Any advice on making baby food?
My 14 month old eats anywhere from 5-10 bottles of "3rd foods" per day. They aren't real expensive but it has become a PITA to go to the store so often (I generally buy most of the store's supply when I go).
I would like to start making food myself. My son likes mostly fruit and meat. He doesn't really like vegetables unless they are mixed with something else. I have several food processors but the food I have made so far hasn't gone over too well. Should it be cooked or raw (I think raw apples were the culprit in the last batch that he wouldn't eat)? Any specific recopies to share?
by
benyust2
asked 7 months ago
Honestly, once your kid has enough teeth, they can start eating small portions of regular food (cut or broken up well).
However, if you would like to keep feeding him baby food, then a lot of good tips can be found here
All of my kids were off of baby food (for the most part) by the time they were 10 months old, so I never had to resort to making my own for efficiency's sake.
Good luck!
A decent blender is plenty. You no longer have an infant. Just give him regular food, using mostly your common sense to determine when something is inappropriate. I have very cute pictures of my daughter with a fistful of string beans, when she was around that age, and another of lamb ribs, with barbecue sauce everywhere.
Raw vegetables are fine, if there are teeth to chew them (and at 14 months there should be plenty of teeth). I only bought strained meats even when she was an infant, using a blender for everything else. You have a toddler. Quit buying baby food.
Please note that you can often supply about the same nutrients by just matching colors of things. Consider the vitamin and nutrient content, not whether or not it's a fruit or vegetable.
I used to make carrot cake, and zucchini bread, and gingerbread (the old fashioned kind, from honest blackstrap molasses).
Time to move to real food.
Thanks for the advice. I guess I'm hesitant to try regular food because pretty much all the food we have on hand is not healthy (which is a separate issue). I guess now is as good of a time as any to switch my own eating habits too.
@benyust2: "I guess now is as good of a time as any to switch my own eating habits too."
There's over 1/2 your battle won right there. Remember the 'children learn by example' and you're always good.
But 2 more bits: Ck the book "Baby Let's Eat"(cheap on eBay or your local library- you really don't need to own it) and I always run everything past the pediatrician, only in case any allergy problems arise, they're fully aware and all are on the same page.
When my kids were moving to soft foods they usually ate what we were having for dinner. It is really easy to mash up most steamed veggies for young children. In my opinion the easiest ones to deal with are: broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, green beans, potatoes, and yams. Greens like spinach or swiss chard are also very easy. I recommend cooking the veggies fresh. They taste far better than anything you can buy canned or frozen and even young kids can tell the difference!
If you want to do fruit, it would probably be easiest to avoid hard fruits like apples. You can pick softer ripe fruits like peaches, nectarines, melon, or pears that you can cut into small pieces. It is good for their small motor skills to work on picking up small objects anyway!
My 4 kids did not eat jarred food after 8 months of age, which was lucky for me as they too could run through multiple jars a day. Once they could get the food in their mouth, they were much happier to feed themselves. Messy, but better than struggling to get the spoon into their mouth!
They would eat whatever was being prepared for dinner. I just made sure that the items were sized so they were easy to pick up, yet not big enough to choke on. I always provided them with a spoon but did not fuss if they used their fingers.
Another thing that I learned to ease the frustration of meal time was to feed them foods that they liked, as opposed to "traditional" foods. One child did not like breakfast food at all, so he ate items that would normally be classified as lunch or dinner foods, for breakfast.
Teeth did not even factor into this decision, as two of my kids did not even get their first tooth until they were 14 months.
Good Luck!
I'm not sure I would recommend it. Granted, we considered it and then didn't do it for our son, but still it's hard to contend with what's out there. Even organic baby food isn't that expensive.
And really, the worst of the baby food is (by far) the meats. They all have the same color and zero flavor. But do you really want to try to make your own baby meats? By the time you are at that point you aren't far away from them having teeth and being able to eat real food.
My guess would be that you should probably use as fresh of a baby as possible.
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