[chickenpants]

Just to begin, Happy New Year!

I'm wanting to start my little dude on some real foods shortly, so I'm going to get myself sorted and make some purees to start with.

I'm trying to figure out how I want to go about things. I was initially thinking of making purees of singular veges/fruits (eg, pumpkin, sweet potato, peas, carrots, chicken & gravy, apple, pear, etc..) and then pouring them into icecube trays to make little individual servings of each so I can do them as separate fruit/veg or combine them to make up a meal as I feel like it.

Or, should I just make up some set meals and freeze them in larger portion sizes? (Larger as in a small container rather than in icecubes)
eg. Potato, peas, chicken | potato, pumpkin, carrot | peas, carrot, broccoli

This post has been edited by chickenpants: 01/01/2013, 09:48 AM

[tidey2]

While you're introducing foods I'd go with the ice cube tray. You can just pop out a cube at a time so there is no wastage until you get an idea of how much your little one will eat.

[katrina24]

Yep, I did the ice cube size too. I started with single ingredient veges(one cube at a time) and increased with their appetite. Once they had been eating single ingredient for a while I introduced combos by just mixing cubes together. It was a while before they started on meals (but both of mine started solids not long after 4 months so I imagine older bubs would progress quicker).

[Tesseract]

Babies do not, as a general rule, need puréed food. You can just feed them what you're eating. As long as what you're eating is not overly salty. The only things I avoid are raw carrots, raw apple and whole nuts because of the risk of chocking, basically everything else is fine. We did this was DD - put her in highchair, give her food (cut into long pieces at first so she can hold one end and eat the other), watch the fun. No extra preparing, no storing and no stress about intake because she controls it all. Look into baby-led weaning if you're interested.

[Just-one-more]

Babies do not, as a general rule, need puréed food. You can just feed them what you're eating. As long as what you're eating is not overly salty. The only things I avoid are raw carrots, raw apple and whole nuts because of the risk of chocking, basically everything else is fine. We did this was DD - put her in highchair, give her food (cut into long pieces at first so she can hold one end and eat the other), watch the fun. No extra preparing, no storing and no stress about intake because she controls it all. Look into baby-led weaning if you're interested.

Same here. We didn't do purees we just gave finger food from the time they were ready.

[Pooks*potters]

The ice cube idea is a really good one, you can mix and match for variety.

Sometimes babies don't eat much, some are variable in their appetites from day to day. So small portions are good, you can always quickly zap another cube if baby is still hungry, but you save the waste on bigger portions.

I found yoghurt and baby cereals to be very cost effective and went down well in those early days too. I just used Jalna full cream vanilla flavour, and I eat it too

[NotBitzerMaloney]

I did the purée thing for my DS, using the ice cube trays. Best thing ever.

With DD, I did the same in bulk quantities .... Which she has totally rejected in favour of finger food only. Annoying!

[KRT]

We did baby-led weaning too, but I did do purees/mashed to use as pasta 'sauce', or as fillings for sandwiches. I would freeze in icecube trays.

DS was a huge eater (everyone comments on it) and would eat two pieces of toast for breakfast, with 1-2 of those cheap Ikea bowls full for lunch and dinner.

Small servings are the way to go!