What makes good baby food?

[Mrs Jackson]

was thinking about wind too, is gripe water any good for that now theres no alcohol in it? was always good for knocking mine out lol

Not sure about gripe water, but Infacol's very good. It comes with a handy dropper built into the lid to make it easier to use. We didn't use anything with the toddler (who had the most revolting green slimy poo - probably from drinking fennel tea) but it's been fantastic for the baby.

Mrs J

[HeyWayne]

This is great - thanks for all the input!

[shirlthegirl43]

I recall my mum telling me that the first baby food when I was little was an egg. When our boys came along there was the big salmonella scare and I was advised not to feed eggs to them until they were 6 months old. The lasting result of this is that they still aren't the biggest egg eaters on the planet - which is a pain as a boiled egg and toast is my favourite quick meal!

[Hans Mum]

my DD loved parsnips pureed at first then mashed, and when a bit holder would eat roasted, she used to ask for "snarsnip chips" and its still one of her favourite veggies.
Every other sunday i used to spend a couple of hours cooking & purraying various veggies & fruits (whatever was in season) and freezing them in ice cubes then small tupperwear type containers and it lasted the fortnight and was so easy just to take out of the freezer as you needed it.

[HeyWayne]

Looks like we're gonna have to buy some ice cube trays - our fridge makes ice and the only ice cube trays we have are Gucci "G" shaped ones that LadyWayne was given for her birthday one year. They're a pain in the @rse to use!

[Pootle]

To be honest I got fed up of the ice cube thing and ended up buying small plastic pots with lids which took a whole portion and could be warmed up in the microwave (very carefully!). These also had the advantage of staying cold whilst defrosting slowly if we were out and about and so remaining fresh.

I think the ones we had were Tommy Tippee - not sure if you can still get them...

[BarleySugar]

Lakeland do some good ice cube trays, although they are more like ice balls than cubes. They turn out easily, I got mine from the internet, as it was cheaper than paying petrol to go to the nearest shop. I use mine more for herbs etc. Depending on what age the sprog is at weaning time though, you might need quite a number to get a portion.

Anyway, besides that when Lady Wayne gets to BF, if all goes well with it, she should be aware that even a simple change like the water, could affect the sprog. I delayed weaning son No1 as we were going to holiday in Yorkshire for 2 weeks when he was 4 months. Thought it would be easy, no meals to prepare, sterilising to do etc. We booked a cottage complete with washing machine and tumble drier, as he was in terry nappies, disposables at that time were chlorine bleached, which gave him a dreadful sore bottom. Another less well publicised benefit of BF babies is that a number produce less dirty nappies. He only used to 'go' once every 4 days.
Imagine my horror once he started going 4-5 times a day, bright yellow and liquid (sorry for the graphic description) smelt too! Every time he went I had to change him immediately because he leaked out the leg of the plastic pants. One day we were out and I wore a white skirt. As I was nursing him disaster struck!. We had to cut short our day out. I was eating the same type of food as normal, the only differece we could think of was the water. He wasn't 'ill', very happy etc, he wasn't bothered at all!

[trebellangeminired]

Buy cheap ones as I had to cut them up to get them in the steriliser.

TGR

[lynda66]

Buy cheap ones as I had to cut them up to get them in the steriliser.

TGR

i never sterilised anything once weaning started, only his bottles, would have driven me nuts lol

mind you, my sister was a clean freak, and bleached the whole house once a week, and sterilised everything till her kids were about a year old ...... guess who's kids were always ill? mine was never ill, as he built up a germ tolerence ..... hers are all asthmatic, and had grommets, and loads of other infections when they were little. she always had the central heating on full blast too, i've never used mine.

[MrsC]

I only sterilised bottles too, one of those steam sterilisers did the trick and really quick too

[sharonr]

When both of my boys were old enough to eat mashed up food we would cook their food in a seperate saucepan to ours with no salt on a Sunday.
Spuds, carrot, peas, runnerbeans etc were all cooked together then mashed-up. Meat and gravy were added then put into seperate plastic tubs and put into the freezer to be taken out the morning of use and reheated in a saucepan later for tea.
Both of them love all veg now, one even likes brussel sprouts (something I can never eat.)
When they got older we just chopped the veg up insted of mashing.
You can do the same thing but use a steamer to keep more flavour in.

[MrsC]

do you have a smoothie maker, you can puree some great things in there, fruit, veg etc