Meal times with our babies

It’s quite controversial when you should start feeding your baby and what you should feed them. So please always get professional opinions as I’m not a professional I’m just writing what I did/done.

 

I always started with pureed food from around 4 months old. If they weren’t interested I would hold off and try again a few weeks later. Food for them was not to fill them up it was more of a learning experiment. Once I noted that Indie wasn’t really enjoying her pureed food at 4 months. We stopped trying. Just went back to the bottle. I then started again around 5 months old with pureed food because she wasn’t settling at all and needed more bottles than advised. So I would puree up sweet potato, broccoli, carrot, zucchini and sometimes cauliflower. She would eat this every dinner. I would try breakfast oats but she wasn’t interested.

 

At six months of age she could sit fully upright, unaided. This is when I started giving her solid foods. To start off it was boiled broccoli to the point it was mush in her mouth. The we started moving to different foods. Which I will list below. Indie doesn’t eat puree now. I try over and over to give it to her because I feel that it would fill her up more and she wouldn’t require her “dream feed” bottle. However she refuses to eat it and then I think well I’m not giving you a dream feed and then up I’m at 1 am rocking, patting, humming, warming up another bloody bottle because she won and woke hungry. If I dream feed her around 9pm she will sleep through (most nights).

 

Indie is now 7.5 months more 8 mths old. Below are a list of things she eats and what age I gave them.

 

            AT SIX MONTHS OLD – UNDER STRICT      SUPERVISION

PUREED

Broccoli

Cauliflower

Sweet Potato

Carrots

BOILED

Broccoli

Cauliflower

Oats – very messy.

STEAMED

Zucchini

Apples

Pears

            AT SEVEN MONTHS OLD – ALL OF ABOVE

BAKED

Wholemeal pancakes from Sophie Guidolin

Egg custard – no sugar

Homemade banana bread. Made w/ Greek Yoghurt no sugar.

Pumpkin

Sweet Potato “chips”

Quiche

Lasagna

BOILED

Eggs

Corn on Cob

Peas

Mashed Potatos

Cous Cous

STEAMED

Sweet potato

Carrots

Strips of chicken

Rice

COOKED

Toast w/ Nuttelex sometimes she’ll have pure peanut utter with nothing else mixed in.

Home made chicken patties with vegetables

Lamb chop – revolting but loved it.

Mince – chicken or beef.

Pasta

Steak strips – I get worried of this.

Salmon

Corn Frittas

BBQ Chicken

FRIDGE

Yoghurt

Watermelon

Strawberries

Banana

Avocado

Cheese – Shredded

Dates

Tomatos

Cucumber

Banana

 

She drinks her bottles and has water whenever she needs it. We don’t give her juice at all and it is rare Ivie or even Ayden has juice now.

 

Obviously she doesn’t really eat all of this in one go and she more of a taster and player than eater.

She doesn’t have sauces, sugar or creams. Her food is usually really bland and the basic version of what we’re having for dinner. For example, If we’re having burritos she’ll have plain mince, tomato, cheese, cucumber and capsicum. All on her highchair table and she’ll pick at it.

 

Its messy and frustrating because you never really know how much she actually eats.

I recommend learning about choking vs gagging. I also think its critical to learn how to help a choking baby. Read, watch, listen and educate your self. Enrolling yourself into a baby first aid class would be beneficial for a lot of things not just choking.

 

I’m not a dietician. I’m not a health nurse. I’m just a mum who is feeding her baby the way I choose to. Whole foods for baby is daunting and scary for some people. Ask for help off a professional on how you can start.

 

Everything Indie eats is cut into fingers. So she can easily grab them and hold onto them. I wouldn’t personally feed her anything that cant be mushed by her gums.

 

            THINGS I DON’T FEED BABY

 

GRAPES –  I would only give grapes to a toddler if cut length ways. I wouldn’t give them to a baby as they worry me because they’re so small and slippery even cut. 

HARD BEANS – Beans that are super slippery and can potentially just slip down.

CHERRY TOMATOES – Same as grapes they scare me.

NUTS – Whole nuts Scare me. She eats them crushed in cooked food but now whole.

 

Anything you don’t feel comfortable with don’t do. I’m actually petrified of choking. I was a choker. I still remember my dad fishing things out of my mouth whole. It has scared me so I’m super cautious.

I think I was more worried with Ivie when I first started feeding her whole foods.

 

Things that are handy to have when starting whole foods.

Easy to clean highchair.

Bibs that can stick to high chair table – saves so much mess! Check out by clicking the link below.

You can buy suction plates and bowls. Just so they don’t throw them off the high chair table.

Plastic mats that can sit under the highchair so you’re not forever washing your floor

 

Do they eat pre-packaged food? Sure. As long as you look at the ingrediants I don’t think there is a problem. Making sure its as close to natural ingredients is always good. Even though there has been a spike in contaminated pre packaged foods it doesn’t really deter me. I think its becoming such an issue because they’re taking out so many chemicals.