Baby food: home cooked vs ready made

[tw888]

I exclusively breastfed my DS for 6 months. There have been many occasions where friends or family members tried to convince me that I should also give my son formula "to make sure he gets enough nutrients". I'm not against formula but I wanted to exclusively breastfeed my baby for the first 6 months.

Now it's time for us to start introducing solid foods.
I steam cook vegs for my son but he's not very keen on solids yet (it's been 2 weeks) and he hasn't put on enough weight! Now I'm struggling with most people around me who keep telling me I should stop giving him home cooked and start buying baby food in jars! They say he'll like them and it'll be better for him.

Now we usually eat home cooked food as we don't like ready made or fast food. How could it be better for DS to eat ready made food? I will give him some ready made food later but isn't home cooked food better?

Well firstly I wouldn't be worrying about him putting on weight through the solids - that's not the point of it at all just now. The vast majority of his nutritional needs should still be met through your breastmilk for many months to come.

Jars are vile. They are pureed into oblivion so that they have no texture whatsoever and they taste disgusting. I wouldn't feed them to my cat tbh. As for them being more nutritious, what rubbish!

We used about 5 jars in the first year of weaning - purely for convenience when we were out and about, but DS hated them so we stopped pretty quickly.

They are crazy

I find that all jars taste of tinned ravioli - whatever flavour they are supposed to be! They are also a funny texture

How can they say they will be better than fresh food - that's ridiculous

HOWEVER

I do use jars/pouches more with DS2 than I did with DS1. The Ella's kitchen ones are actually very good (although expensive so I don't use them often) and it does remove the angst when he doesn't eat it, rather than slaving over the stove for hours only for it to be spat out.

DS2 is 11 months now and I try to give him our family meal as often as is practical, or at least whatever DS1 is having. He only has pouches at the childminder or when I'm really disorganised.

For some reason I have always been happy to give him fruit from pots though, rather than pureeing my own.

Why on earth would someone think that jars of food are better for your baby than homecooked I'm not anti-jars, but surely no-one can actually think they are MORE healthy than home cooked food?

As for thinking formula is MORE nutritious than breast milk

OK, I'll be honest and say that I too gave some fruit purees from pots or jars. Quite often to stir into some plain yoghurt. I agree that the more expensive jars are much better, but it's sooo much cheaper to do your own.

homecooked. If you have the time and the inclination, go for it every time.

BLW is the easiest option really, and it's not about putting on weight at this stage, all about trying things out. As long as he's getting most of his calories/nutrients from BM, don't worry.

Ellas Kitchen stuff is pretty good for convenience when you're out and about, and it doesn't need to go in the fridge - can be squeezed direct into LO's mouth

I did read somewhere on here (I think) that you may need a vitamin supplement from 6mo if you continue to BF, but I may be wrong about that - hopefully someone will come along and clarify.

IIRC, I think the concern that is generally raised is the relative lack of iron in breastmilk. But the required iron can easily provided in the rest of your baby's diet so there's no need to worry about it. I think, whilst it's strictly true, it is something that's spouted by the formula companies to try and make you buy follow-on milk.

yes, I think so too - I think it's more towards the end of the first year when they're not having so much milk, but might not be eating too well either, but I may well have misremembered.

Will try and find something abotu this tomorrow (as I am about to go to bed)

Wow! Thanks so much!
My GP said breastfed babies can get enough vitamins from a healthy diet! But the health visitors suggested BF babies should get vitamin supplements from 6 months. I'll listen to my GP!

Never listen to HV's - IME anyway.

this may help

(too wired to go to bed. thought i'd try and find something helpful)

oh, and stop talking about his weight with people. If you're happy with his progress, and you're happy that he's happy then don't worry too much.

competitive parenting is a bizarre phenomenon, I don't know why some parents feel the need to tell other parents what to do/how to discipline/feed their child.

Home cooked food is obviously cheaper, but does take a lot of time and effort. Jars for babies of less than one year have to go through extremely rigorous testing and are therefore not really in the same category as adult ready meals. I have used them (mostly Ella's Kitchen or the pouches from Boots) for convenience and to save my sanity when DS was just rejecting all solids. But if you're already going to the effort of cooking from scratch, I don't think LO would benefit from having jars.

Two weeks is really no time at all. It took DS about that long to get used to solids (he was puree weaned) but once he did, he was great! Between about 7 months and a year, he literally ate anything and everything that was put in front of him.

He had the odd jar when we were out and about but we introduced finger foods early (well, early according to some books but not to BLWers!) so if he needed to eat when we were out he could have a sandwich, or rice cakes, or bits of fruit etc.

Carry on doing what you are doing, sounds fine to me!