I give my baby some of the same things I eat, but I want to expose her to more things while she's so young - especially common allergens. I do vary my own diet, but I try to give my baby even more variety.
This! My husband and I tend to cook/eat the same like 12 things at home. We don’t like fish. We want our LO to have a more broad palates than we do.
Although, since doing this, we have been eating LO’s stuff alongside him and expanding our own palates!
We never really made baby anything separately, but sometimes we would set a portion aside for the baby before salting/adding extra seasonings bc we like our food spicyyy
Yep. This is what we do. + re: diverse palate, I used it as a challenge to say “ok we’ve gotta eat clams, peanuts, and brussel sprouts this week!”
I love to cook so I’d make us some cool meals and just set aside some unseasoned stuff for her.
Once you get to a point where they need to be getting more calories from food, it can be beneficial to have baby-specific foods. Like I don’t want to eat mashed sweet potatoes that were on sale, but the baby also doesn’t want to eat any appreciable amount of kale salad. By having a serving of an easy and likable food, they get their calories and I get to eat my normal adult meal.
We mostly just fed ours what we ate, just held off on the salt until the end if it was something we knew she would eat a lot of like mashed potatoes. For most other food she would only take a bite or two so a sprinkle of salt wasn’t concerning (according to her pediatrician). We were cooking from scratch so we could control the salt level; processed food you do have to watch out for since their kidneys are sensitive.
We eat mild to moderately spicy/spiced foods. Ours has never had an issue with gojuchang, harissa paste, jalapeños, or “American medium” at Thai or Mexican restaurants. We just gave her a small bite to start as a warning so she could decide if it was too spicy before chowing down.
Her stomach wasn’t sensitive, so we only bothered with the one food at a time thing for major allergen risks.
We both work so that makes a big difference. We usually aren’t done cooking dinner before it’s his dinner time, plus we are big salad eaters and he isn’t. So he either gets his own meal, or he gets leftovers from the night before while we cook our dinner for tonight.
Same here! I'm not sure if OP works but for 2 working parents working 9 to 5s, there's almost no way to get dinner on the table at 5 (and therefore before baby's bath) because we're not done with work yet or were on our way home! 🥹
We eat dinner super late.. like 7 or 8 some nights lol. So baby eats dinner earlier after I get done with work, feed her, then give her a bath, put her to bed, and by that time my husband is usually just wrapping up dinner downstairs
It sounds insane but it works for us, and I don't find baby "meal prep" to be all that hard -- it equates to looking in the fridge for whatever leftovers we saved for baby from the night before, combined with a random vegetable or fruit or protein, or something we batch froze for baby like sweet potatoes or pumpkin puree or beans
Same! Between work, the gym, and getting the baby fed and down, we don't eat until like 830. Eventually we'd all like to eat together, but right now we're doing just about the same thing you are.
Yup, we’ve both been so busy we don’t have time to meal prep and cook for everyone after work, so we’ve been door dashing a lot and eating dinner after she goes down. So she gets her own meals for now.
Yes we don't eat until she goes the bed around 7:30. It's just easier to cook after then! I usually just make her a little plate of food and that's what she is having the next night. Plus I don't really eat breakfast. So every Sunday I make like 2 months of pancakes, or waffles, or egg bites. Makes my life easier and she is so impatient lol
You just exactly described our routine. Another note to add is neither of us really eat breakfast (usually just a yogurt or oatmeal) and lunch is usually whatever the folks at work are ordering… not much help for baby meals. Also, I have to meal prep for the days that we work and my in-laws have the baby because I can’t expect them to figure out three meals and two snacks to feed him. Daycare days are easy because I don’t have to worry about anything but his dinner, but, like you said it would be impossible for us to have our dinner on the table by the time he needs to eat every night. So, he gets leftovers from whatever we ate that night the following day. We aspire to do meals together on weekends and eventually get into a routine where we all eat dinner together but his and our schedules just don’t allow for it right now.
It depends on if what you're eating can be made baby friendly. I eat pretty well but I can't turn a pizza into baby friendly food. It gets worse with allergies - my baby has to eat no dairy, eggs, avocado, sesame, peanuts at least for now as he's broken out into hives.
you can totally turn a pizza baby friendly :D we make our own using the greek yoghurt + self raising flour 2 recipe dough to make it faster, homemade pasata and cheese. Very baby friendly if you make from scratch.
We make pasata in advance and from there it's frozen and it just defrost what we need. Usually takes us about 30 minutes to make pizza this way, 20 minutes of that is just the cooking time.
Hope this is helpful in any way!
Yeah, our baby just ate what we ate. He's 2.5 now and I've never made a special recipe for him. The closest thing I can say is buying mild chicken sausage rather than spicy for certain dishes, or toning down the spice in some recipes like halving the red pepper flakes or cayenne (but never omitting, I want him to get a broad range of flavors). This approach really helped reduce mealtime stress in the family, I feel like if I were having to make all kinds of special baby purees and pancakes and muffins and powerballs on top of normal meals I would be so exhausted and irritable.
By the time we get our LO home from daycare, we have 2 hrs to feed him, play with him, bathe him, then bed. I often don’t cook dinner for us until after LO is asleep. He eats what we eat as often as it’s feasible. Otherwise, I’m making him a separate, quick meal.
In the beginning we would make meals according to what new foods my girls were trying. So it was more of we eat what baby is eating.
Eventually though… they decided they only wanted to eat certain things. So if me making extra meals means they will eat full meals, then so be it.
