Cow & Gate Fruity Wholegrain Porridge 6+ Months 125gm, UK

Product Overview

Cow & Gate Fruity Wholegrain Porridge is a 125gm UK weaning porridge for babies from six months. It uses a wholegrain cereal base with fruit blended through it, and mixes with milk or cooled boiled water without cooking.

The small pack is the right size for a baby still eating a few spoons at a time, and the wholegrain base means more fibre than a refined first cereal.

Before You Start Solids

Breast milk is the best food for a baby, and for the first six months it is the only food a baby needs. WHO and Bangladesh’s national infant-feeding guidance both recommend exclusive breastfeeding for six months, then breastfeeding alongside solid food up to two years and beyond.

Complementary food is an addition to milk at around six months, not a replacement for it. Starting solids does not mean stopping breastfeeding.

If your baby is under six months, or was born early, or is not gaining weight as expected, talk to a doctor or a health worker before starting any solid food. They can look at your baby; a packet cannot.

This Is Not a Milk Replacement

An infant cereal is a complementary food. It is fed in addition to breast milk or formula, in small amounts, once or twice a day to begin with. Milk stays the main source of nutrition for the whole of the first year.

Filling a baby up on cereal so they take less milk is a common and serious mistake. If your baby is drinking noticeably less milk after starting solids, cut the solids back and speak to a health worker.

Key Features

• 125gm pack, imported from the UK
• For babies from 6 months
• Wholegrain cereal base with fruit
• Sweetness from fruit rather than added sugar
• Small pack for early weaning
• Mixes without cooking

How to Prepare It Safely

1. Wash your hands. Wash the bowl and spoon in clean water and let them dry, or sterilise them for a young baby.
2. Boil drinking water and let it cool to about lukewarm before mixing. Water straight off the boil destroys some of the added vitamins and, more importantly, scalds.
3. Measure the powder and the water as the pack instructs. More powder does not make it more nourishing; it makes it too thick for a small baby to swallow comfortably.
4. Stir until smooth, with no dry lumps.
5. Test the temperature on the inside of your wrist before it goes anywhere near your baby. It should feel barely warm, not hot.
6. Feed with a spoon. Feed it fresh — within about two hours of mixing.
7. Throw away whatever is left in the bowl. Saliva from the spoon gets into the food, and reheating it does not make it safe again.

Introducing a New Food

• Start with one or two teaspoons once a day and build up over a week or two.
• Introduce one new food at a time and wait about three days before adding another. If something disagrees with your baby you then know what it was.
• A baby refusing a new food the first few times is normal, not a verdict. It often takes several tries.
• Watch for a rash, swelling around the mouth, vomiting, diarrhoea or wheezing. Stop the food and get medical help if any of these appear, urgently if there is any difficulty breathing.
• Never leave a baby alone while eating, and always feed sitting upright.

An Honest Word on Sugar

Fruit-flavoured and “yogurt” infant cereals usually taste sweeter than plain ones, and some carry added sugar as well as the sugar that comes with the fruit or milk. Babies do not need added sugar, and a strong preference for sweet food is learned early.

Plain rice, wheat or oat varieties are the better everyday choice. Keep the sweeter ones for variety rather than for every meal, and read the ingredient list on the pack — it tells you more than the picture on the front does.

About Imported Packs

This is an imported product. The pack is printed for the market it was made for, so the instructions, the ingredient list and the age guidance may be in another language and may use different measures.

Check the expiry date on the pack when it arrives and follow the pack’s own preparation instructions rather than anything written here — the pack is the authority on its own contents. If anything on it is unclear, message us before you use it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should a first cereal be wholegrain or plain?

Either works. A plain single-grain cereal is the simplest possible start; a fruity wholegrain porridge is a reasonable early food once one or two single foods have been tried. What matters more is introducing one new thing at a time.

Which fruits are in it?

Read the ingredient list on the pack — it names them, and it is the version that counts. If any of those fruits are new to your baby, offer them separately first.

My baby is younger than the age on the pack. Can I still start?

Please don’t, and please ask a doctor first. The age on the pack is about how ready a baby’s gut and swallowing are, not about size or appetite. Solids before six months are recommended only where a health worker has advised it for that particular baby.

What should I mix it with?

Cooled boiled water, or expressed breast milk or made-up formula if the pack allows it. Mix it to the consistency the pack describes and never make it thicker to “fill the baby up”.

How should I store it after opening?

Tightly closed, somewhere cool and dry, and used within the two to four weeks the pack states. Always use a dry spoon. Do not put the dry powder in the fridge.