What does your 6-7 month old eat for breakfast?

Sam's going fabulously with his vegetables - he eats pumpkin, sweet potato, carrot, potato and corn and really seems to love all of them in whatever combination they come in, just so long as there's enough pumpkin!

I'm trying to keep him to vegetables at night and fruit in the morning, but we're having real issues with breakfast. The only thing he'll eat is the Heinz apple and oatmeal or the only organic apple custard. He used to eat straight apple or pear puree, but now refuses to touch them. Sometimes he'll eat the heinz apple and blueberry muesli.

Jars of baby food are so expensive - I have him eating my purees for dinner (slowly getting lumpier and lumpier), but I can't seem to get him to eat food I cook for breakfast.

I have a freezer full of apple puree that I've made - I've tried mixing it with the bellamy's oats to get something similar to the apple and oatmeal he scoffs down but he rejects it completely. I've tried mixing apple puree with rice cereal (and mixing in a little of his formula) to make it similar to the apple custard, but again it meets with complete rejection.

Any suggestions? Or is it time to resign ourselves to the fact that he's just going to have to eat breakfast from a jar and be thankful that he will at least eat home-cooked stuff for dinner?

Oh yeah, straight rice cereal or oats made up with his formula wasn't just met with closed lips, it was actively spat out, so that doesn't seem to be an option either.

BW

Are you interested in doing BLS ?
Miss M usually has toast and a piece of fruit, and has done since 6 months.

I would try the porridge again, but this time mix a fair amount of fruit in with it and make it with water instead of milk. It was always a huge hit with Alister. You could possibly try introducing some vegemite/promite toast fingers for him to suck on if he is able to sit up quite well in his highchair. Not every day, just every few days or so as something to break up the 'usual' breakfast for him kwim?

Arimeh, I was at one stage interested in BLS - but he's just hungrier than his coordination can feed. And no teeth yet.

I didn't know that bread/toast was ok at this age... which is probably stupid as there wouldn't be a huge amount of difference between bread and his teething rusks.

Trillian, did you use the Bellamys porridge, or is there another one out there? I'm starting to suspect it's the oats... judging from the smell, they can't taste too pleasant (it's one of the few items of his food that I haven't been able to bring myself to taste!)

BW

We give ds toast crust (under close supervision) - he doesnt have teeth yet either but he likes to knaw at it. its time consuming watching him though. He also has jelna yoghurt most mornings with or without banana mashed in.

You could try some weet-bix, crumbled up with warm water or formula and then some jar fruit over stirred in... DS loves that. Initially I had to use lots of fruit, but now we are mostly milk and a little fruit for sweetness.

ETA - I used bellamys porridge for ages, and DS loved that too... And there is the apple cinnamon one too? I think... he liked that one sometimes...

I would give my DS wheatbix made up with formula, this is one of his favourates. I also tried youghurt, custard, you can also add babys fav fruits. I also gave baby porriage with mashed banana and/or avacado, or other fruits. We also gave fingers of toast +/-vegemite.
After we intorduced eggs, yolk first, I mixed the yolk with hot mashed potato and grated cheese. Now we do omlettes and scrambled eggs.

Just thought I would highlight an other disscussion on weetbix
http://forums.bellybelly.com.au/foru...t-bix-not.html

Darcy never (and still to this day) like porridge made with milk. Like Trill said she prefers watery...I never gave her specific baby porridge though...dunno if that makes a difference. I just used quick oats ground up in the processor.

Im sure I posted here a few mintues ago...:scratchhead:

anyway Darcy has always preferred her porridge made with water and not milk even now at 3. She also hates it sweetened for some reason.
In the beginning we used to mix it with whatever she liked at the time. Sounds gross but pumpkin/sweet potato/carrot.

woops there it is...wasn't here before....

Try the wheetbix, heated so its nice and warm on these cold mornings!
Miss B loves them!!!

