Annabel Karmel’s New Complete Baby & Toddler Meal Planner: No.1 Bestseller with new finger food guidance & recipes: 30th Anniversary Edition

Bought as a gift. I had this book over 30 years ago and was really helpful. I was able to make my children baby food from scratch which incidentally was really easy and freeze it into ice cube trays. Much better for young infants than the shop brought highly processed food.

We purchased this book to get some ideas of what to cook for our little girl, she's our first and weaning just seemed like such a daunting task! I am having so much fun with it using these recipes! They are great and are easily adapted so that me and my husband can have the same meal as our daughter! I have found that it is actually giving us a healthier, more balanced diet, while introducing our little one to a whole new world of tastes and textures... She is really enjoying it. The recipes are easy and simple to follow and the guidance throughout the book and weekly meal planners just give a great idea of how to balance your baby's diet. Although a lot of the recipes in the first stages are suggested to be made as purées, you can adapt them to whatever your baby is ready for, my baby is fine with lumps at almost 7 months, so we leave her food lumpy! It's completely up to you, but the flavours and ideas in this book are great and if you're worried at all about starting weaning, then this really is the book for you.

This is easy to follow and a great start for any weaning baby. Most of the recipes can be frozen, so you can make up decent sized batches of purees and serve as they are needed. I used it for both my children at the puree stage, and continue to make their favourites (salmon footballs, for example). As a GP I recommend this to any intelligent and motivated parent who is interested in trying to feed a baby the best food possible without letting it completely take over your life. For those who just reach for the next jar of shop-bought flavourless mush, this would be a waste of money, but it offers a great deal of well-thought-out advice, as well as meal planners and superb recipes, so I think it is one of the best books to buy for the early years of baby-rearing.

I purchased this book to help make different baby friendly meals which were freezable and healthy. I started using the book when my daughter was around 7 months old and I had returned to work. I did find that several recipes have a lot of steps and take quite a while to cook. This isn’t helpful when you’re trying to fit in cooking fresh meals whilst dealing with tears and tantrums, then trying to cool them down so that they’re suitable for hungry little mouths. However if you have the time and the freezer space this is a really useful collection of recipes to bulk buy ingredients and get meals cooked and ready in advance. The finger food ideas are handy to make fresh when baby is old enough they are just the right amount and the flavours complement each other. There are meal planners in each section which provide really useful ideas, and help the unorganised amongst us write shopping lists and plan meals. Once you have sussed the common ingredients you’ll find you often buy them in advance before you run out and can combined the ingredients or leftovers into meals for the rest of the family.

As a new mum I found the weening process extremely daunting, and actually was dreading my son turning 6 mths and leaving the comfort of just giving him milk!!! Before this book I NEVER cooked my husband always made my tea! Not anymore I'm a changed woman. 😊 Fear not fellow mummies this book is amazing! Easy, simple (after severe baby brain!) quick, concise, has pictures and has easy meal planners. It has first tastes section with practical excellent advice on nutrition and growth and development. The receipes are lovely and taste goregous. My son hasn't turned anything I've made down! He's eating like a prince, with half the cost and no crap that jars contain and for that I give this book and Annabelle karmel 5 stars. It is also a toddler book and is in stages from first tastes, first stage and second stage weening, then a section for 9-12mth then toddlers. Fantastic book if your a mummy or new parent you must buy this ! X

Bought this when my children were small. Now buying for my grandchild. Still relevant and helpful advice.

There is a lot to like about this book. It's clear, colourful, nicely laid out and full of interesting recipes and good information. But there are a few things that (so far) are slightly annoying. 1) every recipe I've tried, for purees from the stage 1 section, has come out far too watery. The pictures show that the purees are meant to be more solid but following the quantities faithfully results in a overly runny consistency. 2) the portion guidance makes no real sense. In particular, it seems to bear no relation to the Annabel Karmel range of trays for freezing. I would expect that her own range would tally with the portion guidance in these recipes but it doesn't appear to. 3) there is the odd inconsistency in terms of information. For example, page 23 says not to feed children peanut butter until they're five years old whereas page 15 says "peanut butter and finely ground nuts can be introduced from six months".

I like the book, it has very useful recipes. many are simple and I already knew them but then the author provides new ways of mixing different vegs or serving them. For example making vegetable puree but with milk to make it more creamy. I have only used the baby section so far so cannot comment in detail on the toddler recipes but they look good and easy as well. Anyway I read several books on weaning and the good ones are very similar. It is important that it contains recipes, some advice on storage and food divided into sections for different levels of weaning. Gina Ford's book additionally ha some "case studies" which I found useful but this book does not have them. The only thing I would complain about is the pictures in the book. they are really too colourful and too perfect (a baby eating carrot pure with a carrot in his hand but with a perfectly clean white bib, and all the clothes, equipment in matching colours). Yet, since it has nothing to do with the recipes or advice the book still gets all stars.