Pouch Project - Let's talk about pouches and how to include them in your little one's diet.

First thing's first - Let's get one thing out in the open before we dive into this series.

Here at Starting Solids Australia we do not judge, shame or make parent's feel less than for anything to do with the way they feed their babies. In fact our first piece of advice to most parents is to unfollow anyone who is making you feel worse about what you're doing as a parent.

We are and always have been advocates for the fact that there is "no one perfect way to feed a baby". All families are different and all babies are different, what works for one family wont work for another and we should all recognise and respect that.

Everybody has a different 24 hours. I hate pages and accounts who push the "you could find the time if you wanted to, your priorities are wrong" rhetoric because quite frankly, it's just WRONG. Everybody has different time constraints, everybody has different accessibility, everybody has different budgets, everybody has different stress levels, everybody has different abilities, everybody has different types of babies and children, everybody has different levels of family or community support. Everybody has different determinants of health that contribute to why they feed the their families the way they do and that is absolutely ok. Nobody should be judging another person if they haven't walked in that persons shoes.

As a parent of 3 young children, running 2 businesses with very limited family support I am absolutely aware of the concept of being a busy parent with limited time who struggles to take a shower alone most days, let alone prepare endless home cooked meals every single day. I am fortunate that preparing meals makes up part of my work load and helps grow my business however most of these meals are still prepared with 3 kids trashing my house back ground and asking for bums to wiped, paintbrushes to cleaned or cuddles 742 times.

I'm a Dietitian. Some days I cook. Some days my kids have a wonderful nutritious range of foods one their plates. Some days we have Maccas through the drive through as we're racing from one kids sport to another. Some days we order or throw some sandwiches in the toaster when i'm so exhausted I absolutely cannot be bothered to cook anything. We all do what we have to and we should never be judged for that. Life is busy.

We never fear monger. We never demonise foods. We never exaggerate and claim certain ingredients, additives or preservatives are poison and should be avoided completely like certain other accounts and we would never tell you that you are doing a bad job or doing something wrong in the way you are feeding your babies. One of our biggest rules is everyone is to remain supportive, safe and kind to each other or they don't have a place within our community.

Our information and education sharing ALWAYS comes from a place of support and empowerment. If you are part of our facebook community or have followed along on our socials for more than 5 minutes and engaged with any of our content you will already know this is my entire ethos around feeding and that we are one of the most balanced accounts in this space. Our recipes are always focused around being quick, easy and budget friendly. You won't us suggesting you need to spend hours in the kitchen everyday and going to farmers markets and health foods stores to buy extravagant, expensive ingredients you've never heard of or eaten yourself in order to be feeding your bub a nutritious diet.

I started this platform (which became a business) with one goal and that was to support parents through Starting Solids and help them navigate the wild amounts of misinformation and fear mongering that existed and still exists in this space. We constantly debunk myths and fear mongering from other accounts and will continue to do this despite the backlash we often face from it.

We want to be very clear. This series on pouch foods is not about fear mongering, shame or judgement. We get it, some days you have nothing left in the tank and just want an easy option to fill bub up so you can actually have 5 minutes to yourself.  Pouches can absolutely have a place in a wide varied diet as can all foods - we have reiterated that many times. We refuse to demonise them or tell you that you should never use them ever because that just isn't necessary.

We would however be doing our community a disservice if we didnt share education around the nutrition content of these types of foods and the research that has been done on them in recent times. 

If we simply wanted to shame or make parents feel bad we would have reviewed the pouches, highlighted what wasn't ideal about them and how expensive they were and left it at that. Instead i'm reviewing them, giving you ideas for convenient foods you can add alongside them to make them a more balanced meal. I'm also recreating every single recipe at home with ingredients I have paid for and time I don't really have to spare so that I can give you options for alternatives that are cheaper, more nutritious and as quick and easy as possible. Most of these recreations I have done so far have been around 10-15 mins all up. I'm also doing this as a completely free series. I could have locked this content behind our membership wall and had it be exclusive for only our paying members but I didn't want to do that because I see the fear mongering, I see talk from accounts saying "those foods are older than your baby" like that matters. I see them making you feel bad about what you're doing and offering no alternatives that are cost effective and easy and we don't want to do that. We are here to support parents and always have been.

I guess moral of the story is just please be kind. If this space isn't for you or what we are doing does make you feel worse than I would urge to follow my advice and don't follow along because we never ever want anyone to feel bad about what they are doing.