Home Come in if you made/make your baby food!

[Mandarine]

Hi everyone!

I thought I would post here instead of in the newborn thread since some of you with older kids/toddlers may have some tips!.

My boys are just over 4 months and I want to wait until they are 6 months to start them on solids. I do plan on making the baby food myself so I want to be prepared!

- Are there any books/sites that you recommend?

- What do I need to have (in terms of equipment)?. I have a regular blender, and a hand blender, pots and steam baskets. Do I need anything else?

- Where do you store the food?. I have read about ice cubes....is it like regular ice cube trays?. I like the idea, but think it would be better to have something that has a cover.

- How much do babies eat (I have no clue!!!)

- This may be a stupid question, but so were my previous ones so I''ll ask anyway ...but is there a kind of spoon/utensil that you guys recommend?

- I guess in the morning is more like oatmeal/fruit. Is this regular oatmeal and poached fruit??

Any other tips?

TIA!

 

[Hudson_Hawk]

I will be paying close attention to this thread! I would also like to know the general timeline for moving from BF/FF to baby food to solid food. Is there an established guideline?

 

[jewelz617]

I made it all myself. I stewed/steamed all her fruits and veggies and smooshed them into baby food. It sounds like you have all the tools of the trade (including ice cube trays, simply pop out a few cubes an hour before feeding and let thaw. Couldn't be easier!) Just cover them with saran wrap before freezing. You will go through about a tray every 2-3 days so it doesn't need to be fancy and you won't have to search for missing/mis-matched lids.

Some things I learned: buy organic whenever possible and when cooking things like yams, sweet potatoes and any other root vegetable, leave the skin on to cook and feed to baby. This is where the veggie stores all it's vitamins!

Buy fresh produce too. Canned and frozen fruits often lose nutrients in the preservation process and may have sugar or coloring added to them as well.

As far as how much babies eat, usually about a small fistful of food. But don't worry, they stop when they are full. Really, they do!

Gerber makes these fantastic baby spoons with a soft coated head that's perfect for sensitive teething gums. I believe they are called "Soft Bite Spoons" and you can get them at any grocery store or Target/Walmart type of place.

ETA: Start out with a pureed banana to get a feel for how your baby is doing with solids. Babies love them because they are sweet and you won't waste an afternoon cooking if they aren't responsive to what you've made.

 

[Mandarine]

HH, I know they recommend to wait until 6 months for solids, but some babies are ready sooner so they start sooner!

PinkAsscher, thank you!! I didn''t know that about the skins, but makes sense!. I''m actually part of an organic buying club...so I get all my produce directly from organic farms (local when possible!)...they have a special "share" (package) for baby food items, so I plan to add that to our regular weekly share!.

I have twins, so I guess I will go through a tray in 1-2 days?

Do they recommend starting with one particular veggie/color? My sister was in Spain when her boys were little, and the Drs there recommended to go by colors...not sure if it''s the same in the US?

 

[Hudson_Hawk]

But are solids considered SOLID like chunks or is puree considered solid?

 

[Mandarine]

purees is considered solid (I think)
I know Pandora does baby led weaning, in which she lets Daisy try whatever she's eating (with some exceptions I think), rather than doing purees

 

[sugarpie honeybun]

Date: 2/16/2010 9:21:41 AM
Author: Hudson_Hawk
But are solids considered SOLID like chunks or is puree considered solid?

Also, is plain rice cereal considered to be a solid? Probably a silly question...

I've also heard that it's better to start with veggies first (instead of fruit) since fruits are sweeter/tastier and it will make it more difficult to get LO's to eat veggies. Not sure if this is accurate though.

 

[Shoopy]

HH-Both. When they first start eating (assuming you start between 4 and 6 months) it''s puree/cereal. I know some moms that wait a little longer and start off on things other than puree since puree isn''t really that high in calories.

**

My MIL is starting to make Sophia some puree today. I think she''s offering brocolli or spinach today. I''ve only given her jar food (with the exception of sweet potato and bananas).