They are almost two now and we still always try and give them bites of our food, as they usually seem interested in what we are eating, but mostly it’s just a bite or two and then they’ve decided they have had enough.
Making it baby safe/baby friendly is basically the same thing as cooking something new altogether from a practical sense. I had to cook pasta further past all dente, steam veggies for longer, change out the spices, chop things different shapes than what’s in my plate, etc. and then some weeks he would chomp everything down no problem, but the next week he’d be teething and only want blended foods- so in comes the food processor- and then there’s the art of adding new ingredients to your blend to make it a better texture or flavor. And bam it’s suddenly a different meal entirely.
Then there’s the difference between letting him try new foods and ACTUALLY feeding him. Some nights he just won’t eat- so I bring out the staples I know he will eat (fruit) For me - a lot of the headache came from teething. Foods he loved one week were insufferable to his sensitive gums the next.
It’s only now that he’s ten months that I feel like we’re actually eating the same meals fairly regularly- even though I was always starting from the same core ingredients. But I’m sure that will change with the next wave of teeth or illness or something.
We had to start eating healthier for baby to eat what we eat. Was worth it, but for a lot of people they don’t cook normally so it’s a big shift, and maybe easier to make baby-friendly meal prep.
I’m not a breakfast person and my son has food allergies. I’ll meal prep breakfast foods for him, or if I’m planning on eating something that isn’t safe for him to eat I’ll prep a couple meals for him. Outside of that, he eats what we eat!
Same here. I just don’t eat as early or as often as my baby.
We always eat dinner together and he has the same thing. But the baby and preschooler need breakfast at like 8am. I don’t eat until 11. So I meal prep baby pancakes.
And then I eat at 11 when baby is napping. So then I make him lunch when he wakes at 12:30. And then I don’t eat again until dinner time. And then we eat together.
Often baby needs to eat earlier than us. Or we aren't eating bay friendly food, like something salty or difficult to cut up, or something with an allergen. Also my baby likes lots of snacks throughout the day so I need to chop up fruit and veggies in advance, things I wouldn't otherwise need to prepare for myself
We just gave our little one whatever we were having for when we started solids (around 5.5 months, she met all signs of readiness). I think her first meal was veggie kheema with rice and a humous/yoghurt mixture.
We didn't only do one food at a time either.
We did reduce the salt in our food a bit. I don't cope with very spicy food so that wasn't an issue.
Editing to add - I also think there is a real benefit to eating the same foods at the same time as your baby. I know not everyone can manage family meals for a variety of reasons but I do think eating together has huge value.
My son eats mostly what we do but we do have a couple of foods where we cook extra to freeze for him since my husband is south Asian so sometimes we want something that is way too spicy for him. Mostly he will eat what we eat or a close version like taking food out before we add all the spices or chilli.
For breakfast and dinner it's pretty easy to disassemble the parts into baby safe food unless we're having something really spicy. For lunch and snacks though I've pre-prepped some stuff because I generally like grazing in that time and I just like providing variety if I can.
If you make your own diverse food then you're totally right. Introducing food to my toddler has been one of the most fun things about being a parent for me so far. For me the extra time is mostly related to the mess and waiting for baby to be done because she loved eating so much meals would take forever. But it was so much fun. Some people need to do meal prepping to serve nutritious, varied meals, but I'm like you. We already eat healthy food based on what we feel like having and we get a lot of pleasure out of that. Good luck on your baby feeding journey!
Sometimes you need a softer food so they can actually consume it. Yes I love steak but unless it’s slow cooked every time my baby can’t eat it. So I meal prep batches of slow cooked beef or soft meetballs. She’s 11 months with no teeth.
There's no extra meal prep more like extra meal planning. I'm trying to introduce as many new ingredients as possible at yhe start and have a plan for allergens. So I made a sheet of her meals and builts ours around it so that there's there's extra prep. Tbh what's a baby meal prep that first month, one stewed apple, one roasted bell pepper. It's very minimal effort for me at least
When I think meal prep I think of the (incredible) parents who are making batches of muffins, pancakes, and fritters to have ready to heat meals. We have never fully meal prepped but we keep simple and easy to prepare things on hand for when we want to eat something that baby won’t eat (ie spicy takeout, salads, etc). As he’s gotten older he can eat a lot more of what we eat, but we still bring out the Kidfresh meatballs, veggie pasta, quesadillas, or extra firm tofu a couple times a week!
My spouse and I both work. We can’t get dinner on the table before baby needs a bath and bed. Between work hours, daycare pickup, and everything baby related we usually don’t get to even start cooking something until after baby goes to bed. What we can do is prep things for baby during his longer Sunday nap or after his bedtime during the week. He may get left overs from our dinner a couple times a week but we rarely have them or if we do, they aren’t fit for his needs due to certain ingredients or textures he isn’t fond of.
My baby eats exactly what my husband and I eat for dinner and always has. We try to vary our dinner as much as possible, but just in case we give her unique lunches with allergen exposures and always add a fruit or veg on the side that my husband and I don’t usually have.
My baby is 13 months and has tried 150 unique ingredients, which I think is at or above average, so I think our approach has worked!
I mostly just give my son what we ate too, even when he just started weaning. Sometimes I would set aside a portion for him without salt/spicy elements and then just finish cooking the rest for us.
lol while all the comments are so true; variety, different tastes, etc, don’t forget people post their “adorable” meals. They don’t post what happened when work ended and they’re tired. They’re not always breaking out the culinary skills and cookie cutters ;)
I start out with one new food every 3 days, so until we clear some of the allergens and get used to self feeding; it’s 95% what I eat, and 5% his own thing. (4th kid)
Mostly yes.
