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For those of you who have good eaters...

Did you use home made food in the beginning or jars?



DS is almost 6 months, weaning since 15 weeks. Doing great.



I brought a few Ella pouches as i had run out of his food (homemade) and wasnt do a big shop for a few more days. Anyway he loves them and im happy to see they are actually 100% veg/meat. I have to say, it seems so easy! Im kinda swaying towards not making him any more batches of home made and just letting him have these pouches until he is on our food... he is doing great with finger foods, already experimenting with sandwiches and the like so it wont be long before he is eating our food mashed up i.e. cottage pie, spag bog, sunday dinner etc.



BUT i feel guilty. My dd had home made has had home made food all her life, never had a jar and she is a FANTASTIC eater. I dont want to make the mistake of going onto these pouches and end up with a fussy bum!



Making a batch of food usually takes a good 3 hours.. but now i will be moving onto actually recipes (i.e. meats etc) it will take a lot longer and as he is a big boy the batches don't last very long image



So basically shall i stop been lazy (lol) and make him a batch or are these Ella Pouches perfectly ok??? Anyone raised a good eater on these??



Thank you!!



UPDATE



Hey girls, cant work out how to update the title.



Anyway, I did what I said I was going to do and started introducing ds to our foods. He has done amazing I am so so proud of him! He is 6 months and 1 week now. So far he has tried sunday dinners, cottage pie, curries, spag bog and tonight he had chicken casserole with rice and garlic bread. I haven't been pureeing I have just been finely chopping and he LOVES it. I always make some for the next day or the freezer too if plenty is left so he is only having an Ella pouch once a week pretty much!



Just wanted to thank you for the suggestion of doing this it's working so well, he is loving it and it saves me the 4 hour cooking slog every few weeks image xx
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Replies

  • Hi love



    Alex is a great eater and has always had home cooked meals, but that's not to say he wouldnt be had I given him jars x



    I don't think you should feel guilty, with another LO to look after if its more convenient for you and he likes them then I say go for it, if he is progressing quickly onto finger foods he won't be long before he is onto what you are eating so it will only be for the short time in between x and I doubt it will create a fussy eater if he is getting sandwiches and things x



    I think us mummy's find it too easy to be hard on ourselves, and let's remember that jars or food, and especially the ella's pouches aren't poison x x



    good luck with whatever you decide x x
  • Personally, I have never and wouldn't ever give my LO pouches/jars (though I know some people think this is OTT!!!!). I know the Ellas Kitchen ones have 'no added junk' but they still can't compare to frsh, homecooked meals. If you think it won't be long till your LO will be eating the same meals as you perhaps it'd be worth persevering with the homecooked meals till then?
  • DS1 ate quite a few pouches from the Plum and Ella's kitchen range.

    And I have started stocking up again for ds2.



    I do make homecooked food and ds1 eats anything put in front of him (with the exception of alphabet spag' and shapes in sauces)!!



    You do what you feel is right, you are busy and the food is good for them, sometimes better than my homecooking!! haha!!!!

    If your making homecooked food, then save a portion back for him for the next day and he can have that? If it is something he can't have, then give him a pouch. xx
  • ellas ones are fine. they offer such a variety you couldnt do that at home! it would cost a fortune for a start. why not mix them wth homemade food? if people look at you like you are scum for giving a child a pouch (which unbelievably some poeple do!), question their child's milk! thats what ive done with "oh ive NEVER given my daughter shop bought food!" well ive never given my child formula :lol: obviously not wanting to start a debate here, just amazes me this person had the cheek to say that to others when she "didnt have time to breastfeed"! image
  • I've only been weaning for a few weeks but I don't plan to give any jars or pouches. I dont eat ready meals so I don't plan to give my lo any. I have a rule that if I wouldnt eat it I cant expect lo to eat it and ready made baby food looks, smells and tastes like barf to me! It only takes a few minutes for me to whip up a batch for lo and I'm on maternity leave stuck in the house with all this snow so I don't have much else to be getting up to lol! I don't think its a biig deal either way but this is the decision I have made.
  • Hmmmm i feel guilty for even thinking about it now so this hasnt helped but thanks anyway. x
  • My ds had pretty much all home cooked food with a very occasional Ella's pouch (never had a jar) - and he's a fussy eater!