I remember the ladies recommending the beaba babycook food maker. For us, it''s not a necessity but for you I think investing in a food processor would be the way to go since you''ll be making double.

The ladies also recommended the beaba food trays but you can find similar on amazon, the container store, BBB, and BRU.

 

[jewelz617]

I always made trays for the week, for twins you would maybe make 3 fruits trays and 4 vegetable trays. After a couple weeks you will get a feel for their feeding habits and know exactly how much to make.

At 6 months, start with pureed food no chunks. Then around 8-9 months you can start making them chunkier. It's really amazing, we parents think we need to dictate what babies need to them, but it's totally the other way around.

They don't do everything on a time line. They will be your best indicator of what they want and don't want. It just takes a lot of trial and error and time, but it's worth it. Eventually making the baby food will become as second nature as driving your car.

I started out with bananas, then moved to apples, then sweet potatoes then everything else. Babies aren't picky about fruits/vegetables or at least no baby I ever knew was. They will eat pretty much anything. Toddlers are much more picky

 

[ellaila]

Wholesome Baby Food is a great place to start: http://wholesomebabyfood.com/

It''s super-easy to make your own baby food! I know TGal had some cool instrument for it (I don''t remember exactly what it was so hopefully she''ll chime in) - I just used good old pots and pans and blenders and ice cube trays (Ikea has some cute small ones that are perfect for baby food). You freeze the puree in the ice cube trays and then store them in freezer bags (labelled of course!).

As for which spoons to use and how much babies eat, that all depends on the kid(s). (FWIW, I think we used the Gerber rubber-tipped spoons.) It''ll all fall into place once you start. I remember having major anxiety about it before we switched to solids, but once you start it''s pretty straightforward - and it''s pretty fun and exciting when they try and like something new! We started with rice cereal at 4 months b/c Gabe had pretty bad reflux, and then fruits and veggies at 6 months.

A lot of people recommend starting with veggies before fruits so that the babies don''t get too used to just sweet fruits, but I personally don''t think that matters. Along those lines, I think a lot of people say to do orange veggies first (carrots, sweet potatoes) b/c they''re a bit sweeter than the greens so babies may like it a bit better. I think we just alternated between fruits and veggies - like first was bananas, then the next one was sweet potatoes, then pears, then peas (or something like that).

Just be sure to wait at least three days between each new food to see if there''s any allergic reaction!

 

[jewelz617]

Also to add, I never gave my baby rice cereal, but a little oatmeal is good with fruit when they are older.

 

[Shoopy]

Date: 2/16/2010 9:26:18 AM
Author: sugarpie honeybun

Date: 2/16/2010 9:21:41 AM
Author: Hudson_Hawk
But are solids considered SOLID like chunks or is puree considered solid?

Also, is plain rice cereal considered to be a solid? Probably a silly question...

I''ve also heard that it''s better to start with veggies first (instead of fruit) since fruits are sweeter/tastier and it will make it more difficult to get LO''s to eat veggies. Not sure if this is accurate though.

Yes, cereal can be considered a solid. It''s not necessary to start with it though. Sophia loves oatmeal mixed with fruit so that''s what she has for breakfast.

The fruit/veggie thing depends on how you feel about it. Sophia was breastfed up until two months ago. Breastmilk is really sweet, sweeter than most fruits and she still ate her veggies without a problem. She actually prefers some veggies over some fruits.

 

[Mandarine]

I guess my boys are on somewhat solids now since we switched to the formula with rice starch in it (Enfamil AR)...not sure if that''s the same as rice cereal but we started with that a couple of weeks ago due to reflux. They still have reflux and my Dr said I could do the formula w/rice starch or do regular formula with one scoop of rice cereal. I started with the Enfamil AR since I thought it would be easier than mixing two things together, but I have heard that works better.... so maybe once I run through the Enfamil AR cans I have I''ll try the plain formula+rice cereal...

 

[Jas12]

I made my own too and it was super easy!

