My baby is only 8 weeks old but i was just wondering about this for the future when i will start to wean him. Ive always been sort of wary of the baby food jars. For some reason i think they would be full of junk. Yesterday i had a look at them in the shop and i seen one called banana and chocolate? And on the jar it said 4 months +. I cant imagine giving my baby choclate at 4 months old! Are these jars any good? Are they full of sugar? Is it advised to give them these jars or not?

Thanks

I do give mine from time to time, but I always make sure that it's fruits and veg that are suitable for him. I buy hip organic and C&G. They do have some with meat, chicken and cheese that say 4+ but they can't have meet, chicken or cheese till 6 month old.

I do prefer to preper my own puree, and keep the jars just in case or when out

i use the jars at the start or when i'm very busy just check they are glutin free sweetie xxx

With DD1 I started off by making homemade purees, spending loadsa money on the best ingredients and spendig ages cooking them up etc, only to have her refuse to eat them! So I switched her to jars. I didnt use any chocolate ones though as I didnt want to give her chocolate before she was 1, but thats just my choice. With DD2 I only started weaning her on Monday and have been giving her the pouches rather than the jars. They have no preservatives or addatives and are just the plain veg/fruit/meat pureed up. They are more expensive but at least I know exactly whats in them and there is no chance of glass contamination (not that ever had that when DD1 had jars). Just go with your instinct and if you see an ingredient in a jar/pouch you dont want your lo to have then dont buy that one xxx

The jars are not bad but they often don't taste or have the texture of what they are supposed to be.

I don't think they are evil or the worst thing ever, but I always try to give homemade things where possible. To be honest, more for practical reasons as when they are really little a jar is far too much for them in one go and you can't store them for long. It's easier to make little cubes of purees and then you can freeze them and use a couple at a time as and when you need them. I just did a batch of pureeing and freezing at weekends and that lasted all week. Also, they are a lot more expensive than doing your own, and it's so easy to make your own as well.

Having said that, there are times when we've used jars/pouches when out and about and you just have to be careful with which ones you buy. Hipp, C&G, Ella's Kitchen are all good ones as are lots of others - you just need to check the ingredients. I've found that nearly everything from Heinz has added sugar so we avoid anything by them.

LO has now made the decision for us as he can't keep jarred food down, he literally throws it all back up within 10 minutes no matter what flavour we get. He's still fine with pouches when we do use them though. There must be something in jars that doesn't agree with him, although I'm yet to find out what.

When you are starting the weaning process jars are fantastic! They are exactly the right consistency and at the start you want to start gently and not be faffing around trying to get something smooth enough. Once your LO gets a little older then you can move onto home made food. I do a mix, sometimes I use jars, sometimes I mix home puréed food with the jars and sometimes I give completely home made stuff.

Jars aren't bad, but I think homemade food has more flavour. Plus with homemade it's easier to control the texture to what your LO likes. I suppose it depends on what you're using but I think homemade is cheaper--I can buy a whole bag of carrots for what a couple jars might cost me.

We have some jars of organic food to act as backup or for when we go out. They're ready to serve and they don't have any additives. The baby seems to like them well enough! Although one thing we are a fan of here is fruit pots. I mix half of one in with her morning porridge then give the rest at tea as dessert.

i make at home what the jars have in them yer its more faff but when you can get a bag of carrorts for 70p and make up say 6 portions it save you loads considering a jar is more than 70p

i have nothing against jars im just cheap and refuse to pay the price

Like another poster said, my first son didn't care much for my "homemade baby food". Some he liked, but I ended up feeding some jars/some homemade. He is 7 now, and only has one head if that helps!