BLW - Baby led weaning support thread

[chrissie33]

What do you do about yoghurt and stuff like that hun?

 

[Tacey]

Chrissie - have you tried dipping things? Alice preferred eating runny food when she dipped things in them, so for yoghurt, she had sticks of fruit, rice cakes or breadsticks (weird I know!) and for savoury things like soup she'd dip bread or crumpets etc. I kept offering pre loaded spoons alongside it, and she got the hang of it after a while. she also learnt to dip the spoon fairly quickly after having all that practice with other things. One otherthing that might be worth trying is giving her a teaspoon. We'd been using plastic weaning spoons with Alice, but she seems to find metal teaspoons easier to get in her mouth.

 

[chrissie33]

Thanks Tacey, I had not tried her with dipping things to be honest as she is likely to throw the food all over the place but will give it a try as you suggested.

 

[pa2k84]

can anyone help am after a biscuit/cake recipe suitable for babies/toddlers and adults. Ideary no or limited sugar but still want flavour for adults!

 

[Tacey]

can anyone help am after a biscuit/cake recipe suitable for babies/toddlers and adults. Ideary no or limited sugar but still want flavour for adults!

This is the one I use for biscuits:

Sugar free fruit cookies / biscuits
Ingredients:

* 100 g butter
* 3 tbsp sugar free jam (we use St.Dalfour Strawberry)
* 1 beaten egg
* 50 g ground almonds
* 50 g dried fruit
* 100 g plain flour
* 1/2 tsp baking powder

Method:

* Preheat oven to 180 deg C/350 deg F/gas mark four.
* Cream together the jam and butter.
* Beat in the egg and mix well.
* Add the ground almonds and dried fruit and mix all the ingredients together.
* Add the flour and baking powder and give the ingredients a final mix. You'll be left with a slightly sticky dough.
* You can roll the dough if you wish, but I'm not good at rolling, so we just dig our hands in, make small balls with the cookie mix and flatten them into patty shapes.
* If you're rolling the dough, use a cookie cutter to make about 12-15 shapes.

Place the biscuits on a lightly greased baking sheet and bake for 18-20 minutes until golden.

And this is a lovely date cake:

Date cake

Ingredients

* 125g soft butter
* 1 egg
* 225g SR flour
* 1/2 tsp ground cinamon
* 75 mls milk
* 125g chopped dates

Method

* Preheat oven to 180
* Grease a 7" round cake tin or brownie tin
* Soften the butter with the back of a fork and beat it with the egg (the original recipe called for 125g soft light brown sugar in addition to the dates and you had to cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy before adding the egg, as per a usual cake recipe)
* Add the rest of the ingredients, mix well and put in the prepared tin.
* Bake for 1 - 1 1/4 hours until cooked through.

 

[pa2k84]

Thank you so much biscuits sound yummy think will give them a try

 

[gills8752]

I've just found a great lazy blw...asda have toddlers ready meals like pasta/shepherds pie so no added salt etc
My lo loved it!

 

[kayleigh&bump]

^^ are they in with the baby food hun? Been wondering for a while if theres an easier alternative on the off day when I dont/cant cook from scratch x

 

[joeyjo]

I've just found a great lazy blw...asda have toddlers ready meals like pasta/shepherds pie so no added salt etc
My lo loved it!

Be careful some toddlers meals still have bad stuff in! There was a panorama about it last year/ earlier this year. Some of the annabelle karmel range had added sugar in the lasagne & more salt as a percentage of the whole than some adult ready meals!!!

I have occassionally used little dish ready meals but prefer to keep single portions of homemade "bolognese" sauce & mash potato in the freezer - both microwave well and make a quick deconstructed shepherds pie

 

[jenny82]

I've also tried LO with the innocent veg pots and a brand called 'little dish'. The ingredients list looked great and the innocent pots had the littlest amount of salt I've ever seen in a meal!

They have been a god-send these past few weeks. I did feel soooo guilty about using them, more that I'd let myself down than anything else, but I've come to terms with it. LO had a fish pie from the LIttle Dish range at the weekend and it was amazing. I wanted it!