I started my son off with non-cooked stuff like mashed avocado mixed with a little B-milk and then introduced brown rice cereal. Avocado is great b/c it is mild, full of good fat, not processed and easily digested.
banana is a good first food too, but some ppl think it encourages a preference for sweet stuff...

When i started to add more food into his diet i steamed in a pot with a steam basket (i didn''t boil or bake much since that reduces the nutrients --don''t boil especially b/c the vitamins leech out into the water)
I would devote an evening to it and steam, blend (just in a regular blender) then label and freeze it all at once in trays.
I kept a list of everything on the fridge and introduced each food in 3-day increments and checked them off once they were introduced. Once a few foods were known to be tolerated, i would mix these before freezing them (just for vareity)

In terms of amount per feeding, it really varies. They say to start with a tsp or so, but my son would eat many tablespoons full by 5 mos. He did, and still does, have a huge appetite, so those little ice cube tray didn''t cut it. I froze a lot of food in those silicone cupcake liners (so easy to pop out and thaw) loved those things and it was a meal-sized portion for my 6 month old.

I really recommend doing a big batch in one night. I did this about once a month and it made it manageable. As the months went by i added seasoning to the mix (like thyme or basil, or a little chicken broth) and i made sure i pureered it less as he got older so it was more bumpy and my son got used to thicker, varied texture. I think this is important b/c many kids have trouble transitioning to solids when all they have had is perfectly blended jar food each day.

It was a PITA to make my own stuff sometimes, but it''s only for a few months. Before i knew it, DS was eating what we ate.

Hope that helps. If you want some interesting recipes, i like THIS BOOK

 

[neatfreak]

I had a Beaba Babycook. Which does make things super easy but it's not necessary (my MIL bought it for me). But I did like it because I could steam and puree all in one shot.

Solids are considered ANYTHING but milk/formula. The WHO and most places recommend 6 months for solids these days and there are really no reasons to give them before except if Dr. recommends it for reflux or something like that. There's no evidence that solids mean STTN, so we generally followed this recommendation. I gave them a little rice cereal before 6 months but they weren't interested so we only did that very briefly.

As to how much to make, I just made a whole bunch on Sunday and it lasted us through the week. At the beginning my boys each ate maybe 1 cube of something at a meal and that increased exponentially over time.

We didn't use recipes and once I introduced a food on it's own to be sure they weren't allergic (or at least that they didn't have a reaction) I just went with it. There's really no research that supports the need to introduce certain foods at certain times for the most part (except for: honey, choking hazards, and potentially for nuts and shellfish but the jury is still very out on those IMO). So unless you have food allergies in your family I wouldn't stress too much on the order or things like that. Know at what stage it's generally ok to give a food (i.e., honey at a year only) and then just go to town. We have always spiced their food and they like it. Most other cultures in the world just let their kids eat what they do, there is none of this purees of everything introduced in specific orders with no spices. Kids eat what their parents eat they just eat it softer or mushed. So we followed that philosophy and it worked well.

Ice trays-we just froze in the trays for a few hours until solid and then transferred the cubes to a ziploc. Easier for storage and then it doesn't get any weird smells or anything.

We also did a lot of baby-led weaning. Once it was obvious that they weren't going to choke I just started giving them soft chunks of things to eat on their own. Less work for me and they really liked it. I think my kids were relatively advanced with food/eating but they were off of purees by like 9 months IIRC. Ever since then I have just given them what we are eating but in smaller chunks and they love it.

HTH!

 

[Puppmom]

This thread is so interesting. I would have thought that making your own baby food was SO expensive and time consuming but it sounds like it''s neither. This really excites me.

 

[Shoopy]

Date: 2/16/2010 11:11:29 AM
Author: puppmom
This thread is so interesting. I would have thought that making your own baby food was SO expensive and time consuming but it sounds like it''s neither. This really excites me.

I''ve noticed that it''s cheaper to make your own food.

Plus, as Neat mentioned above, some people offer whatever they are eating at the time. So if you are having meat and veggies, baby gets meat and veggies. MIL did this with her kids. Whatever she made for dinner, she''d puree/steam/chop up (whatever applicable) and offer as their dinner.

