep offering it and try to get her used to the cup. I tried juice and all sorts at that age to get them to drink more but they wouldn;t have it - it took a while for them to work out how to get the water out I think.

Yarrow, it is common to go through stages where everything is refused! Very frustrating though. I found all food went down better if I mixed it with milk (ebm or formula but formula was more successful!) and baby rice, it makes everything smooth and creamy tasting. All fruits and root veg eg parsnip, sweet potato, swede, carrot were successful. Jars are always popular with my DTs (even tho often they taste gross to me), but the problem with them is that the food has been heat-treated to within an inch of its life so there will be few nutrients left! And the protein content is shocking. So making your own food is better if you can - just keep going and try to find something she likes, then you can mix other things with that (for me it is sweet potato!). Does she like yogurt?

Mookick, that's shocking about not being able to express at work. I think the law is a bit woolly on that isn't it? But it might be worth checking to see if you are legally entitled to have somewhere to express and store milk (from memory I don;t think you do )

Potatoes, love your thinking re your boss!

thank you for advice - another quick question - do you all make your own Veg and Chicken Stock. I'm not sure I have the strength...!!!

Katherine - I confess that I do not make stock! Most of the recipes I see either have lots of veg in or chicken/other meat anyway - I'm not sure DS will notice the omission of a bouquet garni! So I just use water.

thank you. i made annabel karmel veg stock and didn't put the lid on (actually she doesn't tell you to!!). An hour later I had 200ml of fluid. it was too depressing for words... i'm not sure I can face it again!!!

Hello puree lovers - could I ask what's probably a really stupid question? Do you heat your purees up?? I'm a couple of weeks into solids with my DS, and so far he's loved any fruit, sweet potato, parsnip and swede... but made some hilariously disgusted faces at anything green... I've just been making purees, freezing batches of them and then serving them at room temp. But is it totally weird that he should have (and like!) cold swede? And would warming my green beans through make a difference? If so, how do I warm through a teeny tiny portion without a microwave (add warm milk?). Any advice would be fantastic - thank you.

Averagemum I defrost purees and then heat up very hot and then let cool down to eatable temperature - I thought you were meant to heat them up to kill off any potential nasties (but zombie brain can't remember where I heard that - AK maybe?). If not microwave, I just put in a pan with a bit of boiled water so it doesn't stick and heat hot that way.

Sorry about stilted sentences - squirming DS on lap trying to grab boob!

Yes, have just checked Karmel book and says reheat until piping hot. In terms of serving it though, it all goes disgustingly cold very quickly and DS doesn't seem to care one jot!