Toast with cream cheese has always been a fav of Emily's even at 6 months (we do BLS) she still doesn't have teeth but amazes me how much she gets through! She didn't like the Bellamy's oatmeal but would eat normal Uncle Toby's oats.

Thanks BW for starting this thread I am in the same position as you, so its good to read the replies.

porridge - just normal home brand quick cook oats, boiling water, a teaspoon of malt (excellent for their vit b very good for you) and a cube of fruit puree (homemade)
Easy as. She ate rice cereal for a while made with BM, but wont do porridge or any cereal for that matter, with milk now, has to be water lol dont understand that though!

Just me, but I would never give her anything out of a jar, would rather make it myself. Once they realise there is no other options than what you offer, they will make a choice iykwim. I made and still do all of her purees for the month she ate them, and all of her food...too much sugar and rubbish in the premade stuff

Why dont you try mixing the apple with a vegetable? It goes with almost anything! Nothing wrong with veggies for brekky ;)

Raffertys cereal is much better for a bub than weet-bix too.

add some banana to the pureed Apple :) That's what worked here. Ash was the same, he would eat the jar apple fine, but not mine. They tasted the same to me so I had no idea why. I fork mashed half a banana to a bowl and he ate it so fast :)

We also have oats or a banana or some toast with apricot jam :)

around that age DS liked to have Raffertys multigrain cereal or bellamys porridge, now hes a bit older he has weet bix too, i try to give him something differant every day so he doesnt get used to the one thing. and i always mix with differant fruits, depends whats in season but stewed pears or mashed banana are always a hit!
i would try and perservere with the cereal. i always found after a few rejections he would then take it if i kept offering.
all the best :)

DS only recently started eating 'breakfast' foods. Before that he would have whatever fruit/veg was going (usually the same as lunch & dinner, poor chap). If he likes the stuff you give him for lunch & dinner, why not give him that for breakfast too?

We have allergy issues in the house. I can't feed him banana as I can't come in contact with it.

Some of my apple puree is very watery and even that with the oats and no formula added was just completely rejected. We persevered for about a week on the home made apple puree - he's so stubborn he was preferring to go hungry rather than eat it, which makes for a fairly miserable day for the rest of us.

I haven't introduced lunch yet - we do breakfast after our first bottle (about half a jar) and dinner, which comes before a bath and the last bottle for the day (so he eats more - at least a full jar and one of the biggest reason I got myself making my own mush). I know I wouldn't want to eat the same thing for each meal of the day, so I don't really want Sam to do so either... Is too much pumpkin a bad thing?

BW

DS has a lot of pumpkin. He loves it. He has it every day. Have you tried sweet potato? I can sub it for pumpkin, and also blended carrot and zucchini... (I mix the zucchinin in the carrot as it makes it easier to blend up).

Oh, and have you tired the food before the bottle? My DS has it that way... food at 7.30 and a huge bottle at 9am. When he was younger he would then have a big nap at 9am... He has always been that way (from 6 mo)...

Just wanted to say that wheetbix should NOT be given to a child under 12 months. Even wheetbix put it on their packs now.

BW, I just always used quick oats as they cook down fairly fine. Regular rolled oats are a bit coarser, but still OK. You could also try the raffertys cereal as it isn't like farex at all. If after all your attempts are rejected by him, don't stress about it too much if it is just that one meal of the day that he prefers brought food.

*sigh*

I suspect we may be back to square one here. The apple and oatmeal met with utter rejection this morning.

I don't know where to go other than pumpkin for every meal - but I need a better method of removing pumpkin stains before I'm completely happy doing that!

