Am I the only mum who feels like they pack up the entire house every time you go out with your baby? I swear I take so much stuff with me that we are fully prepared for a natural disaster or a month long trek through the wilderness but no matter how much I try to condense it everything just feels so essential and so I end up taking it all and never using any of it #mumproblems
One of the biggest things I worry about when we go out is whether I have enough food with me, now that Amelia is eating more I constantly worry whether I have enough snacks with me to keep her going for the day. Especially if we are going out for lunch or dinner, I like to know that I have enough food to keep her busy and entertained for the duration of the meal.
Most of the time she doesn’t eat it all because she’s full but she plays with it and explores it and it keeps her busy and happy whilst we eat. It also helps to stop her stealing our food and whilst we’re happy to share, some things just aren’t suitable for her to have so having her own snacks is important.
I remember when she was little and I used to fret about whether I had enough nappies or enough muslins or enough spare clothes, now I’m stuffing bags of Melty Puffs and fruity snacks into every orifice of my changing bag, just in case. It’s funny how as your baby grows, the things they need grow too. You still need all those nappies and wipes and toys and blankets, but now you need extra wipes and bibs and food and drink and extras of everything because you know, you just might be out of the house for a whole month with no access to a supermarket.
Now that Amelia is eating more variety and she likes her lumpy food we do try to order from the kids menu for her when we can but most of the time she messes about with it but doesn’t actually end up eating anything and I resort back to the food I brought for her. She loves the little meals that come in a dish and heat up in the microwave and she loves anything like a stew or bolognese, something with texture and shapes but still sort of mushy so I find it super convenient to take a pouch of food with me that we can warm up and give to her.
We were recently sent a pack of re-usable food pouches by our friends at Belo&Me, these are microwave and dishwasher safe pouches that you can use over and over again to store homemade purees, juices, smoothies, anything you want to take out with you but want it to be stored securely with the convenience of a screw top pouch.
Whilst I’m not a big home puree maker I have been using them to carry the larger meals that would normally be in a dish or container that I can’t fit in my bag when we go out. It’s super easy to add the food, the pouches pop open at the bottom, you fill them and seal them up again. Done. They can be warmed up in hot water and then washed out with soapy water or in the dishwasher. They are also freezable so you can store food if you like to batch cook.
It’s literally that easy, they’re perfect if you love to make homemade food for your little one but struggle to store it when you go out and about.
I’m such a huge fan of food pouches in general, they’re easy to carry, easy to squeeze the food out of rather than scooping from a jar and if you’re baby can be trusted not to squeeze food all over themselves they can feed themselves straight from the pouch and save you the spoon work altogether. We haven’t tried this approach just yet as I can imagine a very excited fist clench and food squirting out of the top all up the walls so for now I’ll still be getting involved in meal times but Amelia is being more and more independent so I’m sure it won’t be long before she’s sat at the table just handling it all by herself.
Until then, I’ll just be here with the entire contents of my house carefully stacked into the pram basket when we go out, you know, just in case.
Rachel xx
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