I''m really excited about her cooking up some food for DD. I haven''t been able to figure out how to schedule in making my own food during the week but I''m hanging out with her this weekend so that she can show me. I''m not picky on what she eats. My only rule is that she gets one new thing first to make sure she''s not allergic to it. I have to tell her to slow down too because she just wants to take a bunch of stuff and make one big soup for her lol

 

[sbde]

mandarine, you''ve got some wonderful advice/tips here.

i went both ways i.e. i made some baby food and bought it other times depending on whether i had the time, energy to make it myself or not.

one thing that i would definitely recommend early on is to strain the pureed food through a fine sieve just to get rid of any of the thicker skins on peas and other fruits/veggies. i did this for the first month or so of my son being on solids just because i knew that it was harder for him to digest the thicker skins. as the others have mentioned, once your twinkies get better at eating solids you can puree it to a less smooth consistency.

i started my son on solids earlier than 6 months as well. once he was 4.5 mos old he had doubled his birth weight and didn''t have a tongue thrust reflex anymore so my ped gave me the go ahead to start him on cereal. i knew my little one was ready just from his keen interest in whatever we were eating as well as his size so i had no qualms about starting him early on solids. BM was still his main food source, we just introduced solids to add some variety and additional nutrition

 

[sbde]

Date: 2/16/2010 10:34:43 AM
Author: Jas12
I made my own too and it was super easy!

I started my son off with non-cooked stuff like mashed avocado mixed with a little B-milk and then introduced brown rice cereal. Avocado is great b/c it is mild, full of good fat, not processed and easily digested.
banana is a good first food too, but some ppl think it encourages a preference for sweet stuff...

When i started to add more food into his diet i steamed in a pot with a steam basket (i didn''t boil or bake much since that reduces the nutrients --don''t boil especially b/c the vitamins leech out into the water)
I would devote an evening to it and steam, blend (just in a regular blender) then label and freeze it all at once in trays.
I kept a list of everything on the fridge and introduced each food in 3-day increments and checked them off once they were introduced. Once a few foods were known to be tolerated, i would mix these before freezing them (just for vareity)

In terms of amount per feeding, it really varies. They say to start with a tsp or so, but my son would eat many tablespoons full by 5 mos. He did, and still does, have a huge appetite, so those little ice cube tray didn''t cut it. I froze a lot of food in those silicone cupcake liners (so easy to pop out and thaw) loved those things and it was a meal-sized portion for my 6 month old.

I really recommend doing a big batch in one night. I did this about once a month and it made it manageable. As the months went by i added seasoning to the mix (like thyme or basil, or a little chicken broth) and i made sure i pureered it less as he got older so it was more bumpy and my son got used to thicker, varied texture. I think this is important b/c many kids have trouble transitioning to solids when all they have had is perfectly blended jar food each day.

It was a PITA to make my own stuff sometimes, but it''s only for a few months. Before i knew it, DS was eating what we ate.

Hope that helps. If you want some interesting recipes, i like THIS BOOK

what a great idea!

 

[rockpaperscissors67]

I''ve got a while until I have to think about solids but I''m going to throw in my past experience!

I used the book Super Baby Food when I decided to make my own baby food for my now 9 year old daughter; I also used it for my now 3 year old. Making baby food really isn''t hard at all and I don''t know that you actually *need* a book. I felt like I did because I was really clueless about what a baby should eat when.

Even though I found the book very useful, I also had some issues with it. The biggest was that the author is really against red meat. We eat limited red meat, so it''s not like we''re having it every night, but I felt like her attitude was a little extreme. The other thing that didn''t make much sense to me was that she pushes organic everything and that coupled with the red meat thing would have been fine if she didn''t also seem to expect that most babies were on formula. Overall, the book made things much easier for me.