    I'm sure giving pouches for a little while won't make him fussy - I might be a bit concerned that he wasn't getting much variety if you do just stick to the Ella's ones (although they would be my preferred ones), but there do seem to be more flavours now than when ds was little - if you keep giving bits of finger foods alongside them though he'll get more variety. I know he's a day older than my dd so he's 6 months next week and can have pretty much anything then - so it's only a short term measure isn't it.

    I've bought a few of the Ella's pouches to keep in for dd for when we go out - I'd rather give her that than incorrectly re-heated homemade puree.
  • Hi



    I cant believe the replies on here sometimes, its shocking!



    Well personally i have a brilliant eater, literally eats anything and he basically had ella kitchen/plum stage 1 and organix steam cooked pots stage 2. I did the same as you and introduced finger foods and sandwiches and he was on our food from 8/9 months. So come on we're talking 3/4 months, in the grand scheme of things its nothing and my lo loved them.

    With regards to the comment about not giving lo ready meals because you dont eat them ummmm i wouldnt really want to eat a defrosted ice cube probably without much variety because made in batches.



    XX
  • OMG I gave my opinion. Its my baby and I'll say what I am doing with him. I never said it was bad to give jars or pouches in fact I said it wasn't a big deal but I don't want to do. I don'tn give my baby ice cubes. I heat them up first and I test everything before giving it my baby. People do different things with thier babies. Get over it! There is no need to be shocked.
  • DD is a great eater, she had mostly home made food but the occasional pouch or jar. Personally, I wouldn't use them as a sole food source as they are much blander than my cooking. However, on odd occassions where giving home made food is impractical or impossible - a lot of restaurants won't heat home made food for example - I think they're fine.



    I have never cooked just for the baby - I don't cook with salt so have always just scooped off a bit of whatever veg we are having or taken some of the roast chicken from sunday lunch and given that to him. He wasn't interested in finger food to start so I'd blitz, say, some broccoli, some chicken and the carrot and swede mash froma sunday lunch and freeze in separate cubes, do this wheneveryouhave a suitable food and you soon get a stash of foods you can mix and match. If in doubt, freeze cubes of salt free home made cheese sauce and put cheese sauce on things!



    At 8 months he's pretty much on family food already - last night we had herby pork chops with carrot and swede mash for me, potato mash for DH/DD, peas, sugarsnaps and mangetout. DS had sticks of pork and whole sugarsnaps to chomp, then lightly blitzed pork and pea mush and potato, carrot and swede mash, both thick enough to stay put on the spoon so he could feed himself with a preloaded spoon. He's been having suitably salt-free home cooked meals from 6 months,like cottage pie. I also make my own garlic bread and he loves having strips of that to chew on if we have pizza etc.



    I'm sure most of your family meals are likewise adapatable, especially if you are already cooking for a toddler, so why not give him family foods whenever you can and opt for a pouch if you're having something unsuitable?
  • Maenad makes some great suggestions there, and that is exactly what we have done for my DD. We also have a three tiered steamer, so if I was steaming rice for a curry for our tea I would fill the rest of it up with fruit and veg for DD and you soon build up a stash. We started off just combining various fruits and veg for a meal, and then moved onto mashed / finely chopped family meals at about 7 months. However, she is recovering from a stomach bug at the moment so I've gone back to just giving cereal, fruit and veg for a few days before I reintroduce meat and dairy.



    Although she has mainly had home cooked food, I have given the odd pouch / jar (but she did seem unimpressed with them)for various reasons. And they won't hurt, there is no need to feel guilty about giving them.
  • I give LO mainly home cooked food, with the exception of jars if I'm out and about. She is certainly not a fussy eater (at the moment) but I do think all babies go through phases.



    I think you need to do what is right for you. I have one friend who only gave her baby home cooked food and one that only gave her jarred food from 6 - 10 months (god shock horror for all you judgemental mums). Both girls are 18 months now and they are both fine and love food.



