Even
if you don't make a habit of feeding your child from jars and packets, this information can be useful! For those of us
who go out and travel a lot, taking fresh or home made and frozen food is just not always convenient, so we have
acquired quite a lot of experience buying baby food here.
I
have also included information that has appeared to date on our ‘Parents in France’ board to give readers a broader
perspective.
The
Bledina website has details of all its products, with ingredients I think, useful if you want to research before you get to
the supermarket: www.bledina.com
Unfortunately
the Nestle site is full of hints and tips, but I couldn’t find access to anything about its products, so not much help! However, they do send free sachets if you sign up to their club (useful as emergency
rations for the baby bag). Bledina sent similar things too.
www.kidbio.com is the website for Babybio. Carrefour sells a small range of their
jars. Their carrot puree for example contains only carrots and water, so you know what
you are buying. If you contact Babybio they can mail you a list of their order codes so that pharmacists can get
their products for you. The website also has tasty recipes for cooking your own
healthy and organic baby meals.
Formula:
We (and this is just a personal
thing) used the Bledina formula, which is called Bledilait. I tried using another formula at one point, Nestle I think, hoping to find something we could buy in
the UK as it’s a) much cheaper there and b) it meant we didn’t have to travel with big tins, but it just went
lumpy and had to be thrown away. So we stuck to the Bledina for stage 1 milk
and the start of stage 2.
There
are also a number of brands of ready-made formula (Eveil milk) in litre bottles (from stage 2 only). It worked out the same price as a tin of formula but we didn’t have to make up powdered formula that
we then didn’t use. It was also less chemical smelling than Bledina liquid
formula, less sweet and more milky. Here is more information about it:
http://www.lactel.tm.fr/franc/nut/spelaitbb_inf.htm
Liquid
formula seems to come in 500ml or 1 litre bottles, not smaller cartons like the handy UK ones.
Formula is sometimes in the milk aisle as well as with baby food, especially the Eveil milks. From 12 months pediatricians
say you can switch to cows' milk, or alternatively keep buying "lait de croissance" (follow-up milk) or formula for your baby.
We
were recommended to use soya formula when ds was ill at one point, but even with added flavouring (out of desperation) he
refused to drink it. I believe some people get on well with it however. You
do need to be extra vigilant about cleaning teeth with soya formula.
Here
are other peoples’ comment on formula:
“Alternatively you
could use a lait de croissance (sold in both the baby aisle and the milk section of the supermarket). These are marketed as
suitable from 10 months, but should be fine on cereal for a breastfed baby of 6 months. Compared with cows milk they contain
more iron and vitamins; however, they also usually contain added sugar! The only one I've found that doesn't is Candia Croissance
(there is a normal and a bio version) though it's still quite sweet because of the lactose content. I use this on my son's
cereal, as it comes in 500ml cartons which is perfect for 3 days' cereal (he's 13 months and eats 1-1 1/2 weetabix every day.
Actually come to think of it, at 6 months you could start mixing the baby cereal with a little weetabix, which would keep
the cost down for you).”
“I've seen that
Guigoz do ready-made formula in Auchan and the Geant Casino. They do 0-4 months and 4 months +. Only problem is they are sold
in 500ml cartons which have to be used within 24 hours - you'll find yourself wasting an awful lot which will work out expensive.
It might be worth your expressing!”
“A friend recommended
to me that I avoid Lait de Croissance as it is so sweet. Her dd developed a sweet tooth and refuses (normal) milk as a result...
and the battle is still raging 4 years later! I have seen small (200ml) bottles of regular low fat milk and am sure that you
must be able to obtain the equivalent in full cream.”
“If he reacts to the milk you'd need to talk to your pediatre about a suitable formula when you choose to wean
from breastfeeding - either soya or a special formula for allergic babies. At your ds's age you'd probably be recommended
to try a soya formula. We use Modilac Soja 2eme age for dd.”
First foods:
Baby rice equivalents:
It
seems that German babies have baby rice, so if you have an organic shop that sells German/Austrian baby foods, try them. I know Holle make a neutral unsweetened baby rice product. Babybio do organic cereals, chocolate, veg or vanilla, but not plain.
French
baby cereals claim on the packaging that they are designed to go in bottles, but if you dislike the idea of feeding
solids from a bottle, they can be made thicker and fed from a spoon just as any UK product can by increasing the ratio
of cereal to milk.
Bledina
now make a ‘my first cereal’. It is lightly sweetened, but designed
to be bland in flavour and is gluten-free. Here are the ingredients. It’s
not as pure as baby rice, but is possibly an alternative:
Farine de riz 37,4%, maltodextrines, tapioca 28,8%, amidon de maïs, huile de palme, émulsifiant : lécithine
de soja ; vitamines : E, C, B1, PP, B6, acide folique, biotine et B5 ; traces de lait
Nestle
do 2 cereals in tins: one is ‘3 fruits’ and the other is something vegetable.
The 3 fruit cereal has no sugar, but low amounts of some other sweetener (however it doesn't taste too sweet
at all).
Other
peoples’ comments:
“The brand name is Jammet
- and the product is called Rizine instantanee. Looking at the packet it does have some added sugar and natural aroma of vanilla
(hadn't realised that), but to me it certainly seems the same as what I used in the UK. It is
milk and gluten free, claims to be easy to digest and relieves diarrhoea and can be used from 4 months. As well as using it as a first food for Luca I added it to vegetable purees to thicken them. He didn't seem to have any complaints but he's not usually very
discriminating about his food!”
“I started weaning my baby
2 weeks ago, and bought the nearest thing to baby rice from the supermarket. It's called Ma Premiere Bledine céréales pour
bébé, it's got no added sugar and is gluten free. I think it consists
of rice and tapioca.”
Fruit:
Bledina
do a whole range of compotes that are 100% fruit. They are slightly sweeter and
smaller pots than adult ones, but adult ones might be acceptable (we found that they tasted more acidic and bitty, so some
babies still prefer the baby ones…).
Here’s
the choice:
In
the organic range by Carrefour there are some unsweetened fruit and milk (formula not straight cows) puddings. They are nice, but very runny so you can just thicken them with baby rice or cereal.
Babybio
do some jars of organic pure fruit, but some of them (pear Williams for example) are very, very liquid.
Vegetables
The very best vegetables for at home are frozen blocks of pureed veg.
They are just vegetables that have been steamed and then pureed and frozen in small blocks, nothing added. To be honest, I couldn’t then see the point of making them myself and I still
use these a lot. They can be used alone, or mixed together with baby rice. I
believe that Casino does them in boxes, but I know that Carrefour’s own brand have cream and salt added, so you
do need to read the labels.
The only jars I have found without salt are the ones by Babybio and a few German/Austrian ones in our
organic shop. The Babybio ones are good (although the potato and leek is very
thick and we had to water it down, but they only do a handful of flavours. However, with home cooking and weaning that’s
not really a problem.
Otherwise I like the Hipp jars, but the UK ones. Few
places sell them here, and they have still added salt. The chain Leclerc now stocks the whole range of Hipp jars.
Yoghurts:
To start with we used yoghurts and fromage frais made with formula, not cows' milk. Bledina do some in small pots, like fromage frais. The fruit
ones have no added sugar. They also do plain lightly sweetened ones and vanilla flavour. They do large pots of strawberry or peach yoghurt and some small pots of ‘puddings’: vanilla,
caramel or chocolate I think.
Gervais do similar fromage frais pots made with formula, plain lightly sweetened and fruit ones that are
sweetened. They are usually cheaper than the Bledina brand.