BW

hi bw :)

we have another orange lover here LOL we do blw and the orange food always goes first ;) my mhcn said too much orange food can gve bubs an orange nose tip, but we haven't noticed that.

for brekky i make homebrand quick oats with water and i stir thru mashed canned peaches, or jalna vanilla yoghurt (no added sugar) or both. he scarfs it down.

i'm a bit lost for brekky ideas too. dh bought the rafferty's porridge as it was "for baby" but ds isn't that keen on it. toast he likes to chew on but doesn't "eat" that much.

sometimes we do just jalna and fruit as i know myself their full fat yog is quite filling.

but as someone else said nothing wrong with savouries for brekky... when i was staying with a family in japan we would have last nights dinner for brekky lol

hth

tish
xx

BW - The only organic apple custard has been a huge part of the diet of DS... I had the bellamys porridge and would mix it up with warm water and add the apple custard. It was very pasty, but it was a winner. Does Sam eat pear? that is a bit sweeter than apple and might go well in the porridge? And if you can get a ripe one, you can try it in the feeding bags. DS sometimes would go for that for a bit of fun.

Another thought I had is home made jelly... DS loves that too.. I bought gelatin sachets, they make up 500ml. I would add 250ml of boiled water to the sachet, mix and let cool a little, then add 250ml of juice say apple and blackcurrant or apple cranberry and mix and refrigerate. I know jelly is not a traditional breaky food, but maybe that and some toast squares might be a good for you to try?

Such a shame you cant use bananas, as DS loves the heinz pear and banana puree over cereal too...

Hi BW,

I agree with Ruf. Have you tried pureed pear? Emily is not so keen on the pureed apple I cook up for her either, unless it is mixed with other things. But she can't get enough pear. She loves it on it's own, but I even mix it with tarter fruits now (like plums and nectarines) and this is how I was able to start introducing different home-cooked fruits at breakfast for her to give her variety at that meal.

I think home-cooked apple can be a bit tart compared to jars of apple (which IMO are much more bland) so you could try mixing it with something much sweeter like pear to see if Sam will eat it that way. Then if he likes pear, you can try pear with just about everything... next on our list is pear and kiwifruit!

Toast fingers are going down a treat here too now - only took her a couple of days to get the hang of holding on to them - seems to be easier than her rusks/biscuits.

HTH :)

BW
have you tried the rafferty's rice cereal- cheap and really nice. I mix it with some b.milk and some apple or other fruit and Boof loves it
actually all the rafferty's range is ACE!!! Worth looking what flavours they have- so really nice tasting combos and they are cheap as well!
They also have some combos that are fruit and vegies mixed together- so that might help introducing fruits as well
mwah

I had a look at the Rafferty's Garden cereals last night when we did the grocery shopping... Could just be the coles we were at, but they had three, and the ones with fruit had banana so we can't use them. The multigrain one without sounded really boring so we gave it a miss.

We had some success with offering him some potato wedges at lunch time yesterday (he mainly sucked out the soft potato) so we're all geared up to try toast and vegemite.

But Sunday mornings he gets fed at church (the downside of being married to the sound guy and needing to be at church at 8am for a 9:30 service) so we went with the usual jar and just hoped for the best. He has consumed half a jar of pear and apricot, without grizzles and without clamped shut lips. He's either thoroughly sick of apple as he was getting a lot of it for a while, or he wants the really runy 4-6 month fruit purees for breakfast still. At least we are having some success with finger foods and lumpy dinners, but breakfast... I'm just glad to have him eating again!

BW

Hi BW,

I only just read your post this evening and thought i'd drop you a line.

I found a recipe for apple and pear puree. You add a small amount of baby apple juice to the fruit once stewed. I also add a little cinnamon for extra flavour. MY little one eats nearly everything but has rejected or pulled a face at my first attempts of pureeing apples. One of the reasons being the apples were a little tart.

Not sure if someone else has mentioned this as i didn't have time to go through all the replies. Do you spoon the food from the jar into his mouth or from a bowl? I ask as i have heard if this is the case you can try putting your homemade food into one of those empty baby food jars just to trick him and then eventually you can stop putting it into the jars.

Don't know if that would work but ya never know.