 

[gills8752]

They are in the ready meal section. The one I've got just now...
per 100g (pack is 300g)
kcal - 122
fat 3.9
fobre 2.3
salt 0.3 (sodium 0.12) I'm only using about a tablespoon of it per meal which must be about 1/5 at the very most. I add other veg/rice cakes etc to eat

Innocent pots sound good too!

 

[joeyjo]

They are in the ready meal section. The one I've got just now...
per 100g (pack is 300g)
kcal - 122
fat 3.9
fobre 2.3
salt 0.3 (sodium 0.12) I'm only using about a tablespoon of it per meal which must be about 1/5 at the very most. I add other veg/rice cakes etc to eat

Innocent pots sound good too!

sounds pretty good - especially as they get older. My LO would eat a whole one so that's 0.9g of salt or half his daily allowance now he's over 1 so I'd be happy to use it occassionally. I still really watch his salt levels coz he loves cheese which is quite salty.

Edit - just checked the "little dish" meals in my freezer - chicken korma 200g pack has 0.08g of salt & chicken &butternut pie has 0.26g - they are £2.29 each though!!!! I only buy them when they are reduced!

I hope my post didn't come across critical. I think convenient options are great I just wanted people to be aware that there are bad products marketed for very young kids and so labels should be checked

 

[gills8752]

They are in the ready meal section. The one I've got just now...
per 100g (pack is 300g)
kcal - 122
fat 3.9
fobre 2.3
salt 0.3 (sodium 0.12) I'm only using about a tablespoon of it per meal which must be about 1/5 at the very most. I add other veg/rice cakes etc to eat

Innocent pots sound good too!

sounds pretty good - especially as they get older. My LO would eat a whole one so that's 0.9g of salt or half his daily allowance now he's over 1 so I'd be happy to use it occassionally. I still really watch his salt levels coz he loves cheese which is quite salty.

Edit - just checked the "little dish" meals in my freezer - chicken korma 200g pack has 0.08g of salt & chicken &butternut pie has 0.26g - they are £2.29 each though!!!! I only buy them when they are reduced!

I hope my post didn't come across critical. I think convenient options are great I just wanted people to be aware that there are bad products marketed for very young kids and so labels should be checked

Oh no not at all! I wouldn't want to mislead anyone into thinking they are good everyday foods - but handy for a lazy day!
I'm not the strictest with the salt intake for my lo either but that's my choice and i wouldn't want to inflict it on anyone else!

 

[Mum2b_Claire]

can anyone help am after a biscuit/cake recipe suitable for babies/toddlers and adults. Ideary no or limited sugar but still want flavour for adults!

This is the one I use for biscuits:

Sugar free fruit cookies / biscuits
Ingredients:

* 100 g butter
* 3 tbsp sugar free jam (we use St.Dalfour Strawberry)
* 1 beaten egg
* 50 g ground almonds
* 50 g dried fruit
* 100 g plain flour
* 1/2 tsp baking powder

Method:

* Preheat oven to 180 deg C/350 deg F/gas mark four.
* Cream together the jam and butter.
* Beat in the egg and mix well.
* Add the ground almonds and dried fruit and mix all the ingredients together.
* Add the flour and baking powder and give the ingredients a final mix. You'll be left with a slightly sticky dough.
* You can roll the dough if you wish, but I'm not good at rolling, so we just dig our hands in, make small balls with the cookie mix and flatten them into patty shapes.
* If you're rolling the dough, use a cookie cutter to make about 12-15 shapes.

Place the biscuits on a lightly greased baking sheet and bake for 18-20 minutes until golden.

And this is a lovely date cake:

Date cake

Ingredients

* 125g soft butter
* 1 egg
* 225g SR flour
* 1/2 tsp ground cinamon
* 75 mls milk
* 125g chopped dates

Method

* Preheat oven to 180
* Grease a 7" round cake tin or brownie tin
* Soften the butter with the back of a fork and beat it with the egg (the original recipe called for 125g soft light brown sugar in addition to the dates and you had to cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy before adding the egg, as per a usual cake recipe)
* Add the rest of the ingredients, mix well and put in the prepared tin.
* Bake for 1 - 1 1/4 hours until cooked through.

