BLS and table food?

[@llli*joshuas.mommy]

Hi, I've got a 5 month old DS and am planning on starting solids in the next month or so. We'd like to do BLS and skip the purees. I already gave him a banana to suck on and he seemed to love it! My question is for when he's older and starts to eat what we eat. I've heard babies can only have a very small amount of salt, less than 400mg per day according to the Baby-Led Weaning book. That's fine when he's just getting fruits and veggies, but what about when he gets to be 8 or 9 months and is supposed to be eating what we eat? I'm ashamed to admit, my husband and I don't eat very healthy. A lot of frozen dinners and take-out. We both work full-time and are too busy or tired to cook a home cooked meal every night. When I do cook, I tend to use a lot of premade sauces and stuff (spaghetti sauce, curry sauces) and I've noticed those have a fair amount of sodium in them. I'm wondering if this will be a big problem when it comes to baby-led solids. Is it okay to just let DS have some of whatever we're going to be having, figuring that he'll eat such a small portion it won't really have that much salt in it? Can I ask the restaurant to make stuff without added salt? Can I give him small portions of premade sauces? If BLS is going to mean that I have to revamp what we do for dinner every night, cooking everything from scratch without added sodium, then I don't think it will work for us and we'll probably have to do the usual, baby-food thing instead, which I would rather not. I'm willing to make some adjustments to what we eat, such as ordering things without added salt, choosing items on the menu that are likely to be lower in salt, and trying to buy spaghetti sauces and other sauces that are lower sodium but making everything from scratch every night just isn't gonna happen. Any advice?

[@llli*still.here]

With BLS, especially in the early days, when people say they give the baby what they're eating they usually mean they give the baby parts of their meal that are appropriate for the baby.

So with things like pasta you can pull the pasta out before you put the sauce on it. Same with rice. Maybe drizzle a little olive oil or a touch of butter or parmesan cheese. When they are a little older and are eating more foods sauces are not a problem. If the ones you are using have a lot of sodium, either look for versions with less or only use a tiny bit on baby's portion.

I used a lot of frozen veggies (still do), which are quick and easy and healthy. I toss frozen broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, edamame, etc in olive oil, a little salt and pepper and roast them in the oven for 20 minutes. Honestly, it couldn't be easier and they are delicious. You can do something similar as a stir fry. I'm talking cut the bag open with scissors and dump the contents into a skillet, stir it around a while and you're done.

In the very early days you are going to want to keep to single ingredients, so it's a matter of baking a sweet potato (just stick it in the oven for an hour or in the microwave for 5 minutes). Or slicing up fruit into french fry shaped pieces. Or making whole wheat toast and cutting it into strips. Let baby nom on those while you eat dinner, that can happen at home or out at the restaurant.

So really, especially in the early days there isn't much cooking involved. And what you do cook, you can always save in baby-size portions for tomorrow when you want to go out to eat or have a frozen dinner.

[@llli*esthervegan]

if you and your husband both work full time, that means your baby does not have unrestricted access to your milk. it may make more nutritional sense to therefore have healthy home made purees available while he is in day care.

[@llli*phi]

Frozen veggies are a snap. You can mix roasted or steamed veggies with rice or toss with pasta, a little olive oil and grated parmesan cheese. My son would also gnaw on peices of tomato, lettuce, and even raw onion out of salads.

Keep in mind that whether you do BLS or purees, eventually your baby will be eating what you eat. You might consider looking now for some quick, healthy meals for the whole family. I make a big pot of sauce, soup, stew, etc. on the weekends and freeze a bunch of servings for 2-3 so we have homemade frozen dinners the nights that I work.