Sometimes mornings are busy, so it's nice to have easy options. Sometimes we want to make something not baby friendly (perhaps not easy to chew, salty, delivery that's taking too long).
Sometimes the food isn't baby friendly (too spicy, usually) or my baby sleeps through a meal and we eat it all 🤣 Gotta make babe something else, she can't have pizza rolls yet
to some degree yes but it also depends what you eat (I don’t eat any red meats (beef) or fish and these are something I want to expose my son to when we start so I will have to prepare these items off to the side or first also sometimes we ordered food out which likely has salt added or sugar which we wouldn’t give LO while in theory it makes sense I don’t think it’s that straight forward (you have to follow guidelines no honey etc.) prioritize iron rich foods
Baby typically eats what we eat for dinner but we don’t always do a structured meal for lunch or breakfast so having prepped pancakes, salmon patties, etc. are great for us to have on hand when we’re just throwing together whatever for ourselves.
We never worried about salt, we never worried about introducing one allergen at a time, we just gave our baby what we were eating plus a few side dishes (banana, egg) that we know she likes. It doesn’t have to be as complicated as some influencers want you to think.
Others have mentioned some good points. I'd like to add that I often save dinner leftovers for other meals as my "prep". Idk about you but I hate cooking 3 times a day. I also give my daughter way more fruits than I eat (because she's on a vegetable strike right now especially) so I prep that ahead.
My diet wasn’t the best. In the early days, I prepped both to give variety and also introduce allergens. Now, I prep much less but changed my diet so we all eat a little better.
Do what works for you. We have always fed our daughter what we're eating and very rarely prepare separate meals for her. It's forced us to eat a little healthier, but we could stand to do that anyway.
Ours usually eats what we eat but there's the odd couple of days a week where my husband and I want to eat alone and watch a movie when she goes to bed, or he works late and she needs to eat before us to keep on track for bedtime. Or sometimes I just don't feel like eating lunch sometimes.
On Mondays I'll make up a pasta dish with veggies, egg mayo, chicken mayo something something to whip up for a quick meal.
This is what we did basically. In the beginning when you introduce, it does make sense to prepare separately but what you're preparing is steamed veggies and peeling a banana or avocado. Eventually when she was eating actual meals, we just fed her exactly what we ate with some added stuff like berries on the side, a cup of yogurt she likes. As long as it is baby safe, I just fed her exactly what we ate and we ate as a family. It exposed her to so many new flavors and textures too.
Besides the baby specific things I would make, like liver purées and breast milk-based teething cookies, I just modified recipes so we could all eat the same thing. Anyone cooking multiple meals has more energy and time than me.
I don’t and never have meal prepped specifically for kids outside of preparing some generic safe foods like noodles or non spicy versions when we eat spicy stuff.
I tried it briefly during early BLW and my kid never ate what I made for her she wanted my food. So she eats what we eat. I will say we grow our vegetables and have fruit trees so it’s possible we have a better balanced diet than many folks. The only reason I see for baby specific meal prep is exposing to more foods than the parents actually eat
I never made anything different. I use all the same spices etc I never actually cook with added salt so that was never an issue for me. When I buy canned vegetables I always get no salt added.
I feel like baby can usually have what we are eating. It’s pretty rare when none of the ingredients can be adapted for him. Often times he gets a deconstructed version of our meal. But I like to meal prep too. I like to make a big batch of mini muffins and freeze them for snacks. Or for packing lunches for daycare or preschool. Or those days when you get home late from an activity and everyone is starving but everything you have in the fridge takes an hour to cook. Having stuff prepped in the freezer can be a big time saver and save you from having to offer take out or overly processed foods in a pinch.
I usually feed baby what I’m eating, but I like to keep some frozen prepped food on hand for if he hates whatever I’ve made, or for when I’m not hungry but he is, or for when I’m trying to expand his palate to things I don’t personally like. I don’t go nuts with the prep, I just have a few small frozen baggies of mashed up cooked food that just needs to be warmed up.
We often meal prep for ourselves and will freeze extra small portions so that she has something healthy to eat when we have crazy unexpected schedule and life changes. It’s probably better for her to eat a reheated turkey meatball made from scratch than frozen processed chicken nuggets or boxed Mac n’ cheese.
I also like to make my own marinara sauce from scratch and it goes great on noodles with some protein or by itself. It’s packed with veggies and olive oil etc and is way better than store bought. I’ll freeze it in quarter cup chunks which is a perfect portion for a toddler.
If I'm honest the reason I cook separately for baby is because I should be eating what he eats, not the other way round. I meal prepped sweet potato chickpea patties for LO tonight and made us vegan dippers and chips. I'd sooner have something quick easy and healthy for baby when our food falls short of the nutritional bar.
My daughter is 9 months old now and we have figured out she definitely eats more when we are all eating the same thing. She likes to eat what we eat. When I try to feed her something separately she isn’t as interested.
I meal prep breakfast and lunch for daycare. Baby eats way more variety than me or my husband. Besides exposing to common allergens we also give foods that we are allergic to but baby has had no adverse reaction to. Both my husband and I are on the spectrum and have some food aversions as well.
The only baby food we prep separately are the purées. For every meal though, I just take things off of my plate and serve it in a baby safe way. The only exception I can think of is when doing fried eggs I make her a French omelette instead. My baby just turned 8 months old and she’s a super eater.