Tacey, would these be ok to freeze? I don't see why not, just wondered if you knew. Going to make both at the weekend hopefully.

 

[Tacey]

I've not tried freezing them as I eat them too quickly! Oops, I mean Alice eats them too quickly...

I'm sure they would though. Worth a try! Hope you like them.

 

[Mum2b_Claire]

Thanks, I'll give it a go. Freezing is so useful to me because Ruby hates bread and needs a packed lunch 3 days a week, so I make breadsticks and mini muffins etc, freeze in bulk and then take out the night before and they're defrosted in plenty of time. So easy! And the bought toddler biscuits were getting a bit expensive!

 

[chele]

Yo ladies (excuse my weird mood)

By 7 months how many meals were your LO's on?

Max has 2-3 meals a day, but sometimes only one. He always has breakfast. The HV shouted at me yesterday that he should have 3 meals a day religiously. Should I by this age? I know he needs them so he can start dropping bottles but I really find it hard fitting meals in between bottles and naps. He has 3xnaps a day and a typical day is like this

5am -150ml bottle
7.30-8am -breakfast
8.30 - 150ml bottle (he generally takes 100-120ml)
9.00-9.40 - nap
11.00 - 150 ml bottle (generally taking 120-150ml)
12.30-1.10 - nap
1.45 - 150ml bottle
3.30 nap - sometimes 40 minutes sometimes longer
4.30 - 150ml bottle
6.15 bath and in bed with a final bottle

So he has a bottle every 2.5 hours more or less

Help!

I'm really trying today and he ended up having his dinner at 3pm, he's napping now so when he's up in about 30 minutes I'll try tea time

Oh and what time do you give tea time? How long before bath and bed?

Thanks!x

 

[Mum2b_Claire]

Chele, my HV told me the same at 8 months because Ruby was also only on 2 meals. And actually, she often refused breakfast. so I made more effort with her tea. I had previously not been bothering because she was always so tired / grumpy by about 5, and she never ate anything anyway.

So I made an effort to give her some different, easy to cook things as an early dinner around 5, such as pasta, soup and bread, leftovers etc and slowly she started to eat a proper dinner, by about 9.5 months she always ate a decent dinner and dropped her 4pm bottle.

Ruby's dinner is between 5 and 6 and her bedtime is between 6 and 7, depending on what we've done int he day and how tired she is. At weekends or days off we all eat between 5 and 6.

 

[sun]

Chele - Your HV would have yelled at me then, as Bun was on 0 meals at 7 months. He didn't eat until 7.5 months, and then started 1x/day. For him it was a late breakfast. He was much more open to eating and had more patience in the mornings. I also found it hard to fit meals into the day at the start - it had to be long enough after his milk feed that he was hungry, but not too long that he was tired and had no patience for eating.

For us, we started with 1 meal/day then did 2 meals/day for a month or more. That was late breakfast and dinner (he would eat around 11am and 6pm). It was actually around 10 months that he ate 3 solid meals a day - for a while we would do 2 meals and 1 snack. He still isn't too hungry at lunch, but eats like a crazy person at breakfast and dinner. He will also sometimes eat some cheerios or a pancake as a snack here and there. He breastfeeds 3x/day.

We don't have a set-in-stone routine, as some mornings we have swimming or something else that changes the schedule, but our general routine is:

5-6am: BF
10am: Breakfast
1pm: BF then 2-3h nap
3-4pm: lunch (I know - seems very late lol)
7pm: Dinner

His bedtime is 8:30-9pm and he sleeps 12h.

 

[florabean1981]

Chele, Harry's 13 months & still sometimes only eat 2 meals a day- he is very hit or miss with lunch & if he's a bit grumpy when he wakes up, he takes forever to eat 1 lousy wheatabix & a fromage frais... I figure so long as it's being offered & he's still taking his milk feeds then it's not too much of an issue.