10 month old won't eat evening meal......

[Bambinoloveseggbirds]

........but will eat finger food and I'm running out of ideas. I made some AK chicken balls today which mostly went on the floor but he did eat some. He will eat brocolli spears, carrot sticks, fish goujons, bits of chicken, banana, eggy bread, peas. He really likes bread but I'm worried about too much salt. He will eat a hot meal and pudding for lunch, yoghurt for breakfast (he's also suddenly gone off cereal the past week) and between 15-18oz of formula per day so he isn't going hungry. I'm just after ideas that don't take forever to prepare. AK is great but time consuming.

Is it possible that I could cheat a bit?> is it ok to buy shop bought pancakes, bagels, fish fingers - obviously not for every day but just for a couple of nights a week. DS has never liked jarred food either (except some puds) so I've been cooking, mashing or choppping for months and I'm getting rather disheartened watching it end up on the floor. Can anyone help please?

Hi, why don't you pop over to the BLW support thread - I'm sure there'll be lots of ideas for you there.

We do pasta as a finger food (fusili or farfalle seems to work well). Things that seem to go down well with 8mo DS are fishfingers (I check the salt), sweet potato chips (I just put these in the oven a few minutes before the fishfingers, spritzed with oil). Cheese on toast (obviously). Mini babybel. Pasta in cheese sauce. Cauliflower cheese. Yes, cheese is a fave!

He does pretty well with bolognese sauce (I make it without salt). I also give him shepherd's pie - make the filling up in advance and freeze it, then just defrost and put mash and cheese on top before heating it through in the oven.

Have you tried the Plum Baby foods? DS likes the puds.

Hope that helps a little. As I say, go over to BLW thread for more ideas.

Thanks IsItMe. Your ideas sound great, but what cheese do you use? Doesn't that contain salt? I'm a bit obsessed with salt at the mo. I love your sweet potato chip idea so will try that tomorrow. Cheese on toast good also - DS loves toast. Do you use birdseye fish fingers?

I make all his lunch, lamb hotpot, spag bol, cottage or fish pie etc and he demolishes it, yet turns away from anything hot at night. Maybe he will be part of the wine and canape set when he's older

thanks again. I'll definitely check out the BLW thread.

A little salt is fine at this age, as long as you're not adding it to everything, or using lots of processed (salty) foods. Normal cheese is fine from 6 months onwards.

I would say that if your DS is having his main, hot meal at lunchtime then finger food in the evening is absolutely fine.

He is probably not hungry enough for 2 hot meals a day - let him guide you as to how big an appetite he has.

He is eating well at lunchtime, is having enough milk - he sounds perfectly ok to me

It is disheartening when you've spent ages chopping and preparing things for them to end up on the flor so go easy on yourself - it's perfectly ok to 'cheat' at times and there are some excellent meal ideas on this thread. My DD used to refuse jars of food too which, although I was secretly rather smug about it lol, life would have been easier sometimes if she would have eaten it occasionally.

Just relax, your DS sounds like he is doing very well and is certainly eating enough for his age. You have to remember how tiny their tummies are at this age and it doesn't take much to fill them up.

It's so strange Icklejess, DS was eating loads more but since he started crawling he's eating less. At least he's eating though I guess so I'll just need to adapt accordingly.

I made a rod for my own back on the jars I think. We went on holiday to spain this year and DS wouldn't touch them, we had to go out and buy a blender so I could make his food. Great holiday that was

On fishfingers - I get some organic ones from Ocado (suspect was having a PFB moment when first bought these ones, lol), but just check out the salt on Birdseye ones. The guideline is 1g per day up to a year old, and I've been reasonably obsessive about it, but I suspect it's okay to let them have a little more occasionally.

Cheese has different salt contents, even different cheddars, so worth having a look. DS doesn't eat that much still though, so not enough to be a problem. Organic mozzarella that I get from Sainsbos is pretty low in salt - they only stock that one at our little local one, so don't know what the regular varieties are like salt-wise.

Lol at PrincessToadstool - on the "I'm Watching" view, your opening statement just shows as an outraged "I am astounded that you consider shop bought bagels" so I had to come and have a look to see if I was committing a MNet sin by giving mine half a shop bought bagel from time to time. DS gets his with nut butter and fruit spread on.

I'm not sure about the shop-bought pancakes OP, but Hulla has a famous pancake recipe that I haven't tried but others rave about on the BLW thread. It is:

"Hulla?s pancake recipe:
50g self raising flour, 1 egg, 1 apple.
Blend all in a food processor (apple first - cored, obviously). Fry in a pan (I don't use any oil but depends how non-stick your pan is). When the top has little bubbles in, flip the pancakes. Cool & serve! Yum."

who about little sandwiches in the evening?

Princess I wasn't joking about the bagels (sorry for sounding like Dirty Den then btw ), but like I said, I am really conscious of the amount of salt in shop bought stuff. Anyway, half a mini-babybel went down extremely well this evening and some tuna and mayo finger sandwiches. As IckleJess said, perhaps my DS isn't that hungry in the evening after a hot meal and pud for lunch. I got some good ideas here and also looked on a BLW site (I am sure she is a MNetter - Aitch?) and got loads of options. ItItMe Hulla's pancake recipe sounds great and I will definitely be trying that.

I think the best thing I can do for DS is to follow his lead and stop thinking he'll starve overnight if he doesn't have a proper hot meal for tea.

Thanks for all your replies

IsItMe, even.

One more thought I had - is it possible he's a bit tired by teatime? DS really varies how much he eats day by day, which I've variously attributed to a)teething, b)tiredness and c)bored at having the same thing two days running (DH thinks I'm mad for this last one btw ).

You are right there IsItMe, because DS has gone off lots of food in the past two weeks due to teething and was, at one point, just eating yoghurt. He is much better now but hasn't gone back to much of the stuff he used to like. My best friend did warn me - when I said that DS was a really good eater -not to get too smug as he'd like one thing one month and go off it the next - she was absolutely right.

I'm just delighted that he is eating something. I had a bit of a nightmare breast feeding when he was born and the hospital almost tube fed him so I get a bit freaked if he's not eating properly - even though he is now a delicious chunk.

From 12 months onwards I decided to do one main meal and one snack meal each day (beans on toast, sandwiches, etc). It makes for more variety for both you and them, and is easier than trying to come up with two hot meals too.

As soon as you can, I would suggest trying to give him the same as you're having at mealtimes, even if this means having to modify your normal diet slightly, as it makes everything soooo much easier, and it's less disheartening if theirs all ends up on the floor, as you haven't made it specially IYSWIM. It's also very good for them to see you eating the same thing.

titfertat agree with you on having the same things as them at mealtime - that's one of the main reasons I went down the BLW route, as I know I always appreciate what I've cooked even if DS doesn't!

Last night, I tried DS on a fish finger and roasted 'chips' of sweet potato. He loved it. Tonight I'm trying salmon & philly sandwiches and courgette fingers. I think all this could be him wanting to feed himself, even at his lunch (main hot meal), he is grabbing the spoon off me, so much so that I'm mainly loading it for him and he does the rest. We have been giving him bits of our dinner too. My wee babe is growing up.

That sounds really good Bambino, and don't worry too much, he's still very little .

Bambino - I was obsessed worried about salt in bread too so on the recommendation of the BLW thread, we've bought a bread maker. It's great - can make really low/no salt bread and then not worry so much about the salt in cheese, etc.

Sospan, that is on my list of things to buy along with a ice cream maker slow cooker.

Haha, we've just bought a breadmaker too, and have a slow cooker gathering dust waiting for me to find some suitable recipes to try.