[@llli*djs.mom]

I think the easiest thing to do is to give your baby whole real foods. So as far as re-vamping goes buy only whole real foods for your baby and the stuff that isn't that don't feed him. So I would never ever give him ANYTHING from a TV dinner. But when shopping, shop the perimeter just for him. We eventually made the switch completely because it was important to us a family to set a good eating example. But initially my DH was not on board with that so we just bought enough fruit and veggies for the baby. I was cutting up all fresh fruit and string cheese for lunches. And then Quesadeas and yogurt. Then rice and beans. Which we would make on Sunday and keep in Tuppis in the fridge all week and warm up as needed for meals. My son at whole beans and brown rice every day of his life pretty much until he started Kindergarten. We added in Shredded Chicken around 9 months but no beef OR pork until his 1st b-day. The salt thing is only until one. It's not that hard. Because portion wise they eat so little at this point.

[@llli*magnoliahoney]

I agree with the other posters.

1) pull babies out first.
2) baby isn't going to be eating whole servings, so babies serving won't have that much.
3) It would make good sense all the way around to learn to cook quick healthy things.

I can tell you spaghetti sauce is super super easy to make. I am not trying to be condenscending but it truly is one of those things I don't understand buying. All you need to do is buy tomato sauce (all tomato, no added stuff), add a spoon of sugar, garlic (can be powdered), onion (I get prechopped frozen), and basil. I add greek seasoning for extra zest. But, mine has more . flavor then jarred sauce so I'm not sure, if you are used to bland stuff may not want the extra flavor.

What I do, is make a lot of things on weekends. For ground beef (like I would add to spaghetti sauce) I use a big pot, and put a huge amount of ground beef (I'm talking warehouse store size) in with water, stir it around so that it mixes with the water. This makes it easy to brown the beef and keep it crumbly, instead of sticking together. Boil it and you barely have to stir it. When it's done I put it in a colander, and divide it up into freezer bags. Then just grab a freezer bag of it. And add that to the sauce I said above (you can do this the night before) put it in a crock pot in the fridge, and in the morning take it out put it in the heating element, turn it on and when you get home you have spaghetti. Do tacos the same way, put all your seasonings in there, put the ground beef in the pot, throw it in in the morning, done when you get home.

Get to know your crock pot, makes healthy cooking FAST and easy!

[@llli*still.here]

if you and your husband both work full time, that means your baby does not have unrestricted access to your milk. it may make more nutritional sense to therefore have healthy home made purees available while he is in day care.

I don't understand how the parents' work status has anything to do with how you feed solids. Why would a baby need purees just because mom is working?

My husband and I both work and we did BLS with both of our kids.

[@llli*joshuas.mommy]

OK, so what I'm getting from what everyone is saying is that I don't necessarily have to feed DS the exact same stuff I feed us for dinner? I didn't realize that, thought part of the point of BLS was for baby to take part in family meals. I can see how you can just remove the baby's portion of pasta, rice, etc. before adding sauce/seasoning. That should work pretty well.

I do realize I need to learn how to cook healthier in general. I do have a few quick go-to meals that are pretty healthy (chili, lentil soup, steak or chicken with sauteed veggies). It would be better for all of us to eat that way more consistently. Glad to hear spaghetti sauce is so easy to make--have never tried it. Thanks again for everyone's input.

[@llli*joshuas.mommy]

if you and your husband both work full time, that means your baby does not have unrestricted access to your milk. it may make more nutritional sense to therefore have healthy home made purees available while he is in day care.

?? I pump milk for baby while I'm at work. Luckily, I have an abundant supply, so pumping enough is never an issue. My mom watches him for me during the day and gives him bottles on demand whenever he seems hungry, and she is pretty good at reading his cues. So he still has unrestricted access to my milk, just not straight from the tap. I suppose once he starts solids she will probably give him solids during the day, also. What does that have to do with giving purees, anyway? Didn't understand the point you're trying to make.

[@llli*djs.mom]

THe idea behind is to let youe child control their intake. In the same way they have been as breastfed babies. So by giving them solids vs. purrees you are allowing them to control what and how much they eat. So they continue to self regulate. And generally as part of that they participate in the ritual of meal time. But it does not have to be exactly what you are eating. Only the parts that they can eat safely. And due to their liver not being able to process salt, processed foods should be part of the intial equation. I think most of us pulled solids out of what we were making and kept healthy staples around specfically for them so that they could participate in the ritual and still eat whole healthy foods.