Baby Led Weaning Meal Prep Recipes: Blueberry Oatmeal Pancakes

Before I started meal prepping for my baby, I thought the idea was kind of silly. After all, I thought the point of BLW (baby led weaning) was to have your infant eat whatever the adults are eating. While the thought was good, it wasn’t too realistic.

My son does eat whatever the adults are eating, but usually it’s not enough for him. I’m the type that usually forgets to eat until 4pm or so. As my nine month old has increasingly become hungrier, I soon noticed I was slacking on the 2-3 meals a day for him.

And if you have experienced cooking three meals a day for your baby or toddler and then cleaning up after them while also doing all the dishes, it starts to consume your whole day.

About the Recipe

This recipe makes a sheet pan pancake, as it is baked in the oven. It’s not exactly a pancake, it could also be considered a oatmeal bar or breakfast bar. It’s a great alternative to a bowl of oatmeal because it’s a lot less messy! I like to start out the day with less messy meals and work my way up to disaster as the day nears bath time.

I used what I had in this recipe. There are a few substitutions you can make, though.

Cream Cheese – You can also use cottage cheese in place of cream cheese, depending on what you prefer or have on hand.

Oatmeal – You can use any oatmeal you have. I just happened to have instant oatmeal sitting in my pantry. Once you blend it, it will all act as a sort of oat flour. However, I have not tried steel cut oats.

Baby led weaning meal plan

After seeing my baby’s appetite increase I decided I needed to have food on hand and ready to go whenever he clearly needed some solids to eat.

I now try to have a couple breakfast options in the freezer ready to go and a couple meal options ready to go. I usually end up cooking dinner for the family, and the baby will eat that meal with us. There is the rare occasion where we will get takeout and eat something fairly unhealthy. Instead of cooking a separate meal for baby, I have a meal all ready to go!

When it comes to a BLW meal plan I don’t necessarily have a plan. But I try to have these pars in place. If we get half way through one particular meal, I will prep another one and pop it in the freezer. This gives us a good rotation and we have choices so it’s not the same meal every day.

I look to have a variation of these foods:

Breakfast

• Egg Bake Or Egg Muffins
• Pancakes

Lunch or Dinner

• Pasta with sauce
• Turkey Patties
• Meatballs
• Veggies Tots

Is this baby led weaning recipe freezable?

Yes! This is a great freezable baby led weaning recipe. It doesn’t change texture or lose shape when frozen and thawed. I like to leave them in the fridge to thaw before reheating. But I’ve also had good results putting them straight in the microwave from the freezer.

I like to wrap each individual meal in parchment paper and then put them into a freezer bag for easy access.

To reheat, they only need 30 seconds in the microwave. Alternatively, if you’ve thawed them in the fridge, you don’t really need to reheat them.

The only hindrance I can think of would be the fruit that you are using not freezing well. I’m unsure how banana chunks would freeze. You could also blend the banana in with the rest of the ingredients and I think it freeze just fine!

Can I use frozen fruit in pancakes?

Yes! Blueberries will work just fine from frozen. Depending on the size of fruit you would like to use, they will thaw and cook just fine. Obviously, fruit will need to be chopped into bite size pieces for this recipe. So if it’s something like whole strawberries, for instance, you may want to thaw and chop them first.

Use this recipe to introduce peanut butter to baby

If you’re looking for a way to introduce peanut butter, this would be a great way. I would cut the recipe by one third as to start out with a small amount and work your way up. If you’re putting a small amount in a recipe like this, you are able to start will a super small amount and feed more after you’re in the clear.