Big Book of Recipes for Babies, Toddlers & Children, 365 Quick, Easy and Healthy Dishes: From First Foods to Starting School (The Big Book Series)

I am really impressed by this book. It's well organised by age and then by type of food and the meal planners are good at providing a structure if you need it.I just can't be bothered with the gimics and millions of ingredients required by the sainted Annabel Karmal so this is like a breath of fresh air. None of the recipes involve terribly unusual or hard to obtain ingredients and are very clear about how long they will take to cook, how much they make and whether they can be frozen. I'd just started weaning when I bought it and was pleased to see not too many purees - I think most mums can come up with enough ideas for what to puree, it's the next lumpier stage that's a bit of a challenge and that is where this book has been great. Lots of nice ideas and 2 hours cooking produced a freezer full of yummy homemade food for a fraction of the price of buying jars and packets.The Spiral bound design is great - the book stays open when you are cooking but just don't sit it beside your baby - I'm missing a whole page of recipes that she pulled out while I was stirring my chicken stew!Of the three baby cookbooks I've bought, this is the only one I'd recommend and probably the last one I'll buy.Happy Weaning!

I have purchased many baby cook books in the search for inspiration preparing nutritious and interesting homemade meals. I like this one the most. It has lovely images and provides a great number of recipes aimed at babies, toddlers and pre-schoolers. I initially chose to buy it based on some of the other positive Amazon reviews which offered a background to the authors, namely that they were paediatric dietitians.My son is 13 months old and I have just started to give him "stronger" spices including some cumin, and chinese 5 spice. There are chickpea curry, french toast and spinach and lentil dahl recipes. All of which were delicious... I ate them too! Much, much better than Annabel "cheese" Karmel (it is nothing personal but my son has a dairy allergy and as such can't have cheese so it makes many of her recipes impossible). If you are looking to buy one book on food I'd highly recommend this one for the variety of recipes, balance of ingredients, ease of use, simplicity of preparation and great variety of recipes and the fact it covers such a broad age range makes it good value for money.Edit: I have made blueberry, apple and oat muffins and substituted the egg for organ no egg and thr milk with Kara coconut milk. Delicious and helps to feed a picky breakfast eater!

This book is practical and simple to use and is very good for varying food for babies and toddlers. The recipes are good at using many different ingredients and can easily be adapted for different age ranges and is a good family food book. The food advice is a good bonus to ensure you give your family a good varied diet to support them as they grow. It is also good for planning meals with the daily food planner and shows clearly meals that can be made for vegetarians and those with allergies due to the easy identifiable symbols.

Personally, I was a little skeptical at first.I brought this book being a little unsure on what to expect and thinking this might not be the book for me but I was wrong! This book has everything you need, brilliant recipes and meal plans, and information about what to always have in your cupboard (which links to the recipes). I cannot fault this book and am so glad I brought it.

This book seems like it has a lot of good recipes but it’s been let down by the fact that they haven’t cut down the top of the book enough so loads of the pages are still all connected at the top so I’m going to have to go through the whole book and try to separate them and hope I don’t rip any pages

I just LOVE this book and only wish I'd found it sooner as my son is already weaned and I think his food could have been more varied sooner if I'd only had this book a few months earlier. Dinners with my son weren't particularly a problem, but I was seriously lacking inspiration to keep his breakfasts and lunches simultanteously healthy and varied; but this book has fixed all that.The vast majority of the recipes are either easy or quick (and frequently both) and generally use ingredients that would be in my fridge or cupboard anyway. I've used the book 2-3 times a day for the last week - since I've had it - and it's been genuinely fun deciding what to make each day and a pleasure to see it going down well.So far, my 14-month old son, husband and I are loving every mouthful and it's so much easier in an evening to cook one meal that we can all enjoy together rather than trying to prepare two separate dinners.The pages are durable, wipe clean and the spiral binding makes it easy to keep the pages open while you prepare ingredients. Each recipe has symbols for allergy advice etc and states whether it can be frozen, kept in the fridge or should be served straight away.My only (very very tiny) criticism is that the cover doesn't allow for the book to be folded back on itself to save space on worktops in small kitchens like mine, but really - that's the only possible thing I can say against it and it's nothing really. Just brilliant!

The book has amazing recipes from first food up my grandson absolutely loves all the recipes I’ve prepared so far I would highly recommend this book

This is a nicely presented cook book with a lot of practical ideas. I bought it with a view to finding some ideas for a fairly fussy 2.5 yr old, and on that front it isn't actually very helpful as I know that she wouldn't even look at half the dishes (too many ingredients all mixed together - she prefers very simple things where she can pick and choose what she eats), and there aren't that many ideas there which I haven't already tried. In addition, some of the recipes require a lot of time and I am not inclined to spend 40mins making something which I know won't get eaten.That said, I thought that the section for 3-6 year olds is excellent, particularly for ideas for lunchboxes. I can see myself using it more as my daughter gets older and (hopefully) grows out of the fussiness stage!

I wanted to begin to prepare fresh food for my infant son instead of feeding him jarred baby food and I ordered this book. It is absolutely wonderful and he has loved each dish that I have prepared. It provides great nutritional advice and suggestions for foods that are important at each stage of an infant and toddler's development.