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Making my own baby food

Image courtesy of Pixomar / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of Pixomar / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

5 years ago, when I had Little Miss I, I never even thought about making my own baby food. She was raised on Gerber organic and Earth’s best, and then, at around 1 year, I started cooking her meals with a book recommended by my cousin-in-law, Baby and Toddler cookbook. Once I began cooking for her, her palate opened up quite a bit — and the recipes there were actually pretty good for the entire family. It made me wish I had gotten the book earlier and started her in homemade meals from the get go.

Flash forward 5 years, tiny Mr. A arrived. This time I was ready! In my gift registry I included a baby food processor (which my mom-in-law got for us), and a friend gave me another book for baby food ideas, Top 100 baby purees. Along with some ice cube trays and some freezer storage containers, I was all set for the new adventure of feeding my baby solids.

Making my own baby food with Cuisinart baby
The food processor we got, which I actually love. It’s a bottle warmer too!

Then the weaning time came… and tiny Mr. A was NOT interested in solids at all.

However, after much research and patience, he’s finally come to terms with eating different textures and flavors after two weeks into franc “solid food introduction” mission. Some of the tricks that have worked for me are to give him a spoon to play with, and never force him to eat more than he wants. We started with probably a couple of spoon fulls (rubber tipped, as suggested by pediatricians to protect his gums), now he’s finding flavors and textures he likes and eating probably 1 oz. worth of food. I’m hoping this will improve with time, as he is starting to wake up in the middle of the night to nurse again after 3 months of sleeping 10-11 hrs non-stop!

The first thing he responded positively to was rice cereal mixed with breast milk. After two weeks of trying, he started smacking his lips to warm apple puree. The first food he actually liked was mashed fresh avocado. In these two weeks of scientific observation, I’ve noticed he reacts more to the temperature of the puree than to the flavor — which was a good thing to discover. He likes his food warm. If it is a little cold, he makes funny faces and even shudders.

So, here’s the list of things we’ve tried in order of introduction to his diet:

Bananas (fresh, mashed with a fork and the back of the baby spoon)
Earth’s best organic rice cereal, mixed with breast milk
Apples (steamed, pureed)
Pears (steamed, pureed)
Sweet potatoes (baked, mashed with a fork– he didn’t like them)
Carrots (steamed, pureed with a tiny bit of unsalted butter)
Butternut squash (steamed, pureed)
Avocado (fresh, mashed with a fork and the back of the baby spoon)
Sweet potatoes (steamed, pureed with a little bit of liquid — this time he liked them)

I’ve also discovered that making the baby food is not hard at all. I like our food processor a ton, and it’s the easiest thing to use and clean. It was a really wonderful gift (thank you, Granny J)!

Anyhow, next things I want to try are papaya, parsnips and eggs. There’s a ton of conflicting information about eggs and how soon to introduce them to infants, but the latest I’ve read is that there were studies done 5 years ago that concluded that if there are no egg allergies in the family, delaying the introduction of egg in the baby’s diet makes no sense. Here’s an article I found on that subject: When can babies eat eggs?

I’ll report back on the quest for baby flavor…

About Erika

Worked in film and TV for several years before having my two wonderful children. Now I try to bring that creative input into my home to raise my kids. Hope you enjoy following this journey!
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