All three of my children have been breastfed exclusively up until around 5 months. At this point I started offering rice Cubes of Pureed Food cereal, which was mostly breast-milk with a little rice cereal mixed in for texture. None of them were crazy about it and I only fed them a little here and there when I was in the mood. Rice cereal has very little nutritional value and I didn't want to fill them up on empty calories so I found that I rarely felt like it was worth cleaning up the inevitable mess created when they spit out it anyway. Once Lauren, our first who is now seven, was old enough to start trying fruits and vegetables, I decided that I wanted to try my hand at making my own baby food. While perusing a popular parenting magazine, I came across an article about preparing and freezing individual portions of homemade baby food in an ice cube tray and it looked easy. I bought fresh organic produce--apples, broccoli, spinach, pears, bananas or sweet potato and cooked and pureed them in my blender. Then I spooned the food into an ice cube tray, wrapped them in a plastic freezer bag to prevent freezer burn and then froze them. I loved that I could take the cubes of food out to thaw individually as I needed them. I also loved feeding our children fresh organic food and that I knew exactly what was in it. Sure there was some work involved in the preparation but it was well worth the effort. I'm glad I did it and I recommend trying it if you have a baby who is ready to start eating solids. It's so easy, it saves money and best of all, you don't have any glass jars to recycle or tote around. You can easily thaw and bring the food in a plastic baby bowl with a lid. At seven, four and almost two, my child have a wide variety of preferences for food. Lauren will eat broccoli but won't eat a blueberry to save her life. She also likes things like spinach salad with goat cheese drizzled with vinaigrette. Kate loves fruit and veggies but won't eat pasta. Cooper on the other hand, loves both fruit and pasta but won't touch meat or vegetables. It's tough to find one meal that will fill everyone's belly. I often find myself longing for the days when breastmilk and pureed baby food were all they needed. Do you make your own baby food and if so, how do you do it? Do you use your regular blender or one made especially for babyfood? Please share any recipes that your baby loves because if you are like me, you might sometimes get stuck in a "babyfood rut" and end up feeling like you are feeding your child the same favorites over and over. Happy Feeding!
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I mad my own baby food in my food processor. I was surprised how easy and affordable it was to give my babies homemade, delicious food!
We make our own baby food and it’s always so great for the kids because they never get sick of it. Our recipes are always changing and evolving to pretty much whatever we have in stock. We use a food processor and love to mix up bananas and rolled oats for when they are older. Or we make soup for dinner and i’ll add some to a blender and mix it up with a thickening agent (oats, whole wheat noodles, etc) I love that there are so many different options and my number one ‘keep stress free’ rule is to let them eat what we are eating that night. Pretty much anything can be blended up into a smooth texture (gag!) :) ha.
I made babyfood for both my kids and plan to continue when I have my third (due in July). I tried feeding my daughter store-bought babyfood, and I tasted it first and thought, “Why would she even eat this? It’s disgusting, plus it doesn’t taste anything like the real thing.” I found if I planned about an hour a week to cook it, puree it (we used a food processor) and then freeze it (we also did the ice cube trays, but once it was frozen I’d pop the cubes out and stick them in a freezer bag) then we were set to go. I’d also make sure I kept things like banana, avocado, and homemade applesauce and pearsauce on hand so that if I needed a quick meal and didn’t have time to thaw something, it was all ready to go. I would highly recommend making your own babyfood. It was worth it for me.
I had planned on skipping baby food. We ended up doing a little homemade babyfood, but mostly just started a bit later and gave soft enough bits he could eat.
I was just talking about this today on my blog. So many choices in how to feed your baby now days and so many strong opinions. I make and freeze as cubes like you do, but I just skipped rice cereal altogether. Our firsts were avocado, then egg yolk, then bananas. We’re working from there…..
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