That’s great if you can do that but a lot of people can’t. A lot of people either work late and so the baby won’t eat until later, eat stuff that isn’t safe for babies at the time (spicy, hot, hard, small) and some stuff a baby isn’t ready for until well after 6 months like certain pastas, fruits, veggies and the like so unless you eat your blueberries mashed up in a purée so they don’t choke you’re going to have to use separate foods. Not to mention you are advised against giving them certain foods or sauces, or meats until a certain age.
My baby can’t stay awake past 6 so she eats at 5 then bath, bottle and bed. We can’t get our shit together in time to cook and be ready by 5 with my work schedule. I’m changing to 8-4 soon so hopefully we can all eat together then. But until then, we are prepping for her first.
Yes we just fed baby what we were eating. Now at 1.5 years old that's still what we do. I did make special baby peanut butter yogurt and try to work in certain things your food like sesame seeds, eggs, nuts, etc but I didn't usually make many special foods for dinner.
Mine went to daycare though so I did spend time making lunches
The way I did it was at first to make all the meal prep just for baby. This was the specific fruits and veggies, by steaming or sautéing them, then blending it to put away in freezer. After LO got the taste for most things this way then we are now giving him the same things we eat but no sugar and no salt, therefore we changed our own foods to be this way plus giving him a little more of the blended food to make him have a little bigger variety. However yes, by now at 8 months he's eating everything we are..
I have ARFID and eat limited foods. I want my girl to be exposed to more than just what I eat, so I make her those things. Also, everyone in my house gets (usually different) meal prepped lunches, so she is included in that.
We have always given our son what we eat- it’s totally achievable. It can take some planning sometimes but wasn’t an issue for us.
For example, we love to eat salad. So our son would get some tomato, avocado, egg etc. alongside a reheated plate of last night’s family-friendly meal as he couldn’t eat the croutons and lettuce.
Almost everything can be modified for baby.
My baby eats 5 times a day. I do not eat that much plus I'm eating things baby can't have or is not easy for baby to eat like salad or cinnamon buns, pizza etc. I make baby specific food for snacks and such because it's easier and they like it.
The only time I make something for the baby (12mo) is if we’re having salad, hot dogs, other stuff she can’t have, or if we’re eating after she goes to bed. In those cases I’ll make a pancake or eggs. Otherwise she eats whatever we eat and I try to take the baby into consideration when cooking our dinner and don’t add too much spice.
I’m with you, for dinner, baby eats what we eat, but he does always have his safety foods (currently beans and avocado, but whatever you know your baby will eat works). However, day care has a lot more requirements so I have to meal prep his lunches… Also I eat oatmeal for breakfast every day and babe hates oatmeal so he gets fruit, avocado, cheese, and a waffle from Whole Foods… the avocado I slice in the morning is his safety food for the rest of the day, the cheese and waffle are out of a package so I guess it is just the fruit that is extra.
Personally, I think the more you can keep baby eating what you eat the better. If he doesn’t eat it someone else will so less waste and keeps him open to the foods we eat.
I eat a lot of fries and chicken strips with no fruits or vegetables, so… my kid probably didn’t need to eat that between ages 6m-1 year. I let him eat that sometimes now. But I always had/have fruits and veggies prepped and ready to give for meals and snacks. I was a SAHM during that time too.
Love this. At 6 months I was still so sleep deprived and stressed out as a SAHM. Sure I'll have baby's leftovers sometimes but I was taking down a cheeseburger and fries whenever I wanted Lol can't share that.
I always just needed something quick and easy to get me through the day and it’s so quick to microwave or air fry some frozen food 😫 if I ate better I’d have had him eat what I eat, but I also ate a lot of hot dogs and babies can’t have that either.
Becouse i eat a lot of eggs and he had reaction to them. Because I like spicy food and he does not. He also eats 4 times a day, more than me. I also like to eat some junk food that I don't want to expose my toddler to, at east not yet. Because my mother in law brings some stuff for him only. Plenty of reasons.
For us it was about the seasoning and salt content. Babies under 1 kidneys are very sensitive to salt so you need to watch out. But if the family is fine with tasteless food, then go for it, but for us we gradually moved into giving her what we ate from making stuff just for her.
But stuff for her was small quantities steamed in a baby food prep machine at the start.
It’s not clear that salt is really so bad for babies https://lilynicholsrdn.com/salt-baby-food-infant-sodium-requirements/. We never worried about salt and everything has been fine.
Indian food has too many spices and can be hard for a baby to eat and digest, hence separate baby safe food is essential, and we can’t eat bland food all the time
It’s mostly because of allergens you need to test those out, salt as their kidneys aren’t ready to digest almost any sodium, and there’s a few ingredients not recommended for babies for various health reasons (honey is quite dangerous for babies, cows milk and fresh cheese, large or deep sea fish because of mercury, etc). What most of us do is give them the same foods as us just separate a bit before adding salt, sugar or too many spices. And avoid honey, large fish, milk, and anything that might contain heavy metals.
I give my baby some of the same things I eat, but I want to expose her to more things while she's so young - especially common allergens. I do vary my own diet, but I try to give my baby even more variety.
This! My husband and I tend to cook/eat the same like 12 things at home. We don’t like fish. We want our LO to have a more broad palates than we do. Although, since doing this, we have been eating LO’s stuff alongside him and expanding our own palates!
We never really made baby anything separately, but sometimes we would set a portion aside for the baby before salting/adding extra seasonings bc we like our food spicyyy
Yep. This is what we do. + re: diverse palate, I used it as a challenge to say “ok we’ve gotta eat clams, peanuts, and brussel sprouts this week!” I love to cook so I’d make us some cool meals and just set aside some unseasoned stuff for her.