I started with what the author refers to as porridge. It''s just cooked organic brown rice, but I felt much better about giving my kids this rather than the rice cereal in a box because I don''t think that has much nutritional value. To make the porridge, I got a bag of the rice and ground it up in the blender in batches. I then kept the ground rice in a sealed container in the fridge and cooked a batch every couple of days. To cook it, I just added the ground up rice to water, brought it to a boil and then turned the heat way down until the rice was cooked through and had the consistency of oatmeal. I had a bunch of small plastic containers with lids so I''d portion out the cereal into those and store them in the fridge. When it was time to feed some, I could pop the container in the microwave to warm the cereal, then I''d add breastmilk to thin the cereal and as the baby got a bit older, I''d throw in veggies or fruit. This stuff *really* went over well with the kids. The book also has tips for adding other grains, too, so you can either add them to the rice cereal or cook them independently.

Sweet potatoes are the easiest food to make for babies. I buy a couple of decent sized ones then throw them in the oven and bake until they''re cooked through. After they cool, I just scrape out the flesh and mash it with a fork. I would make a batch of sweet potatoes every week or so and put the mashed stuff into ice cube trays. When the cubes were frozen, I transferred them to a ziploc bag marked with the date and contents. For serving, I took out a cube or two and heated it up in the microwave.

Squash was another easy one -- I''d halve the squash, put it in a microwave safe dish, add some water, cover with saran wrap and microwave until it was soft. Then I''d mash it up and put it into the ice cube trays then ziploc bag.

Like Jas, I''m a huge fan of feeding avocado to babies. My kids tend to be slow weight gainers so they really need all the good fat they can get and avocados fit the bill nicely.

One thing that bugged me about making this food was that day care didn''t like when I sent it instead of jars. I ended up buying some of Will''s food for them to feed him and went with Earth''s Best, which he really liked too. The only thing I didn''t like was that the stores around here don''t have much of a selection.

 

[TravelingGal]

I made all Amelia''s food (with the Beaba Babycook...nifty little device but totally unnecessary, as I got it as a gift.)

My advice is never let me cook for your child...I followed all sorts of advice and the girl hated my "cooking." I think I scarred the child for life.

Have fun!

 

[Hudson_Hawk]

Date: 2/16/2010 12:25:26 PM
Author: rockpaperscissors67
I''ve got a while until I have to think about solids but I''m going to throw in my past experience!


I used the book Super Baby Food when I decided to make my own baby food for my now 9 year old daughter; I also used it for my now 3 year old. Making baby food really isn''t hard at all and I don''t know that you actually *need* a book. I felt like I did because I was really clueless about what a baby should eat when.


Even though I found the book very useful, I also had some issues with it. The biggest was that the author is really against red meat. We eat limited red meat, so it''s not like we''re having it every night, but I felt like her attitude was a little extreme. The other thing that didn''t make much sense to me was that she pushes organic everything and that coupled with the red meat thing would have been fine if she didn''t also seem to expect that most babies were on formula. Overall, the book made things much easier for me.


I started with what the author refers to as porridge. It''s just cooked organic brown rice, but I felt much better about giving my kids this rather than the rice cereal in a box because I don''t think that has much nutritional value. To make the porridge, I got a bag of the rice and ground it up in the blender in batches. I then kept the ground rice in a sealed container in the fridge and cooked a batch every couple of days. To cook it, I just added the ground up rice to water, brought it to a boil and then turned the heat way down until the rice was cooked through and had the consistency of oatmeal. I had a bunch of small plastic containers with lids so I''d portion out the cereal into those and store them in the fridge. When it was time to feed some, I could pop the container in the microwave to warm the cereal, then I''d add breastmilk to thin the cereal and as the baby got a bit older, I''d throw in veggies or fruit. This stuff *really* went over well with the kids. The book also has tips for adding other grains, too, so you can either add them to the rice cereal or cook them independently.


Sweet potatoes are the easiest food to make for babies. I buy a couple of decent sized ones then throw them in the oven and bake until they''re cooked through. After they cool, I just scrape out the flesh and mash it with a fork. I would make a batch of sweet potatoes every week or so and put the mashed stuff into ice cube trays. When the cubes were frozen, I transferred them to a ziploc bag marked with the date and contents. For serving, I took out a cube or two and heated it up in the microwave.


