[livvie7586]

Over the past few years there has been controversy over ready made baby food jars containing things they shouldn't etc but has this put anyone off? I have to admit I was working full time when my boys were tiny so it was a form of massive convenience for me. I made the effort of choosing organic. Nonetheless it has left me feeling a little guilty that I should have made my own!

i fed mine jars and didn't even have the excuse of working.

DS would not touch homemade, and then started dropping right off the charts, so it was a case of getting him to eat whatever we could. DD i was in the habit of buying jars for DS, so just continued the same way.

if we ever have a third i'll probably try to make my own, but i would never feel guilty for feeding my child a jar of baby food

[vitaechel]

I also made my own and froze it. But I also had a few organic "just in case" back ups as DS got older. I don't think it's something to feel guilty about. I think we, as parents, do the best we can in our own given circumstances.

[JBaby]

We did blw but I was pretty excited to discover the rafferty's meal pouches when dd was about 8 months. We go away about 2 weekends a month and they have been so handy for those times.

I'm really not worried about a little commercial food when I know the other 80-90% of of meals are heathy

[skylark]

Made my own. I don't think he ever had anything out of a packet, although I used to curse the fact that he wouldn't eat avocado or banana, since they were such easy to transport instant meal options. I did do only organic for his first foods/tastings of each vegetable. I found that organic veges from our local organic supplier were more flavoursome, so I wanted his first tastes of everything to be the best possible. It wasn't economically viable for us to continue with all organic beyond that, but I do think it gave him a great start. It was a simple equation for me, because we eat little packaged and processed food in our household, so it didn't make any sense to me to feed my child those foods. If your lifestyle and household diet is based around a larger proportion of packaged or processed foods, then it makes more sense to me to use pre-made baby foods.

[TheGreenSheep]

I did a mix of both.

[neddyteddy]

I made most of the 'baby food' I do batches and freeze it. She won't eat many of the commercial options and the ones she does like have apple as the main ingredient so they are not exactly nutrition packed! I don't like the idea that things are heated to such high temps that they loose their nutritional value...

[bjk76]

DS (13 months) has never had any packaged meals/pouches - like PPs I just cooked up some vegies/pasta sauce, pureed and froze. In terms of processed foods, he's had baby cereals, although went off them for a few months, bread, rice cakes (Aldi's don't have any additives), cheese and salt-reduced baked beans. I try to avoid too much commercially produced food as like a PP, I want DS to develop a taste for the real thing.

[Majeix]

I always made my own. My first daughter only ate pures for a few days before insiting on finger food only so i used to rest of the frozen pured vegetables as a spread for her. Pumpkin etc spread on bread etc. Dd2 did baby led weaning so we just cooked and froze vegetable sticks etc so it was just as easy too make our own.

[Lokum]

We didn't use commercial baby food at all

But I didn't exactly 'make' baby food. We did BLW so we just gave him food - simple ingredients simply cooked at the beginning (like rissoles or chops and single vegetables.) Then later more complex things like spag bol, chicken ristto, caseeroles etc. But not pureed pasta... that makes me gag to think about. (Mind you, I have got shocking m/s and gag about most things!)

We never really pureed anything, except hummus and lentil soup - but that's what we were having anyway!

If I did already use commercial food in the past, I certainly wouldn't feel guilty about it. Unless it was because I was drunk? Gambling? Out partying and couldn't be bothered?

But if it was a decision based on convenience/taste/seemed like a good idea.... then who cares? I'm sure the children are fine now, so it's really of no great significance.