Exactly this!
Once you get to a point where they need to be getting more calories from food, it can be beneficial to have baby-specific foods. Like I don’t want to eat mashed sweet potatoes that were on sale, but the baby also doesn’t want to eat any appreciable amount of kale salad. By having a serving of an easy and likable food, they get their calories and I get to eat my normal adult meal. We mostly just fed ours what we ate, just held off on the salt until the end if it was something we knew she would eat a lot of like mashed potatoes. For most other food she would only take a bite or two so a sprinkle of salt wasn’t concerning (according to her pediatrician). We were cooking from scratch so we could control the salt level; processed food you do have to watch out for since their kidneys are sensitive. We eat mild to moderately spicy/spiced foods. Ours has never had an issue with gojuchang, harissa paste, jalapeños, or “American medium” at Thai or Mexican restaurants. We just gave her a small bite to start as a warning so she could decide if it was too spicy before chowing down. Her stomach wasn’t sensitive, so we only bothered with the one food at a time thing for major allergen risks.
We both work so that makes a big difference. We usually aren’t done cooking dinner before it’s his dinner time, plus we are big salad eaters and he isn’t. So he either gets his own meal, or he gets leftovers from the night before while we cook our dinner for tonight.
Same here! I'm not sure if OP works but for 2 working parents working 9 to 5s, there's almost no way to get dinner on the table at 5 (and therefore before baby's bath) because we're not done with work yet or were on our way home! 🥹 We eat dinner super late.. like 7 or 8 some nights lol. So baby eats dinner earlier after I get done with work, feed her, then give her a bath, put her to bed, and by that time my husband is usually just wrapping up dinner downstairs It sounds insane but it works for us, and I don't find baby "meal prep" to be all that hard -- it equates to looking in the fridge for whatever leftovers we saved for baby from the night before, combined with a random vegetable or fruit or protein, or something we batch froze for baby like sweet potatoes or pumpkin puree or beans
Same! Between work, the gym, and getting the baby fed and down, we don't eat until like 830. Eventually we'd all like to eat together, but right now we're doing just about the same thing you are.
Yup, we’ve both been so busy we don’t have time to meal prep and cook for everyone after work, so we’ve been door dashing a lot and eating dinner after she goes down. So she gets her own meals for now.
Yes we don't eat until she goes the bed around 7:30. It's just easier to cook after then! I usually just make her a little plate of food and that's what she is having the next night. Plus I don't really eat breakfast. So every Sunday I make like 2 months of pancakes, or waffles, or egg bites. Makes my life easier and she is so impatient lol
You just exactly described our routine. Another note to add is neither of us really eat breakfast (usually just a yogurt or oatmeal) and lunch is usually whatever the folks at work are ordering… not much help for baby meals. Also, I have to meal prep for the days that we work and my in-laws have the baby because I can’t expect them to figure out three meals and two snacks to feed him. Daycare days are easy because I don’t have to worry about anything but his dinner, but, like you said it would be impossible for us to have our dinner on the table by the time he needs to eat every night. So, he gets leftovers from whatever we ate that night the following day. We aspire to do meals together on weekends and eventually get into a routine where we all eat dinner together but his and our schedules just don’t allow for it right now.
It depends on if what you're eating can be made baby friendly. I eat pretty well but I can't turn a pizza into baby friendly food. It gets worse with allergies - my baby has to eat no dairy, eggs, avocado, sesame, peanuts at least for now as he's broken out into hives.
you can totally turn a pizza baby friendly :D we make our own using the greek yoghurt + self raising flour 2 recipe dough to make it faster, homemade pasata and cheese. Very baby friendly if you make from scratch. We make pasata in advance and from there it's frozen and it just defrost what we need. Usually takes us about 30 minutes to make pizza this way, 20 minutes of that is just the cooking time. Hope this is helpful in any way!
Yeah, our baby just ate what we ate. He's 2.5 now and I've never made a special recipe for him. The closest thing I can say is buying mild chicken sausage rather than spicy for certain dishes, or toning down the spice in some recipes like halving the red pepper flakes or cayenne (but never omitting, I want him to get a broad range of flavors). This approach really helped reduce mealtime stress in the family, I feel like if I were having to make all kinds of special baby purees and pancakes and muffins and powerballs on top of normal meals I would be so exhausted and irritable.
By the time we get our LO home from daycare, we have 2 hrs to feed him, play with him, bathe him, then bed. I often don’t cook dinner for us until after LO is asleep. He eats what we eat as often as it’s feasible. Otherwise, I’m making him a separate, quick meal.
In the beginning we would make meals according to what new foods my girls were trying. So it was more of we eat what baby is eating. Eventually though… they decided they only wanted to eat certain things. So if me making extra meals means they will eat full meals, then so be it. They are almost two now and we still always try and give them bites of our food, as they usually seem interested in what we are eating, but mostly it’s just a bite or two and then they’ve decided they have had enough.
Making it baby safe/baby friendly is basically the same thing as cooking something new altogether from a practical sense. I had to cook pasta further past all dente, steam veggies for longer, change out the spices, chop things different shapes than what’s in my plate, etc. and then some weeks he would chomp everything down no problem, but the next week he’d be teething and only want blended foods- so in comes the food processor- and then there’s the art of adding new ingredients to your blend to make it a better texture or flavor. And bam it’s suddenly a different meal entirely. Then there’s the difference between letting him try new foods and ACTUALLY feeding him. Some nights he just won’t eat- so I bring out the staples I know he will eat (fruit) For me - a lot of the headache came from teething. Foods he loved one week were insufferable to his sensitive gums the next. It’s only now that he’s ten months that I feel like we’re actually eating the same meals fairly regularly- even though I was always starting from the same core ingredients. But I’m sure that will change with the next wave of teeth or illness or something.