    Home cooked food isn't that hard - I don't find it takes 3 hours in all honesty. I do a little bit twice a week when I'm cooking our dinner. This week LO has:

    Cheesy spinach and corguette pasta bake

    Salmon, pea and broccoli puree

    Turkey dinner with veggies

    Chicken with butternut squash risotto

    I think it's quite fun to cook them though. It's certainly improved my diet.
  • My son refuses any jars or pouches and I find it a bit knackering at times because like you say, making a batch of food is time consuming and (at least for me bloody messy, lol) plus at any time I only have about 5-6 different frozen meals in my freezer which must get very boring. So if you want to go down the jar/pounch route I can fully understand it, especiall with 2 LOs. But I would probably make sure he had some other non processed food in the day too, like ready brek for breakfast and some finger foods. But don't beat yourself up over it, it'll only be a few weeks until he's on your food x
  • I mostly cook my own food, but occasionally if we're out and about she will have a pouch. Like others have said, I don't find it takes too long to cook stuff up. I made some cauliflower cheese last night whilst I was cooking our dinner - steamed the cauli over our rice and whipped up the cheese sauce in 5 mins. That's six meals in the freezer ready.
  • Can't believe almsost every post on here turns into a debate.



    Can i just say that is why i rarely comment in 'baby'.



    There is no right or wrong way to bring up baby. NO mother on this forum is an expert. We all do different things because we don't have the same children - all babies/children are different and have different needs.



    We are here to chat and offer advice if it is asked for. No one should be made to feel guilty for their actions of thoughts.
  • Why do so many threads need to turn into a debate?



    Can I just say this is why I rarely comment in baby!



    NO mother on here is an expert in bringing up children. All babies are different with different needs, so it is obvious that we all need to do different things - isn't it?



    We are here to chat and offer advice - defo shouldn't be preaching!! (not everyone)



    Nobody should be made to feel guilty for their actions or thoughts. We know our own babies, not each others!
  • Hey xMrsNoNamex



    My daughter is now 10 and a half months. I have a massive guilt and weird negative association with feeding her jars, I would literally look around me in the supermarket to see if anyone was judging me for even looking at those shelves! Someone mentioned ready meals I think, and that's exactly what it feels like to me.



    BUT my husband, ever the voice of reason is helping me to get over the guilt! And my LO will often have jars during the week now.





    I don't have much room in the freezer so she never has a huge variety of meals in there but at the same time she's very good at just eating chopped up to manageable sizes of our food and has been for some time so that does help when we're having a suitable meal. The trouble is she has never had a huge appetite so the HV suggested 2 'proper' meals a day rather than sandwich etc to make sure she gets her nutrition and I was finding it really stressful trying to get 2 homecooked meals a day for her. With PND, stuff like this really seems a big deal and I was struggling. So now she tends to have whatever we had the night before for her lunch and then a jar for dinner.



    I do still feel a tremendous guilt every time I feed her but often she'll wolf down a jar when she'll only nibble on something I've cooked (trying not take this personally!). Check the ingredients, there is NOTHING added to them so there is nothing bad in there. The only thing is that they often taste quite bland.



    Do it hun, it's not going to do him any harm, just mix them in with homecooked when you have something that can be suitably adapted for him.

    xxx
  • Can I just say that I don't think faithie was being judgemental OR turning anything into a debate. She was just saying what she was planning on doing. Frankly, I find the hysterical "ZOMG I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU DISAGREED THIS PLACE IS SUCH A MINEFIELD" type responses even more offputting than the simple stating of someone's opinion. If you don't like posting here because people are, gasp, honest, go and post somewhere else! Simples.
  • To the OP...huni don't listen to any of the nonsense some people have posted you don't have to feel guilty at all- think about it logically would companies really be able to sell pouches and jars if they were bad?Er no...if he is happy to have them occasionally then fab Mia had them (until she preferred to eat finger foods) but I wouldn't stress over it maybe when you make suitable foods for him put a few portions aside and mush them and freeze- I did/do this for Mia. Maybe things like Sunday dinner- with white meats, casseroles are easily blend-able and even mild curries- I added cream/yoghurt to Mia's portions so they were even milder. I personally think pouches are fab if your out and for a quicker option if your busy! xxxx
  • I began by feeding my lo purees that i made for first few weeks but then like you i found it bit time consuming and messy so I made decision to use pouches and try to use ones that were organic! (and they didnt taste too bad lol)



    Now my lo is 114months and he eats a mixture of home cooked foods and asda good for you meals (when am busy) as i work in evening so hubby gives him thgis and it quite healty.



    Think long as you offer variety lo will be fine,

    my neice used to eat everything but at the age of 3 which she is now she can be a bit fussy she wont eat anything green, says it mouldy!! Think it is just a stage!!! xx
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