Squash was another easy one -- I''d halve the squash, put it in a microwave safe dish, add some water, cover with saran wrap and microwave until it was soft. Then I''d mash it up and put it into the ice cube trays then ziploc bag.


Like Jas, I''m a huge fan of feeding avocado to babies. My kids tend to be slow weight gainers so they really need all the good fat they can get and avocados fit the bill nicely.


One thing that bugged me about making this food was that day care didn''t like when I sent it instead of jars. I ended up buying some of Will''s food for them to feed him and went with Earth''s Best, which he really liked too. The only thing I didn''t like was that the stores around here don''t have much of a selection.

I''m just curious, did the day care give you a reason for why they wanted jarred food?

 

[movie zombie]

it has been many Many MANY years since i made baby food but i did. i also grew many of the veggies that got done up for my daughter. i loved the ice cube storage method. it made travel easy. i also was...and still am...of the opinion that one''s dietary "clock" re being overweight gets set at an early age and i was determined that my daughter would not have my weight problem...and she doesn''t. presonally, i think steaming veggies or just cooking them works better than microwaving them due to nutrient loss issues and my overall general concerns re microwaves: yes, i do own and use one but limited...i do not use it to cook food. my other issue would be to try and buy organic for your child''s homemade babyfood.

my experience was positive although i do remember that it could be alot of work if i didn''t keep up with it. i made for two weeks at a time. i also had home raised beef so it was free of industrial chemicals.

good luck! it really is worth it.

mz

 

[jewelz617]

Maybe it''s considered a liability? Too messy? That''s strange to me too. Don''t mothers often leave bottles of breast milk and such? I''m sure those aren''t vacuum sealed.

 

[ChinaCat]

Great thread. I am about to start solids and have been thinking about all of this.

Question: How often did you give solids at first? For example, O is still EBF (for now) but since I work he takes bottles during the day. So basically I nurse him first thing in the morning (like 6 am) and then he gets about 3 or 4 bottles during the day, approximately every 3 hours or so. Then I nurse him at his bedtime (like 7 pm). He gets rice cereal now around noon.

So do I just give him some solid food to play with like 1x a day? Or do I start making "meals" around regular mealtimes???? And do you separate these times from when he "eats" with the bottle?

TIA!!!

 

[Clio]

I made most of my 3 kids'' baby food. Mostly I just steamed veggies/fruit and mashed them or whizzed them in the blender. It''s pretty easy and not very time consuming (I work full time, so it had to be easy!)

I will say that I didn''t do it for long. My kids really took to solids, and pretty quickly they were just eating what we ate (within reason, of course).

 

[Hudson_Hawk]

Date: 2/16/2010 1:17:34 PM
Author: PinkAsscher678
Maybe it''s considered a liability? Too messy? That''s strange to me too. Don''t mothers often leave bottles of breast milk and such? I''m sure those aren''t vacuum sealed.

Right, I mean I could see how having to use dishes and remember to put them back in a kid''s bag could be annoying, but the actual act of feeding a kid from a dish is no different than a jar.

 

[rockpaperscissors67]

Date: 2/16/2010 1:55:31 PM
Author: Hudson_Hawk

Date: 2/16/2010 1:17:34 PM
Author: PinkAsscher678
Maybe it''s considered a liability? Too messy? That''s strange to me too. Don''t mothers often leave bottles of breast milk and such? I''m sure those aren''t vacuum sealed.

Right, I mean I could see how having to use dishes and remember to put them back in a kid''s bag could be annoying, but the actual act of feeding a kid from a dish is no different than a jar.

The heating up was an issue. They would feed baby food out of a jar at room temperature, so I guess the prep for homemade food was an extra step for them.

We also had issues because my son was the only one in the room getting bottles of breastmilk, so I had to do some educating on that front. The ladies were convinced that he needed more than the 3-4 oz. in a bottle. And then there was the time that the one woman gave Will his emergency bottle only 10 minutes before I arrived...with boobs ready to burst...

Fun times.