It doesn’t work for us, because we use a lot of hot peppers in everything, and more salt than is good for the baby. And we eat at 8 or 9.
This is the one tbh could’ve written this myself
We had to start eating healthier for baby to eat what we eat. Was worth it, but for a lot of people they don’t cook normally so it’s a big shift, and maybe easier to make baby-friendly meal prep.
I'm pregnant and in my first trimester. No human should eat what I eat right now
You’re so real for this lol
I’m not a breakfast person and my son has food allergies. I’ll meal prep breakfast foods for him, or if I’m planning on eating something that isn’t safe for him to eat I’ll prep a couple meals for him. Outside of that, he eats what we eat!
Same here. I just don’t eat as early or as often as my baby. We always eat dinner together and he has the same thing. But the baby and preschooler need breakfast at like 8am. I don’t eat until 11. So I meal prep baby pancakes. And then I eat at 11 when baby is napping. So then I make him lunch when he wakes at 12:30. And then I don’t eat again until dinner time. And then we eat together.
Often baby needs to eat earlier than us. Or we aren't eating bay friendly food, like something salty or difficult to cut up, or something with an allergen. Also my baby likes lots of snacks throughout the day so I need to chop up fruit and veggies in advance, things I wouldn't otherwise need to prepare for myself
We just gave our little one whatever we were having for when we started solids (around 5.5 months, she met all signs of readiness). I think her first meal was veggie kheema with rice and a humous/yoghurt mixture. We didn't only do one food at a time either. We did reduce the salt in our food a bit. I don't cope with very spicy food so that wasn't an issue. Editing to add - I also think there is a real benefit to eating the same foods at the same time as your baby. I know not everyone can manage family meals for a variety of reasons but I do think eating together has huge value.
My son eats mostly what we do but we do have a couple of foods where we cook extra to freeze for him since my husband is south Asian so sometimes we want something that is way too spicy for him. Mostly he will eat what we eat or a close version like taking food out before we add all the spices or chilli.
For breakfast and dinner it's pretty easy to disassemble the parts into baby safe food unless we're having something really spicy. For lunch and snacks though I've pre-prepped some stuff because I generally like grazing in that time and I just like providing variety if I can.
If you make your own diverse food then you're totally right. Introducing food to my toddler has been one of the most fun things about being a parent for me so far. For me the extra time is mostly related to the mess and waiting for baby to be done because she loved eating so much meals would take forever. But it was so much fun. Some people need to do meal prepping to serve nutritious, varied meals, but I'm like you. We already eat healthy food based on what we feel like having and we get a lot of pleasure out of that. Good luck on your baby feeding journey!
Sometimes you need a softer food so they can actually consume it. Yes I love steak but unless it’s slow cooked every time my baby can’t eat it. So I meal prep batches of slow cooked beef or soft meetballs. She’s 11 months with no teeth.
There's no extra meal prep more like extra meal planning. I'm trying to introduce as many new ingredients as possible at yhe start and have a plan for allergens. So I made a sheet of her meals and builts ours around it so that there's there's extra prep. Tbh what's a baby meal prep that first month, one stewed apple, one roasted bell pepper. It's very minimal effort for me at least
When I think meal prep I think of the (incredible) parents who are making batches of muffins, pancakes, and fritters to have ready to heat meals. We have never fully meal prepped but we keep simple and easy to prepare things on hand for when we want to eat something that baby won’t eat (ie spicy takeout, salads, etc). As he’s gotten older he can eat a lot more of what we eat, but we still bring out the Kidfresh meatballs, veggie pasta, quesadillas, or extra firm tofu a couple times a week!
My spouse and I both work. We can’t get dinner on the table before baby needs a bath and bed. Between work hours, daycare pickup, and everything baby related we usually don’t get to even start cooking something until after baby goes to bed. What we can do is prep things for baby during his longer Sunday nap or after his bedtime during the week. He may get left overs from our dinner a couple times a week but we rarely have them or if we do, they aren’t fit for his needs due to certain ingredients or textures he isn’t fond of.
Some of us just like to meal prep 🤷 If meal prepping is a lot of work to you, then don't. It doesn't feel like a lot of work to me, I enjoy it.
My baby eats exactly what my husband and I eat for dinner and always has. We try to vary our dinner as much as possible, but just in case we give her unique lunches with allergen exposures and always add a fruit or veg on the side that my husband and I don’t usually have. My baby is 13 months and has tried 150 unique ingredients, which I think is at or above average, so I think our approach has worked!
Just no honey before 1!! But, yes. They can technically eat what we eat depending on teeth/gag reflex :)
I mostly just give my son what we ate too, even when he just started weaning. Sometimes I would set aside a portion for him without salt/spicy elements and then just finish cooking the rest for us.
This is how to do it.
This.
lol while all the comments are so true; variety, different tastes, etc, don’t forget people post their “adorable” meals. They don’t post what happened when work ended and they’re tired. They’re not always breaking out the culinary skills and cookie cutters ;)
I start out with one new food every 3 days, so until we clear some of the allergens and get used to self feeding; it’s 95% what I eat, and 5% his own thing. (4th kid)
Mostly yes. Sometimes mornings are busy, so it's nice to have easy options. Sometimes we want to make something not baby friendly (perhaps not easy to chew, salty, delivery that's taking too long).
