Travel and Jar Baby Food - your expeience?

Hi


Baby is almost 10 months and eats 4 meals a day of home made baby food.

He does not like 'lumps' or finger food, so everything is still pureed. (he throws up with lumps, so really must puree)


Previously, when we travelled, I brought enough food with me and made food locally. So it was no problem.


But I about to go on a 4 day trip with my parents, husband and baby. We are doing sightseeing and I can't bring 4x day of food (our cooler is not big enough!) and just won't have the time to make food 4x day.


He eats a lot, about 300ml per meal.


So, I looked at baby food in jars, and I will need to bring 16 jars at least per day!!


Has anyone travelled with jars of baby food?

Can you share your experience please?


I know I need to introduce some jars before we go to get him used to it and be sure he eats it.


Thank you very much for any experience and advice.

Hi crj,


A few weeks back we moved house and we stayed in a hotel for 3 nights before we moved into the new place. So for those days and for the 1st day at new place, we had jar food.


I will be honest and tell you even though the brands we fed were all organic, they all tasted and smell the same - a weird mixture of carrots and sweet potatoes, even if that's not what the jar say! I was not impressed but I was so tired from the move I really didn't want to cook anymore for the next few days.


And guess what - baby loved it. And since yours likes the food really smooth, you will probably do well with it because the consistency of jar food is very smooth.


My verdict - great that my baby loved it because it'll make it easier to travel BUT i will not be feeding it as a meal 3 times a day because your child will never know what real food tastes like. oh, we had no trouble with homecooked food after that. and the hotel stay was the first time we fed him, although maybe a good idea to have a dry run at home first.


Have fun shopping for the jars and enjoy the holiday!


PS: for brekkie, if you are staying in a hotel, why not "steal" some fruits from the buffet breakfast? you can use for breakfast and snacks? bring your blender along? does he likes bananas, if so even better? where will you be travelling, maybe there is a good supermarket you can buy fresh avocados, mangoes, bananas to feed for brekkie and his snack (since he has 4 meals a day, assuming one of them is a power snack).

My daughter hated jarred food. She was on pure homemade baby food too - and the jarred food really didn't appeal. When we travelled, I was just constantly scrounging around trying to find her something to eat. She never got used to it - but then gain, she is the opposite of yours - she liked all the lumps and texture and enjoyed chomping all the lumps around.


Test out the baby food - see if your baby likes it. If not...well


You don't mention where you are going - sounds like you're not staying anywhere it will be easy to buy some things, but if you are, as Wheelymate suggests - avocados, and any fresh fruits that your baby likes will be handy for the taking. You could probably take a rather unripe avocado with you and let it ripen in a brown bag as you travel around everywhere.


Rice cereal, since your baby already takes (I know from another post) will be very handy as you can mix that with almost anything and get something. Try some fresh fruits that you can grate and mix with it (I think pear or apple, or peach)


Good luck - where are you going?

actually, why don't your bring as much homecooked food in your cooler bag as possible? then not everything has to be jarred.

Thanks so much.


The four meals, are actually four meals no power snacks... insane, I know, but it works for him and we are just managing to keep him a fraction above the 10% weight line.


We decided to bring yogurt, some mangoes, one papaya and some avocados with us - and a box of mixed grain cereal - so we can make breakfast in the room with the hand blender every day.


We will also (as Wheelymate suggested) bring some homemade food for the first day, but jars for the following days... I just can't believe it is 16 jars per day at HKD 15 per jar that is about HKD 240 per day - wow!


I guess we need to start introducing some jars now so he gets used to it... this baby stuff makes travel complicated :)


PS - we are going to take my parents to Guilin and Yangshuo, but really be out and about all day each day doing tourist things which will be hard on baby and not allow me to make food on the go.