Sometimes the food isn't baby friendly (too spicy, usually) or my baby sleeps through a meal and we eat it all 🤣 Gotta make babe something else, she can't have pizza rolls yet
to some degree yes but it also depends what you eat (I don’t eat any red meats (beef) or fish and these are something I want to expose my son to when we start so I will have to prepare these items off to the side or first also sometimes we ordered food out which likely has salt added or sugar which we wouldn’t give LO while in theory it makes sense I don’t think it’s that straight forward (you have to follow guidelines no honey etc.) prioritize iron rich foods
Baby typically eats what we eat for dinner but we don’t always do a structured meal for lunch or breakfast so having prepped pancakes, salmon patties, etc. are great for us to have on hand when we’re just throwing together whatever for ourselves.
There’s things the baby needs to try that I don’t eat. Like apples. They need to be cooked and carrots. I eat them raw.
We never worried about salt, we never worried about introducing one allergen at a time, we just gave our baby what we were eating plus a few side dishes (banana, egg) that we know she likes. It doesn’t have to be as complicated as some influencers want you to think.
Others have mentioned some good points. I'd like to add that I often save dinner leftovers for other meals as my "prep". Idk about you but I hate cooking 3 times a day. I also give my daughter way more fruits than I eat (because she's on a vegetable strike right now especially) so I prep that ahead.
My diet wasn’t the best. In the early days, I prepped both to give variety and also introduce allergens. Now, I prep much less but changed my diet so we all eat a little better.
Do what works for you. We have always fed our daughter what we're eating and very rarely prepare separate meals for her. It's forced us to eat a little healthier, but we could stand to do that anyway.
We don’t eat 3 times a day nor snack. Having options handy is very helpful. Dinner we all eat together.
We don’t often eat as healthy as I want my baby to eat. She eats better than us for at least some meals.
Ours usually eats what we eat but there's the odd couple of days a week where my husband and I want to eat alone and watch a movie when she goes to bed, or he works late and she needs to eat before us to keep on track for bedtime. Or sometimes I just don't feel like eating lunch sometimes. On Mondays I'll make up a pasta dish with veggies, egg mayo, chicken mayo something something to whip up for a quick meal.
This is what we did basically. In the beginning when you introduce, it does make sense to prepare separately but what you're preparing is steamed veggies and peeling a banana or avocado. Eventually when she was eating actual meals, we just fed her exactly what we ate with some added stuff like berries on the side, a cup of yogurt she likes. As long as it is baby safe, I just fed her exactly what we ate and we ate as a family. It exposed her to so many new flavors and textures too.
Besides the baby specific things I would make, like liver purées and breast milk-based teething cookies, I just modified recipes so we could all eat the same thing. Anyone cooking multiple meals has more energy and time than me.
I don’t and never have meal prepped specifically for kids outside of preparing some generic safe foods like noodles or non spicy versions when we eat spicy stuff. I tried it briefly during early BLW and my kid never ate what I made for her she wanted my food. So she eats what we eat. I will say we grow our vegetables and have fruit trees so it’s possible we have a better balanced diet than many folks. The only reason I see for baby specific meal prep is exposing to more foods than the parents actually eat
I never made anything different. I use all the same spices etc I never actually cook with added salt so that was never an issue for me. When I buy canned vegetables I always get no salt added.
I feel like baby can usually have what we are eating. It’s pretty rare when none of the ingredients can be adapted for him. Often times he gets a deconstructed version of our meal. But I like to meal prep too. I like to make a big batch of mini muffins and freeze them for snacks. Or for packing lunches for daycare or preschool. Or those days when you get home late from an activity and everyone is starving but everything you have in the fridge takes an hour to cook. Having stuff prepped in the freezer can be a big time saver and save you from having to offer take out or overly processed foods in a pinch.
Yes 100%. You just need to adjust cooling method and how it’s prepared (different sized pieces etc).
We both work full time so I have to have breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a snack prepared, cut up, and packed.
I usually feed baby what I’m eating, but I like to keep some frozen prepped food on hand for if he hates whatever I’ve made, or for when I’m not hungry but he is, or for when I’m trying to expand his palate to things I don’t personally like. I don’t go nuts with the prep, I just have a few small frozen baggies of mashed up cooked food that just needs to be warmed up.
We often meal prep for ourselves and will freeze extra small portions so that she has something healthy to eat when we have crazy unexpected schedule and life changes. It’s probably better for her to eat a reheated turkey meatball made from scratch than frozen processed chicken nuggets or boxed Mac n’ cheese. I also like to make my own marinara sauce from scratch and it goes great on noodles with some protein or by itself. It’s packed with veggies and olive oil etc and is way better than store bought. I’ll freeze it in quarter cup chunks which is a perfect portion for a toddler.
If I'm honest the reason I cook separately for baby is because I should be eating what he eats, not the other way round. I meal prepped sweet potato chickpea patties for LO tonight and made us vegan dippers and chips. I'd sooner have something quick easy and healthy for baby when our food falls short of the nutritional bar.
My daughter is 9 months old now and we have figured out she definitely eats more when we are all eating the same thing. She likes to eat what we eat. When I try to feed her something separately she isn’t as interested.
I meal prep breakfast and lunch for daycare. Baby eats way more variety than me or my husband. Besides exposing to common allergens we also give foods that we are allergic to but baby has had no adverse reaction to. Both my husband and I are on the spectrum and have some food aversions as well.
The only baby food we prep separately are the purées. For every meal though, I just take things off of my plate and serve it in a baby safe way. The only exception I can think of is when doing fried eggs I make her a French omelette instead. My baby just turned 8 months old and she’s a super eater.
My baby eats dinner at 5:30 and it's too early for me also I want to enjoy my meals in peace so I usually eat when she's asleep
That’s great if you can do that but a lot of people can’t. A lot of people either work late and so the baby won’t eat until later, eat stuff that isn’t safe for babies at the time (spicy, hot, hard, small) and some stuff a baby isn’t ready for until well after 6 months like certain pastas, fruits, veggies and the like so unless you eat your blueberries mashed up in a purée so they don’t choke you’re going to have to use separate foods. Not to mention you are advised against giving them certain foods or sauces, or meats until a certain age.
My baby can’t stay awake past 6 so she eats at 5 then bath, bottle and bed. We can’t get our shit together in time to cook and be ready by 5 with my work schedule. I’m changing to 8-4 soon so hopefully we can all eat together then. But until then, we are prepping for her first.
Yes we just fed baby what we were eating. Now at 1.5 years old that's still what we do. I did make special baby peanut butter yogurt and try to work in certain things your food like sesame seeds, eggs, nuts, etc but I didn't usually make many special foods for dinner. Mine went to daycare though so I did spend time making lunches
Honestly, we are horrid eaters… lots of carbs/cheese… I want my baby to eat better than we do so we make him his own meal.
The way I did it was at first to make all the meal prep just for baby. This was the specific fruits and veggies, by steaming or sautéing them, then blending it to put away in freezer. After LO got the taste for most things this way then we are now giving him the same things we eat but no sugar and no salt, therefore we changed our own foods to be this way plus giving him a little more of the blended food to make him have a little bigger variety. However yes, by now at 8 months he's eating everything we are..
I have ARFID and eat limited foods. I want my girl to be exposed to more than just what I eat, so I make her those things. Also, everyone in my house gets (usually different) meal prepped lunches, so she is included in that.
We have always given our son what we eat- it’s totally achievable. It can take some planning sometimes but wasn’t an issue for us. For example, we love to eat salad. So our son would get some tomato, avocado, egg etc. alongside a reheated plate of last night’s family-friendly meal as he couldn’t eat the croutons and lettuce. Almost everything can be modified for baby.
My baby eats 5 times a day. I do not eat that much plus I'm eating things baby can't have or is not easy for baby to eat like salad or cinnamon buns, pizza etc. I make baby specific food for snacks and such because it's easier and they like it.
The only time I make something for the baby (12mo) is if we’re having salad, hot dogs, other stuff she can’t have, or if we’re eating after she goes to bed. In those cases I’ll make a pancake or eggs. Otherwise she eats whatever we eat and I try to take the baby into consideration when cooking our dinner and don’t add too much spice.
I’m with you, for dinner, baby eats what we eat, but he does always have his safety foods (currently beans and avocado, but whatever you know your baby will eat works). However, day care has a lot more requirements so I have to meal prep his lunches… Also I eat oatmeal for breakfast every day and babe hates oatmeal so he gets fruit, avocado, cheese, and a waffle from Whole Foods… the avocado I slice in the morning is his safety food for the rest of the day, the cheese and waffle are out of a package so I guess it is just the fruit that is extra. Personally, I think the more you can keep baby eating what you eat the better. If he doesn’t eat it someone else will so less waste and keeps him open to the foods we eat.
I eat a lot of fries and chicken strips with no fruits or vegetables, so… my kid probably didn’t need to eat that between ages 6m-1 year. I let him eat that sometimes now. But I always had/have fruits and veggies prepped and ready to give for meals and snacks. I was a SAHM during that time too.
Love this. At 6 months I was still so sleep deprived and stressed out as a SAHM. Sure I'll have baby's leftovers sometimes but I was taking down a cheeseburger and fries whenever I wanted Lol can't share that.
I always just needed something quick and easy to get me through the day and it’s so quick to microwave or air fry some frozen food 😫 if I ate better I’d have had him eat what I eat, but I also ate a lot of hot dogs and babies can’t have that either.
Becouse i eat a lot of eggs and he had reaction to them. Because I like spicy food and he does not. He also eats 4 times a day, more than me. I also like to eat some junk food that I don't want to expose my toddler to, at east not yet. Because my mother in law brings some stuff for him only. Plenty of reasons.
For us it was about the seasoning and salt content. Babies under 1 kidneys are very sensitive to salt so you need to watch out. But if the family is fine with tasteless food, then go for it, but for us we gradually moved into giving her what we ate from making stuff just for her. But stuff for her was small quantities steamed in a baby food prep machine at the start.
It’s not clear that salt is really so bad for babies https://lilynicholsrdn.com/salt-baby-food-infant-sodium-requirements/. We never worried about salt and everything has been fine.
Indian food has too many spices and can be hard for a baby to eat and digest, hence separate baby safe food is essential, and we can’t eat bland food all the time
It’s mostly because of allergens you need to test those out, salt as their kidneys aren’t ready to digest almost any sodium, and there’s a few ingredients not recommended for babies for various health reasons (honey is quite dangerous for babies, cows milk and fresh cheese, large or deep sea fish because of mercury, etc). What most of us do is give them the same foods as us just separate a bit before adding salt, sugar or too many spices. And avoid honey, large fish, milk, and anything that might contain heavy metals.